cal teaching of woman's subordination to man was not
alone a doctrine of the dark ages, is proven by the most abundant
testimony of to-day. The famous See trial of 1876, which shook not
only the Presbytery of Newark, but the whole Synod of New Jersey, and
finally, the General Presbyterian Assembly of the United States, was
based upon the doctrine of the divinely appointed subordination of
woman to man, and arose simply because Dr. See admitted two
ladies[212] to his pulpit to speak upon temperance; which act, Rev.
Dr. Craven, the prosecutor, declared to have been "an indecency in the
sight of Jehovah." He expressed the general clerical and Church view,
when he said:

I believe the subject involves the honor of my God. I believe the
subject involves the headship and crown of Jesus. Woman was made
for man and became first in the transgression. My argument is
that subordination is natural, the subordination of sex. Dr. See
has admitted marital subordination, but this is not enough; there
exists a created subordination; a divinely arranged and appointed
subordination of woman as woman, to man as man. Woman was made
for man and became first in the transgression. The proper
condition of the adult female is marriage; the general rule for
ladies is marriage. Women without children, it might be said,
could preach, but they are under the general rule of
subordination. It is not allowed women to speak in the Church.
Man's place is on the platform. It is positively base for a woman
to speak in the pulpit; it is base in the sight of Jehovah. The
whole question is one of subordination.

Thus, before a large audience composed mainly of women, Dr. Craven
stood, and with denunciatory manner, frequently bringing his fists or
his Bible emphatically down, devoted a four hours' speech to proving
that the Bible taught woman's subordination; one of his statements
being that "in every country, under every clime, from the peasant
woman of Naples with a handkerchief over her hair, to the women before
him with bonnets, every one wore something upon her head in token of
her subordination." Dr. Craven's position was fully sustained by many
brother clergymen, some of whom enthusiastically shouted "Amen!"

Dr. Ballantine considered the subject too simple for an argument. Dr.
Few Smith, although he admired Miss Smiley, more than almost any other
orator he had ever listened t