England, within the last few years, there is an
explicit recognition of these principles.

Mr. Evarts cited an English case in which a wife, who
participated in a robbery under the guidance of her husband, was
acquitted on the ground that she was irresponsible; and he added
an argument that the principle of law involved was correct. Then
he called attention to a recent case in this State, which he held
was a confirmation of the same sound theory.

The teachings of the Church that it was sinful for woman to use her
own reason, to think for herself, to question authority, thus
fettering her will, together with a false interpretation of Scripture,
have been the instruments to hold her, body and soul, in a slavery
whose depths of degradation can never be fathomed, whose indescribable
tortures can never be understood by man.

Not only has woman suffered in the Church, in society, under the laws,
and in the family by this theological degradation of her sex, but in
science and literature she has met a like fate. Hypatia, who succeeded
her father, Theon, in the government of the Alexandrian school, and
whose lectures were attended by the wisest men of Europe, Asia, and
Africa, was torn in pieces by a Christian mob afraid of her learning.

A monument erected to Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay, as "Patroness of
Liberty," was removed from the Church by order of its rector. Harriet
Martineau met the most strenuous opposition from bishops in her effort
to teach the poor; her day-schools and even her Sunday-schools were
broken up by clerical influence. Madam Pepe-Carpentier, founder of the
French system of primary instruction, of whom Froebel caught his
kindergarten idea, found her labors interrupted, and her life harassed
by clerical opposition.

Mary Somerville, the most eminent English mathematician of this
century, was publicly denounced in church by Dean Cockburn, of York;
and when George Eliot died a few weeks since, her lifeless remains
were refused interment in Westminster Abbey, where so many inferior
authors of the privileged sex lie buried; the grave even not covering
man's efforts toward the degradation of woman.

When Susannah Wesley dared to conduct religious services in her own
house, and to pray for the king, contrary to her husband's wishes, he
separated from her in consequence. The husband of Annie Besant left
her because she dared to investigate the Scriptures for herself, and