been increased, could he have looked
with prophetic eye into the distant ages of the future, and
beheld the enlightened and Christianized nations of the
nineteenth century adopting the remains of Grecian
architecture, sculpture, painting, oratory, music, and
literature as their models!

"Pagan Rome, too, once mistress of the world and arbitress
of nations--the home of philosophers and sages--the land in
which the title, 'I am a Roman citizen,' was the proudest
that a mortal could wear--Rome, by the above Christian
argument, should have ascribed all her honor, praise, and
glory to her mythology.

"The Turk and the Saracen, likewise, have had their day of
power and renown. Bagdad was the seat of science and
learning at a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in
darkness and superstition. The Turk and Saracen should have
pointed to the Koran as the source of their refinement.

"Thus we see that the Christian argument we are noticing, if
it proves anything, proves too much. If the nations of
Christendom are indebted to the Bible for their
enlightenment, likewise were the Egyptians indebted to their
cat and crocodile and onion worship, the Greeks and Romans
to their mythology, and the Turks and Saracens to their
Koran."

It is a significant fact that of all the Christian countries, in those
where the Church stands highest and has most power women rank lowest
and have fewest rights accorded them, whether of personal liberty
or proprietary interest. In the countries named above, and in other
countries where the Church still has a strong grip upon the throat
of the State, woman's position is degraded indeed; while in the three
so-called Christian countries where the Church has _least_ power, where
law is not wholly or in so large part canonical, woman's position is
more free, more independent, and less degraded, when compared with the
position of the men of those countries.

That tells the whole story. If it were to the Church or to her religion
that she owed her advancement, it would be in the most strictly
Christian countries that her elevation and advantages would be greatest.
Under the canon law her status would be higher than under the common
law. On the contrary, however, it is under the least religious, freest,
and most purely secular forms of government that she has attained most
full recognitio