both in an intellectual and moral sense. The position taken appeared
reasonable, and had a semblance of truth, and exerted its consequent
influence.

"_Will be as God, knowing good and evil._" Knowing for yourselves,
and able to choose between the evil and the good. Here ambition again
overleaped itself. Humility was slain, and a womanly virtue was
destroyed by the tempter, who aimed to infuse into the mind of the
woman, first, a doubt of the truth of the Word of God, and of the
certainty of the divine threatening; second, a suspicion that God was
withholding from her a good, instead of guarding her against an evil;
and, third, he attempted to induce her to believe that adherence to
this divine command stood in the way of her freedom, of her growth,
and so by the words, "Ye will be as God, knowing good and evil," he
strove to awaken the feeling of self-exaltation,--the longing for a
higher development, in which she should attain to self-discretion and
freedom of choice and action.

This suspicion is very common, even among our good women. When a woman
gets cold in her love for Jesus, she becomes suspicious of those
she loves. She permits the feeling, "My husband gives too much for
benevolence, too little to me, and he is away too much in meetings,
and is too little in his home," to influence her. She begins to talk
against the church, and loves to stay at home. Finds excuses for
keeping away from the prayer meeting or from the paths of endeavor,
and becomes a hinderance instead of a blessing to husband, to
family, and to society. A man finds it difficult to push the bark of
benevolence and of holy endeavor up against the current of womanly
opposition and suspicion, but when in the work of God she acts the
part of a helpmeet, everything moves smoothly. A recent writer uses
this language: "Expel woman as you will, she is in fact the parish.
Within, in her lowest spiritual form, as the ruling spirit she
inspires, and sometimes writes the sermons. Without, as the bulk of
his congregation, she watches over his orthodoxy, verifies his texts,
visits his schools, and harasses his sick." ... "The preacher who
thunders so defiantly against spiritual foes, is trembling all the
time beneath the critical eye that is watching him with so merciless
an accuracy in his texts. Impelled, guided, censured by woman, we can
hardly wonder if, in nine cases out of ten, the parson turns woman
himself, and the usurpation of woman's rights in t