05 1157 / The best things come on Do-ves' feet Nietzsche Woman Suffrage The Child-Bearing Woman and Civilization A Lecture Delivered Before the Independent Religious Society. Orchestra Hall, Michigan Ave. and Adams, Chicago, Sunday at II A. M. By M. M. MANGASARIAN Mangasarian's Publications The Martyrdom of Hypatia. Morality Without God. How the Bible Was Invented. The Rationalism of Shakespeare. Bryan on Religion. Christian Science Analyzed and An- swered. What Was the Religion of Shake- speare ? Debate with a Presbyterian. Pre- lude : Roosevelt. Christian Science A Comedy in Four Acts. The Kingdom of God in Geneva Under Calvin. \Voman Suffrage, or the Child-Bear- ing Woman and Civilization. 10 Cents per Copy Pearls Brave Thoughts from Brave Minds. The Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate on the Historicity of Jesus. 25 Cents per Copy A New Catechism Revised and en- larged, with portrait of author. In cloth, $1.00. Order Through the Independent Religious Society Orchestra Hall Building, Chicago Stack Annex 4/3 OToman Suffrage Cfjtl&^Bcanng ZUUoman anb Ctotfoation There appears to be need of some bold man who specially honors plainness of speech, and will say what is best for the city and citizens, ordaining what is good for the whole state, amid the corruptions of human souls, opposing the mightiest lusts, and having no man his helper but himself, standing alone and follow- ing reason only. PLATO. The history of civilization is the history of sex relations. Between man and woman there has always been a struggle for leadership. There was a time when woman commanded, and man obeyed. In the matriarchal age a man could not hold property, and the children were named after the mother. This supremacy has been lost; from a position of independ- ence woman has come to be dependent on man. The Woman Suffrage movement of today is an endeavor to regain, not the supremacy which woman once enjoyed, but to acquire equal rights with man in all the walks of life. As I wrote to you from England, I arrived in London on the day of the great Woman Suffrage parade. It was on a Saturday afternoon. Ten thousand women in line, and many times that number watching the procession from the Thames Embankment to Albert Hall. It was also my fortune to see the second great demonstration, a few days later, in Hyde Park, where I was one of nearly half a million people con- gregated around the temporary stands put up for the women speakers. It is not only in the English speaking world that the women are clamoring for political recognition. In Germany, too, there is an awakening of woman, as it is called ; while in France, under the name of Le Feminisme, the suffrage movement commands a respectable following. It seems to me that the best way to lead up to the discussion of this subject, is for me to tell you' of the thoughts which came to me as I watched the women tramping, tramping through the London streets, and massing in great numbers in Hyde Park on that summer afternoon, to demand votes for women. But before doing so, I wish to present, briefly, of course, the usual arguments advanced for and against Woman Suffrage. It is argued by those who oppose the movement, that woman is intellectually and morally inferior to man. This is not urged to offend woman, nor in the spirit of boasting on the part of man, but as a matter of observation and experience. This contention is based on the fundamental difference between the sexes, a difference which lies in the child-bearing capacity of woman. Every woman is, if not actively, at least poten- tially, a mother, and this physiological distinction unfits the woman for much of the work of the world. In reply to this it may be admitted that while men and women are different mentally as well as physically, the difference does not spell inferiority for the woman. The chemist and the artist have not the same kind of mind, but it does not follow that the one is inferior to the other. Shakespeare and Darwin had totally different intellectual powers, yet we would not say that a poet is inferior or superior to a scientist. As it has been suggested, the eye and the ear are different, but neither is inferior or superior to the other. Moreover, it is with the brain as it is with the muscles of the body. The blacksmith has stronger muscles ; he is con- stantly using his arm. For long centuries it has been forbid- den to woman to use her brain. In religion, St. Paul told her to keep silent, that is to say, not to indulge in think- ing; in the state, Napoleon Bonaparte sent Madame de Stael into exile for using her brain. Two powerful men, St. Paul and Napoleon, made it a crime for a woman to think. It is true that religion also forbids the exercise of the masculine brain, but fortunately for man, he has other opportunities for mental exercise. And if commerce, education and politics had imitated the example of religion and placed a premium on intellectual indolence, there would have been no brain in the world, masculine or feminine, worth speaking of. It is also true that wherever there has been an opportunity the brain of woman has responded quite as readily as that of man. A Bertha Von Suttner in Germany creates the highest kind of imaginative literature, serious and telling, on the salient problems of the day, and in France, a Madame Curie discovers radium. Boys and girls are subject to the same law of heredity, but while the boys have had opportunities to develop mentally through exercise, the girls have not, to the same extent. A second objection to woman suffrage is that, political life will hurt woman. According to Nietzsche, the highest pre- occupation of woman ought to be beauty. She must shun even the intellectual life if it brings wrinkles to her face, or dimness to her eyes. "Men may lose their beliefs in the church," argues Renan, "but let us not disturb a woman's faith, for what is there more beautiful than a pretty hand making the sign of the cross ?" But to speak seriously, politics will hurt woman, as it has hurt man. But does not business with its strain and scramble hurt, too? Does not the factory, the public restaurant, the department store, the wine-shop, where she is employed as barmaid, hurt woman? If woman may enter into competition with man in market and factory without losing her "charm," she may succeed in protecting herself from any serious harm also in politics. Of course, some people think, Emerson, for instance, that woman will help -politics more than politics will hurt woman ; but this is only a guess, and we are dealing with arguments. Another objection is that Woman Suffrage will compel the women to neglect their homes, that it will rob the home of her presence and interest. Mr. Elihu Root, President Roose- velt's secretary, used that at the constitutional convention at Albany as his reason for voting against an amendment to strike out the word "male" from the constitution of the State of New York. But if the vote does not take the laborer away from his factory, or the farmer from his fields, or the musician from his instruments, or the artist from his atelier, why should it take the woman away from her parlor, or kitchen, or nursery or school? There remains one other, and perhaps the strongest objec- tion against woman suffrage which we have the time to consider: The sole object of woman, it is said, is and ought to be, marriage. "Everything in the life of a woman," writes Nietzsche again, "has one solution childbirth." But, as society is constituted, twenty per cent of the women do not marry. If marriage is the one solution for all women, why are there millions of single women? As there are more women than men in nearly all communities, only under a system of polygamy can all women become wives, or find their salvation in childbirth. What then is the worth of a solution which is not a solution? If marriage is the only end and object of a woman's existence, why are they not all married? And how can they be, even if they were all willing, or fit to become mothers? Besides, are there not already more children born than society can do justice to with its present resources or knowledge? Do we improve the race by compelling, as it were, an increase in the birth-rate? In the business world, no man is given a higher trust until he has proved his ability to do well what has already been entrusted to him. Before we demand more children, or re- sort to measures to increase their number, let society show its ability to care properly for those already born. Compulsory marriage, even if desirable, is not possible, seeing that, under prevailing conditions, it would mean a poly- gamous society. Marriage then, is not a solution of the woman question. It is like saying "Here's a building which has been put up to provide for the women," but the size of the build- ing makes it clear that it was not meant to provide for all the women. It really leaves millions of women unprovided for. And why has woman only one object in life, while man has several ? Let us now briefly review the arguments put forth by the suffragettes. "A woman is a citizen, and is therefore entitled to a vote." Not necessarily. I am a citizen, but if I have not registered I cannot vote. Am I not still a citizen? Yes, but for a technical reason I am debarred from voting. Govern- 6 ment is an adjustment, and as such it has nothing to do with natural rights or abstract principles. What it considers bene- ficial to the state, it allows, what it considers detrimental it forbids. The people living in the district of Columbia are Americans too, but for a technical reason they cannot vote. A man at the age of twenty is just as liable to prosecution, and is just as much entitled to the protection of the govern- ment, as another at forty, yet the former cannot vote. It is merely a matter of arrangement. In reality, or ideally speak- ing, universal suffrage should entitle everybody, male and female, old and young, native and alien, to a vote. That would be universal suffrage. But as a matter of government policy, the suffrage is variously limited in various countries, accord- ing to the will of the people. In Norway, women with a cer- tain income are entitled to the vote ; in England a man must be a rent-payer before he can vote ; it is not enough to be a citizen, he must be a rent-paying citizen. And the English women, in demanding the same privileges that the men enjoy, are really asking the vote, not for all women, but only for rent-paying women. It follows, ladies, that it is not enough to be a citizen to have a vote. And if a state can impose property conditions, or age limitations, it can, if it considers it advisable, also require that the voter, besides being a rent-payer and of age, shall also be of a certain sex. The next argument is that, to grant the franchise to the illiterate immigrant, the Italian, the negro, or even to the very scum of society, and withhold it from woman, is to offer her an insult, or to place a false valuation upon her. This is not a strong argument: Votes have nothing in common with values. The negro is not given a vote because he is intelligent or moral. The white man is not given the vote because of his character or intellect. From the point of view of intellect and character perhaps half of the voters are not fit to vote. But the vote is not supposed to represent moral or intellectual worth. Before I have finished I will tell you why, for instance, the negro is given the right to vote. I may just as well tell it now : Because he is a man ; and before the lecture is over you will know why it is that a man can vote and a woman can not. If the vote represented worth, however, an Emerson or a Lincoln ought to have more votes than his gardener or his coachman. It was this mistaken idea which led Carlyle to condemn our democracy, because "it made the vote of Judas Iscariot as good as the vote of Jesus Christ." But votes and values are two totally different things. The King of England and the peers are all worthy men, but they cannot vote. We have a very good example showing the difference between votes and worth in our own country: Carl Schurz was in every sense of the word a distinguished American who served his country in various capacities. He was just as worthy to be nominated for the presidency as Taft or Bryan. But a technical reason made it impossible for him even to aspire to the office. He was not a native born citizen. It was not a question of worth at all, it was simply a question of law and expediency. Then there is this other argument: No taxation without representation. "I am a woman," writes one of the suffra- gettes, modifying slightly the words which Shakespeare puts in the mouth of one of his characters. "I am a woman. Hath not a woman eyes ? Hath not a woman hands, organs, dimen- sions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, cooled and warmed by the same win- ter and summer as a man is ? If you pierce us do we not bleed ? If you tickle us do we not laugh ? If you poison us do we not die ? And if you tax us, shall we not vote?" No, taxation with- out representation, like universal suffrage, is a sonorous but an empty phrase. We must not accept a stone when we are ask- ing for bread. A big mouthful of sound cannot take the place of truth. The truth is that governments, as already suggested, are guided by policy and expediency, and not by absolute and ideal pronouncements. As a matter of actual occurrence, the state is always collecting taxes of parties who have no representation. The German or the Frenchman who comes over to build a factory here, has to pay taxes whether or not he becomes a voter. The American who has property here, but lives abroad, has to pay taxes, although he loses his franchise; the minors are not represented, but their prop- erty is taxed; and there are many who are represented but who have no taxes to pay; while others, still, have property, vote regularly, but pay no taxes. Considerable property in this country, standing in the name of a bishop or an arch- bishop, is exempt from taxation, although the holder of the property is a voter. It is the will of the majority. You and I protest against it with indignation. Yet the whole thing is merely a matter of government policy. Susan B. Anthony, one of the noblest of American women, brave, sane, generous, in an address to the jury called to try her for having violated the law of New York by voting, declared that she was not bound to obey laws in the making of which she had no share. The plea is too ideal. It won't work in this every-day world of ours. What would we say to a minor, or to a foreigner who refused to submit to the laws of the land on the ground that he was not consulted? Well, what then is the reason that woman is not permitted political equality with man? Now that we have glanced at the pros and cons, let us place ourselves on the right track for a thorough grasp of the subject. I promised to tell you the thoughts which came to me as I watched the monster demonstration in London for equal rights. The demonstra- tion impressed me profoundly. I thought it pathetic. And in my mind's eye, I saw the awful, awful obstacles, almost insurmountable, which women have to encounter in their struggle for recognition. It seemed to me, as I stood in Hyde Park and looked upon that sea of women, that I saw before me, figuratively speaking, a glorious building, magnificently equipped, solid and spacious. Over the entrance of the edi- fice, white and shining in the sun, was inscribed the word CIVILIZATION. The door of the building was closed closed to the women, who in great numbers and loudly were knock- ing to be admitted. But the door would not open. It was guarded by men from the inside. And it occurred to me that the great and stupendous edifice which the men were pro- tecting against the women, was the gift of woman to man. If history, or rather evolution, teaches anything, it is this : Civilization is the work of woman. Woman, however, must not take too much credit to herself for this, because it was necessity which imposed upon her the labor of civilization. She had no other alternative. To discover the foundations of a building we do not look up to the ceiling, or to the rising walls ; we seek for them in the dark ground. In the same way, it is by going back to re- mote and primitive times, it is by digging in the dark past that we come to the origins of civilization. Long, long ago, there were no men, only males, and no woman, only females. This was the age of the wood and the swamp. The human had not yet outgrown the brute. It was the age of raw food and wild desire. In those very distant times, the male went after the female as he went after his food. There was as yet no estab- lished sex relation. What relation there was between man and woman partook of the character of untamed nature. After a chance meeting with a female, the man left her and went away to his accustomed haunts in pursuit of new adventure. His meeting with a woman made not the least difference to him. It did not alter the routine of his existence. No new emotion, or sense of obligation, was born in him as a result of this chance meeting. But with the woman, the whole world was transformed from that moment. The quiver of maternity came upon her. She is going to become a mother ! A new being is about to enter into her life. A child will soon smile in her arms. And then there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But let us keep to the prose of it as long as we can. As soon as the female discovered the condition' she was in, in- stinctively she sought shelter. She slipped into a cave. The beginning of the home! Here she awaited the arrival of her child, and while doing so she busied herself with a thousand preparations for her guest. It is sublime ! I said let us keep to the prose of it, but it is difficult to do so. The cave mother, throbbing with expectation and taxing her mental powers to the utmost to protect herself and her treasure against the inhospitable elements in that wild, dark, desolate day! See her gathering leaves to make a soft bed for the little one, and rolling huge stones against the mouth of the cave for protection against man and beast. The need for food during the days and weeks that she would be unable to 10 go in search for it suggested to her the idea of laying up in store a sufficient quantity to last for some time. There is the beginning of modern industry, the beginnning also of capital, to which civilization is so much indebted. The cave of the primitive mother is the foundation in the dark ground of that splendid edifice to which I imagined the women in Hyde Park were demanding admission. But let us watch the cave mother: As she went forth in search of provisions, she kept on the alert, her brain was like a bee-hive, every faculty was taxed in the pursuit of food and safety for herself and her offspring. In these excursions she learned of plants and herbs, of roots and berries, and discov- ered their properties. This is the beginning of the science of medicine. Gradually we see the little patch of ground about the cave cleared. The stones and weeds have disappeared. The land is cultivated. There is the beginning of agriculture, the greatest conquest of the race. The earth is taught by woman to do for her children what she as a mother is doing for hers. Woman taught the earth to become a mother too, and to feed her children from her breast. The hard and rugged soil blossoms. The wild becomes a garden. The swamp changes into a farm. Agriculture is the invention or discovery of woman the woman with child. In after years, misled by theology and blinded by prejudice, man thanked the gods for the gifts he had received from woman. When her child, born in the cave, was old enough to under- stand, she led it by the hand into the light and communicated to it all her knowledge; what the dangers were, and how to escape them; which berries were nutritious and which pois- onous ; how to coax the earth for food, and how to overcome obstacles. There is the beginning of education. While the male is still wandering in the woods, foot-loose and aimless, the female has developed into an instructor, has begun the life of altruism, and has her first pupil. The cave is not only a home, it has also become a school, and the woman is both housekeeper and teacher. Is it not wonderful? But the cave mother not only imparted to her offspring her knowledge of roots and herbs, of animals and dangers, 11 but she also imparted to the new being her hopes, her fears, her aspirations, her longings, her opinions, her interpreta- tions of the phenomena of nature in short, her beliefs, her religion. She is also the first priestess. She is the founder of religions. Buddha, Moses, Christ, sat at her feet and learned from her all the things they taught, but like ungrate- ful children, they despised the humble source of their wis- dom, and declared they had received it from on high. As already intimated, it was necessity which imposed upon woman the task of civilization. The cry of the child for food spurred the mother into indefatigable activity, and en- hanced her mental and physical powers. Necessity is the mother of invention. Love for her offspring, fatherless and exposed, made her a genius. She worked miracles. She made nature bend to her will. The power and puissance of love ! But it also calls attention to the brain-sweat of woman. Thus was mother- wit born and developed mother-wit, which is the beginning of all culture and civilization. Mr. Karl Pearson finds in the folk-lore of the German and Scandinavian peoples a recognition of the role which the child- bearing woman has played as the world's civilizer. The woman about to be a mother is represented in this primitive literature, as surrounded by demons, howling and gnashing their teeth with rage. What and who are these demons? They represent the hostile elements of nature against which the cave-mother had to contend, and which she had to over- come, before she could bring forth a new life into the world. The real demons have been conquered, and only their names linger in the people's songs and folk-lore. In this same popular literature we are told how a spell may be thrown over these evil spirits haunting the bedside of the mother and the cradle. And the means suggested, namely, the eating of a certain herb, the breaking of the soil, etc., are the very things which woman in her struggle against great odds did to preserve her life and that of her child. What was real in her life became poetry and legend in the literature of the race. Let us note the next step in the evolution or progress of civilization. Practically, the cave-woman reared her offspring, gave it what education she could, cultivated the soil, added 12 to the comforts of the underground home, and won com- parative safety for herself and her little family, without any help from man. He was still too fond of his wild life to tie himself down to any place or person. And it was not until she had succeeded in making the cave, or the hut, attrac- tive enough for him, that he left off his nomadic existence and sought her society. But immediately, almost, the comradeship with the woman and the child began to tell upon the uncouth manners and ungoverned desires of man. The instinct of pa- ternity was born in him. The woman who had taught the earth how to become a mother, also taught man how to become a father. But there is one more stage in this evolution to which I must now call your attention. As the underground cave im- proved into a hut, and that again into a home, it became an object of envy to those who had no place of their own, or who coveted the better homes of their neighbors. The hunter of beasts for his food now went after his fellows to seize their savings by killing or driving away their legitimate owners. This was the age of war and burglary. Might was right. Then it was that the man in the cave made himself indispens- able to the woman and the children. Had it not been for her little ones the woman too would have learned and practiced the art of war. But maternity saved the mother of children from becoming also the slayer of children. As" she could not herself fight, she needed a protector. It was then that the man stepped to the front, and the woman fell behind. She created the hearth and the home, but it was the man who saved them from destruction by his strength and valor. In time, the man said to the woman,"! am your savior. I risk my life to protect you and yours from death and the enemy. Without me you are helpless." And as there is nothing free in this world, the woman had to pay for the protection of the man by making him ruler in the house. He became the Altvater, the elder and the warrior. She became his subject and servant. Not only did the man conquer the enemy, but he also conquered the woman and her children. Nature favors the strong. The weak are spared on condition that they submit and obey. 13 The modern state, being modeled after the family, is based on force. This is stated, not as a criticism or condemnation, but as an admitted fact. Perhaps it was the only way that civilization could have been saved. At any rate, every country in the world was conquered and taken possession of in pre- cisely the same way and by the same means that the man con- quered the woman and set himself up as the owner and ruler of the family. To this day it is only through force, for in- stance, that the French can keep France for themselves, the English, England, or the Germans, Germany. Our own navy and army help to protect our possessions on this continent possessions which we seized by force of arms. It follows that modern society owes its preservation, its order, its peace, its prosperity, to its ability to fight. This is a very important consideration to which I call the attention of the suffragettes. I am neither commending, at present, nor condemning the role which physical force has played in the past, and is still playing today. I am merely pointing out, without comments, one way or another, how indispensable physical strength has been to woman in the past, and how dependent even now modern society is upon force. Ladies, force has to be reckoned with. But is it just that the strong should rule both in the home and in the state ? Sup- pose, we say it is not; force can afford to ignore our opinion. Ideally speaking, strength should have no advantage over weakness, but we are not, as yet, living in an ideal world, and do not know how soon we will, if we ever do; and as long as force continues to count in the affairs of government what chance is there for you? The men who can sail the ships, load the cannons, dig the trenches, tunnel the mountains, shoulder the guns and grapple with the enemy, will rule. You, ladies, are the makers of the home, you also made the edge and the butt of the edge which was to cleave the world, but the driving force is in the hammer which is wielded by the strong arm of man. Justice is a fine thing, but it is helpless without the hammer, or at best, very slow. Iron and blood are not aesthetic, but they can make their way in the world. Let justice prevail ! Let it. But Austria's idea of justice and Bosnia's are not the same. If there is any justice in France 14 today, if there is a Magna Charta in England, if a republic in America they have all been wrested by force. What chance is there then for women? Again, let me say that I am not approving the course of evolution, or the state to which it has brought us. As an artist and a moral being, I protest against nature for its coddling of the strong and its brutality to the weak. Nature gives man decided advantages, and starts woman in her career with a handicap. The very fact that women are asking for the suffrage, instead of taking it proves their helplessness in a society where force is the dernier resort the last argument. Suppose women were presented with the suffrage, since they cannot take it, would they be able to keep it ? Besides, if the women did not vote as the men wanted them to; if they voted to please themselves and to advance their own interests ; if they voted man out of office and privilege how would they enforce their will in a community that has in reserve iron- clads and gattling guns? But this is another way of saying that, never mind who has the suffrage, the strong will rule. As long as we live in a military society, even with the suffrage, woman will be politically the creature of man. Of course, I could have handled this subject in a purely emotional or sentimental way, but it has been my desire to suggest problems rather than to express opinions. Do I mean to say then, that women are wasting their energies in seeking political equality? Yes, as long as modern society continues to be a military organization. May not women, however, by entering political life, help to shift society from might to right? I shall say a word on that before I close. It appears then, from what has been presented, that even if woman is given the right to vote, she will not be able to exercise it freely, which is equal to saying, she will not be able to keep it. There are, as already stated, more women in a community than men. This may place the government en- tirely in the hands of women. Of course, the women may continue to vote for the men, but it is to be supposed that they will use the franchise to advance the cause of woman, to right their wrongs and to extend their influence in the political line. 15 If they vote then with sex consciousness, and there should come to be formed a Woman's party, the men will be driven to the state of dependence and helplessness in which the women find themselves at present. And what will happen? The positions will be reversed. Whereas, at present, it is the women who are doing the complaining against unjust discriminations, against petty persecutions, against absurd con- ventions which defame the woman and exonerate the man. against lower wages, and legal disqualifications, under Woman's Suffrage, the men will become the complainants with this difference, however : They will not simply plead for a change, they will make a change. There is, then, this tremend- ous difference between man and woman. Even with all, or with at least most of the legislative and executive offices in her hands, she will not be able to keep them without man's consent. Now, you know why the negro is given a vote. He is a man. He represents the ultimate argument force. If a gov- ernment which is created by the consent of the governed and a feminine government can only be created by the consent of man fails to give satisfaction, it is overthrown. If Ithe women in power fail to please the men, fail to vote for them or with them, they will be ousted from power. Creatures of the consent of man, they will submit to his will or abdicate. Yes, ladies, force has to be reckoned with. In a military society you have no chance. But I have not finished yet: For a long time after woman had lost her property and her political rights, she continued to be a force in primitive society, that is to say, there was still a sphere for her from which she was too strong to be ousted. Woman still had one domain left in which she had no peer. This was the domain of religion. The care of the family altars was still hers. As high priestess she was held in sincere esteem. She continued to guard the sacred fires, and to inter- pret the will of the gods to mortals. Jacob Grimm, describing the Scandinavian and German mythologies, says that most of the divinities the ones who did things were goddesses. "These goddesses," he writes, "were conceived as divine mothers, traveling about and visiting mortals. From them mankind has learned the busi- 16 ness and the arts of housekeeping, as well as agriculture, weaving, spinning, watching the hearth, sowing and reaping. The goddesses shun war and fighting." How came it then that even as a goddess woman has been driven out of the pantheon? It was Christianity which dethroned woman and completed her subjugation to man. Being an Asiatic faith, born in the wilderness of Sinai, Christianity had imbibed all the Oriental prejudice against woman. For the married woman especially, the woman who with the lever of maternity had lifted the world out of barbarism into civilization, and converted the earth, producing thorns and thistles, into a hu- man habitation, Christianity had only disdain. It was a child- bearing woman, Eve, who had deprived the race of paradise; it was the woman-mother who had brought about this world of sorrow and death, and a non-child-bearing woman, the Vir- gin Maria, will save the world. Only to virgins, that is to say, to women who are free from the maternal instinct which created civilization, did the church offer a career. Wo- man as mother helps to perpetuate this evil world, and keeps men out of heaven. Woman, in short, brings life, love, joy, which rob us of God. Woman and the world, or woman and civilization, are synonymous, and Christianity, like all religions with a supernatural ethic, has cursed the world. In one of the Aprocryphal gospels, Salome asks Jesus how long the world will last, and Jesus answers : "As long as you women continue to bear children." Christianity has no career for the child-bearing woman. She is the civilizer; she helps man to become attached to this world, which is, of course, a great wrong to God. Thus the woman, who is mother of all good, becomes under this Asiatic teaching, man's tempter. One of the reasons for the rapid spread of Christianity in European society was its partiality to man. Its divinities were exclusively masculine. Its apostles and priests were all men. The only woman exalted was a virgin. The woman who loved anyone husband or child in the place of God, was another Eve, who must be held in subjection. Thus the Asi- atic religion placed a new weapon in the hands of man against woman. Here was another reason, nay, a heavenly, an in- 17 fallible reason, why he should rule over her. It was the will of God. Her subjection was the curse of heaven upon her for her sin in the Garden of Eden. Under this regime, the woman who had been revered as priestess and divinity, was now despised and persecuted as a sorceress and a witch. The pagan priestess became the Christian witch. And to illustrate what a complete revulsion of feeling had taken place toward woman after the introduction of Christianity, it will only be necessary to read of the wholesale burning of women accused of the impossible, the trumped up crime of witchcraft in every country where the Gospel was preached. "For every one man," writes Karl Pearson, "fifty women were burned." It makes us indignant even to think of it. But Christianity proved to be very popular in Europe, also because of its military spirit. The warlike tribes were prom- ised greater victories, just as Constantine was, in the name of the cross. Christianity was equipped with a full military vocabulary. Its God was the "God of battles," who was also "Lord of hosts;" who fought for his people, and shot his arrows from on high; who sat on a throne and promised thrones and crowns and glory to the victor. The kingdom of heaven, like the kingdoms of this world, was to be "taken by violence." Force received a new endorsement. It became sa- cred. While speaking of peace and good will, the new religion resorted to the use of fire, the halter, and the sword to extermi- nate the unbeliever. It thus gave fresh encouragement to the principle of violence, and struck women, who as goddesses, Grimm says, "shunned war and fighting," an irreparable blow. In the mean time, there is nothing really impossible in the world. By entering political life women may succeed in com- pletely shifting modern society from its present basis of force to a new and nobler foundation, which, if they do, their reign will be one of sweetness and light. But, hold on ! With force eliminated, the reign of man, too, if we need any reign at all, will be equally ideal. But before we can have a new society, we need a new culture and a new religion, neither of which can come through the ballot. They must come as comes the harvest, after much patient sowing and cultivation. Women have already, without the ballot, effected great re- 18 forms. Slowly they have moved to the front. The educa- tional forces have largely passed under their control. As teachers they are shaping the clay of our future humanity. But that is not enough. The education must be different. The mothers must set up new ideals before their children. They must not feed them on the old books. They must not bring them up in the old faiths. They must give them a new accent and a new point of view. Instead of sending their little ones to Sunday school to learn about things which are of no practical help to them, and which are not true things which are as different from truth and beauty and goodness as the dead husk is from the living kernel ; instead of exposing the child-mind to the degrading influence of biblical massacres and barbarities, all of which contribute to introduce into the blood, so to speak, the virus of injustice, hardness of heart, caprice and cruelty, the mother should see that the intellectual and moral nourishment of the child is as pure and wholesome as the milk she herself provides for the body. As long as the bible rules there will be a "God of Battles" in heaven, and a military society on earth. To the women de- manding equal rights, the priest, who blesses the sword which the king carries, will answer, "The Powers that be are ap- pointed by God." If God has appointed the men to rule, what chance is there for the women? And woman herself must set an example of independence and rationalism. If she will fall upon her knees before a man because he calls himself a priest; if the secrets which she will not whisper to her own mother, she will pour into the ears of the priest; if she allows herself to be imposed upon by rites and forms and creeds, how can her children be free? Men are superstitious too; but how long would they remain so, if it were not for the example of woman? How long would the men go to church if the women stopped going? How long would the men pretend to believe in the old Jewish stories and Christian dogmas if the women did not cling to them? How long would the church, which denies to woman equal rights with man even in the church how long would it last if the women did not support it? 19 When woman is rationalized thfe world will be emancipated. The sway of superstition will be over. Force and war, like error and fear, will be replaced by reason. Reason, now on the cross of superstition, will go forth to heal and bless all mankind. When our mothers are free, we shall all be free. When they are sane and brave, the sword shall become a ploughshare, the .warrior shall be no more, and the priest shall throw away the keys of heaven and hell, to become a lover and a father. The cave woman leading her child by the hand ! It is woman leading the world by the hand. When the world was a child, woman carried it in her arms. Let the women who have done so much for humanity; who have invented love, and created the home; who caused the bush to blossom, and made the savage a father let them also give us a religion which shall be in spirit as gentle and yet as irresistible as the sunbeam. A religion whose mission shall be pacific, whose record shall be bloodless, whose altars shall be human hearts, whose sanctuaries the home and the school, whose Bible shall be science, whose heaven, the here and the now, and whose divinities shall be men and women ! Believe me, ladies, you will never attain full emancipation until you open your minds to a serious criticism of the Christian creed. With what eagerness you are beginning to examine your social environment, your privileges, your rights, your possibilities. One hears the break- ing of a thousand chains that once shackled the activities of women. But you reserve one place of voluntary enslavement. There, if nowhere else, you surrender your claim to live out your own life. This place is the church. F. J. Gould. 20 .- .vlOSANCEtfj-