coming day. The subtile bondage and servility of
woman, a vestige of the barbarous past, still taints our civilization.
Far more is demanded by society of her than of man, and when
heretofore she has raised her voice against this inequity she has been
silenced by unworthy imputations. It is the shame of our age that
woman is not accorded a higher meed of justice. She has a right to
demand that the man who marries her be every whit as pure and moral as
herself, and until she makes this demand, and holds herself from the
contamination of moral lepers, no substantial progress for higher
morals and purer life will be made. Unless woman checks the increasing
degradation of manhood, man will sooner or later drag her to his
deplorable level. "Margaret Fleming" shows this truth and points to
the woman of to-day her stern and inexorable duty.
Unless woman assumes an aggressive stand and ostracizes the libertine,
refusing his society, his attention, and most of all the proffer of
his leprous love, the moral outlook for society will soon be as gloomy
as was Rome's future when Epictetus was banished from her streets
because he mercilessly assailed the moral degradation of his day.
THE PRESENT REVOLUTION IN THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT.
The rapid spread of heresy throughout the churches is creating genuine
dismay in many quarters. When such ripe scholars and representative
thinkers as Rev. Heber Newton, Dr. C. A. Briggs, and Rev. Dr.
Bridgman, representing three of the most powerful Protestant
communions, freely preach doctrines at variance with conventional
orthodox views, and express a grander hope and broader faith than that
cherished by conservative theologians, it is by no means strange that
the current of old-time thought should be stirred. If, however, these
scholarly minds stood alone in their convictions, there would be no
warrant for such widespread apprehension as is manifest. The serious
character of the present theological revolution, however, lies in the
fact that the pulpit and the people are honey-combed with the peculiar
heresy which rejects the verbal inspiration of the Bible and the dogma
of eternal damnation.[9] The general uneasiness occasioned by the
present epidemic of heresy, and the bitter strictures which it has
called forth, are perfectly natural, while it is equally true that the
present liberal attitude of so many of the foremost thinkers in the
various orthodox churches is the legitimate outcome of numero
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