she still persisted it could then punish her
doubly, _because she had no right to learn_.

For offenses for which ordinary men were hanged, women were burned
alive, and priests were glorified. For larceny a man was branded in the
hand or imprisoned for a few months; while _for a first offence_ of
the kind a woman was kindly permitted to be hanged or beheaded _without
benefit of clergy_; and the clergy went scot free.* The Church did then
as it does now, it claimed all the benefits of citizenship and paid none
of the penalties and bore none of the burdens.**

* Blackstone. Christian.

** It still claims exemption from taxation, thus throwing
its burden on others; and it also claims immunity from the
very gambling laws which it so rigidly enforces against
other institutions.

The Church did then just as it does now, in principle, in setting up
certain great benefits which _only priests might hope to obtain, and
then enacting that certain persons were forever ineligible to the
priesthood_; and the same or quite as good reasons were given for
denying women such relief from the penalties of the law as was freely
extended to men, as are given to-day for refusing her the liberty,
emoluments, and benefits that are freely accorded to the most imbecile
little theological student who is educated by the needle of a sister
and supported by money wrung from the fears of shop or factory girls,
to whom he paints the terrors of hell, and freely threatens the same to
those who disobey him. Salvation comes high, but no preacher ever gets
so poor that he cannot distribute hell free of charge to the multitude
without the least diminution of his stock-in-trade.

I should think that an orthodox pulpit would be about the last place a
self-respecting woman would wish to fill; but I am glad, since there
are some who do so wish, that the issue has again been forced upon the
Church, and that in 1884, true to her history, she was again compelled
to acknowledge herself a respecter of persons, a degrader of women, and
a clog to progress and individual liberty, equality, and conscience.

I am glad that women have recently forced the Methodist and Presbyterian
Churches to declare their principles of class preference and partial
legislation. I am glad that in 1884 these Churches were compelled to say
in effect to women, so that the world could hear: "You are not and you
never can be our equals. We are holy. You are uncl