hts, involving in their last results equality everywhere,
roused all the antagonism of a dominant power, against the
self-assertion of a class hitherto subservient. Men saw that with
political equality for woman, they could no longer keep her in social
subordination, and "the majority of the male sex," says John Stuart
Mill, "can not yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal." The
fear of a social revolution thus complicated the discussion. The
Church, too, took alarm, knowing that with the freedom and education
acquired in becoming a component part of the Government, woman would
not only outgrow the power of the priesthood, and religious
superstitions, but would also invade the pulpit, interpret the Bible
anew from her own stand-point, and claim an equal voice in all
ecclesiastical councils. With fierce warnings and denunciations from
the pulpit, and false interpretations of Scripture, women have been
intimidated and misled, and their religious feelings have been played
upon for their more complete subjugation. While the general principles
of the Bible are in favor of the most enlarged freedom and equality of
the race, isolated texts have been used to block the wheels of
progress in all periods; thus bigots have defended capital punishment,
intemperance, slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of woman. The
creeds of all nations make obedience to man the corner-stone of her
religious character. Fortunately, however, more liberal minds are now
giving us higher and purer expositions of the Scriptures.

As the social and religious objections appeared against the demand for
political rights, the discussion became many-sided, contradictory, and
as varied as the idiosyncrasies of individual character. Some said,
"Man is woman's natural protector, and she can safely trust him to
make laws for her." She might with fairness reply, as he uniformly
robbed her of all property rights to 1848, he can not safely be
trusted with her personal rights in 1880, though the fact that he did
make some restitution at last, might modify her distrust in the
future. However, the calendars of our courts still show that fathers
deal unjustly with daughters, husbands with wives, brothers with
sisters, and sons with their own mothers. Though woman needs the
protection of one man against his whole sex, in pioneer life, in
threading her way through a lonely forest, on the highway, or in the
streets of the metropolis on a dark night, she sometimes ne