1 10 17 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2085824327f5ff3105605c2b82805a18.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=cZOJSZ%7EI8Z5W1%7EcKxkIO2jdbCjwvePd-7y3QTEdUE2p60hUam3wUC7N8VP6GzdhxkseULBXd%7ESCe7AFASX8JwyAVdQOUZ68PAz2fCa2trWPfLmCQvmuk0CyFVWTtFLTe69oYILiP56N3zaB4pcZS8V8W0uFw14%7EfON0yVCc7gGu6DWQ1jvWjPDL5TmvA1OuqbRva1uifaWl2mkuySlj5Ri4ZGuoxwtXFQ2qGyTKCJvHxdj%7EXJ3EcgHeejzGNIKwzboyba%7ESbP1D06acxXwhk2XBvryIs-hzJrauYz4B38zfaw1kfzZH6IcD%7EHPjD%7EQ3dreznbccoYIFZkbstVJibRg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 3d5fad3dc37d2c701f1c732bb4934d08 PDF Text Text «rO \ J PSYCHE TO Mother Earth. BY FRANCES ROSE MACKINLEY. ARTH, my BELOVED MOTHER ! Prone upon you I prostrate myself; I imprint you with earnest kisses ; With awful wonder, I love, revere, adore you. How beholden am I to your spirit, That you enable me to apprehend your entity ; You, so near, so familiar to me ; That with my psychic vision clarified, Looking lucidly through my physical eyes, You empower me to recognize you ; Presential, breathing, palpitating, living ! You, the concrete, primogenial source of life. �PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. What delight to hear your mystic voice, To catch with clairaudient sense the latency Of your multisonous mobility, Your myriad and varied tones Reverberating musically in my ears ! What boundless satisfaction To cognize the subjective analogies Of your elemental language ! (I am one of your living ideographic words.) What spontaneous delight To be able to respond to you, In all your diversified forms of expression, To your repercussive intonations, Or your mellifluous whisperings— Mother, I understand ! flow beautiful you are, O mother ! Every day I gaze fascinated and enraptured On your athletic, brunonian body, Outstretched, nude and lethargic ; Your legs, massive, plump, symmetrical ; Your bosoms luxurious, redundant; Your wistful, luscious face, With pensive, languishing, hazel eyne. Ever serenely, quiescently you repose, Basking bewitchingly your bared charms In the searching and amative regards �3 PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. Of your transcendent lover, the Sun. How resplendently your flesh glistens, Bathed in the dazzling scintillations Of his sensuous, magnetic presence ! The beauty of your sons and daughters Is but a faint similitude Of your immaculate loveliness. How loving you are, O mother ! My present existence and daily continuance Manifest your provident love ; That you will take this wondrous body You have lent my spirit, to your warm embrace, To more intimately assimilate its particles, What evincement of love ! That you have oft incarnated my spirit, And with, love sent me forth from you, And, with as great love, recalled My material personality to your bosom, To be fondled and afterward resent, What supereminent proofs of love ! I have noted you, endeared mother ! In daily coition with your lover, the Sun. I have watched his gorgeous masculinity, K In lustful intermutation with you ; !........... ——--------------------- �//. PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. Embalming you in the luminous beams Of his effulgent thermodic halo. How much you seemed to glory, To exult and revel in his caress ! I glory with you in your delectation, And in the good he imparts to you. Without his embrace, you would perish, Even as I, your daughter, would expire Without the contactual suscitation of my lovers. I have seen you also, O wanton mother! Surfeited of your lover’s dalliance, Antagonistic, repellant of his desire. O I too have been satiated With the aphrodisaic carnality Of my Priapian paramours ! From gentle encounters with you, And tempered orgasms in your embrace, I have seen his passion rousing Into glowing and rampant salacity ; Till he impended over you exacerbated To the very ultimity of heat. I have seen you shrinkingly recoil, When his vehement afilation, Simoon-like, effumed upon you, And his rapacious arms, Ignifluous annulars, Compressed you impactly �PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. 5 To his lascivient and candescent body; Whilst into your womb he extruded .His ebullient, geyser-jet semen. You were feverous, chafed, wincing, aglow ; Torrified by his scortatory passion. I deemed that you must expire ; ' And should your vitality cease, O mother ! How could your children survive ! One day, in the sultry month of July, As I reclined on your hot breast, Murmuring words of condolence To you, poor suffering mother ! We were startled by thundering rumblings in the West. Looking thitherward, I descried Huge cumuli overtopping the horizon. Instantaneously you exclaimed : “ O rejoice with me, my children ! “ He comes, He, my redemptive lover, “ He, for whom I have been sighing, “ He, whom I now need for rescue, “ He, who only can relieve me ! ” Then, revealed to my wonderment, I beheld your lover, awe-compelling, Black, colossal, cyclopean, vast, �6 PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. Stalking majestically in the heavens, His terrific shadow overdarkening the skies, And tenebrously enveloping you; His frowning browns portentously lowering ; His gigantic bulk equipendent in the mid welkin. Inflated with generant vigor, Dissilient with desire for you, He fulmines thunderous lustful threats. With foretaste of delight, O mother ! You trembled at his lecherous menaces, And with upthrown arms, Enrounding your retroverted head, Anxious, impatient, eager, You slightly disparted your thighs, And gently upraised your abdomen, In longing preparedness to receive him. With thought exceeding instantaneity His phallic lightning strokes Reiteratedly penetrate your genetalia. Negative, receptive mother ! As his invigorating love lymph Emulged upon you in lavish profluence ; Your eyes closed as in serene ectasy. Your countenance exuberated with renewed life, Your quickened orbs ■ looked up lovingly, �PSYCIIE TO MOTHER EARTH. Every freshened pore responsively dilated, Your lips tremulously articulated, thanks. Love-sick, languishing, despairing, I, your daughter, with trepid sighs, Long for a reciprocal love mate, Whose electric influence and embrace .* Will be to me, as was your savior to you, Solace, reviviscence, ecstasy ! With wearied body, o’erspent and drooping, Sore, wounded feet, swollen with travel, From bootless chase of unattainableness, I seek refuge in your maternity. I clasp my arms around your neck. Let me nestle my weighted head Cosily ’twixt your lenitive mammoe ! In this delicious harborage, Let me uninterruptedly repose ! J Let me find there, long enduring rest ; Till, through your kindly assuagement, The perturbation within me is allayed ! Let me subside into sedative slumbers, Calming to my insatiate heart; To waken, comforted, composed, ductile, 7 �g PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. Prompt to obey your dehortations, Assured that to question your teachings, Or ignore your prescient admonitions, Must be to constantly return to you afflicted, To abide in embroilment and inquietude ! Make me Placid, compliant, resigned, passive, As you are, O Infinite Parent ! Animate me with your own essentiality ! Are you thus, Placid, compliant, resigned, passive, Thus beatifically accordant with events ; Since to you belongs the cognition Of the mysterious purpose of all that is ? O let me, thro’ your inspiration, Attain some definite discernment Of the subtle intent of existence ; Some positive hint of certitude, More than the discontinuous clairvoyance, Whereby I glimpse scintillas of truth, With ever intervenient periods Of dubiety, and its consequent despondence ! Your sensuous, voluptuous breath Respiring balmily over me, Convulses me with titillative tremors. The semblance of lascivious abandon, �PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. 9 Ascendant in your mien and bearing, Spells and ecstasizes my spirit. The aroma of your wantonness Materializes into living forms of beauty : Vital, substantive, efflorescent virtues ; Whence in turn exhales a quality Gossamery, subtile, insinuative ; An impalpable emication, Invisible, but sensate to your children, In irresistibly seductive allurements To languor, desire, love, worship, coition. O in this luscious magnetism— The life incitement of your children— Is there not revealed the aim of Being ? O from this mystic adumbration, Have I not apprehended the purport of ex­ istence ? Expand my soul, O mother ! To a lasciviousness akin to yours ; That I also may give exoteric form To the fullness of like voluptuousness, And by a consummate shapeliness Incite, as you do, love, worship, adoration ! Make me, as you are, bold, free, cosmopolite, Accessible, nonchalant, unbosoming ! You, ever love environing your children, �10 PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH. Coulcl they but clairvoyantlv see you 1 Make me, as you are, communicant, \ Outspoken, fluent, colloquial, eloquent ! Your voice, ever speaking to your children, Could they but clairaudiently hear you ! Make me just, intrusive, assertive as you ! We, children, your feel this fictile, plastic force ; This charactery, whereby you express yourself, Acting within ourselves and about us, To fashion the physical and metaphysical ; But how few divine in it, your immanent presence ! Make me negative, receptive as you ! Because of these feminine attributes, You are transcendently a divine mother. Promiscuous, all-embracing, all-loving, All-inclusive, universal mother ! Impress me with your catholicness, That I may reimpress all humanity, With such assimilative consciousness Of the opulence and divinity of those attributes, That your sons and daughters will all emulate The similitude of you in me, And with one ecumenic purpose, exclaim : Let us strive to resemble our mother ! ” � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Psyche to mother earth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mackinley, Frances Rose Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [s.l.] Collation: 10 p. ; 19 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A poem. Text bordered in red. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource {187-?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5310 Subject The topic of the resource Poetry Spiritualism Women's rights Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Psyche to mother earth), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English American Conway Tracts Mother Goddess Poetry Poetry in English Spiritualism Women's Rights Women's Rights-United States https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/8e33668100690cb5b9affc86778fb9f4.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=fK7Xms3kfoeVBwu2mKYxMiHzvrxFsdX5GzmIZlaNLf5jVJLtdhCn7bcUsAFazBd8-6t4zn4OtjCKzCVBUFshIa5m2fhKj0rsDGj9khQrQAbsHMC7THZs0LLZWJZsAX9oKT2REjt9tnTVw6aYhyAXTXIL1M3KBpgrEftgySU42qIaBzrU%7EWaHn1%7EcIHtXWNh2RL%7Er8nD3eW59zAiP236agWyLvjdB1DrgYnIpp0sV3R4%7Em7K1FnRQ5qhPv%7EDHCA4qmHts%7ERQr8c7W4VDCZ0Uar%7EkrUGaAMe42SyyNlsnVDYO9tSdGnNVBgN2X8wK%7E%7EXHgofu-NeNdlnjJAalHPSu1OQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b4cb643324d8e788b9dafe34155b0022 PDF Text Text NADONALSECULARSOCIETy THE POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. BY AITNIE [third EESANT. edition.] LONDON: FEEETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. PRICE TWOPENCE. �LONDON: PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. �POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. Various arguments are advanced by the opponents of woman suffrage, which require to be met by those who maintain that the political status of women should be the same as the political status of men. Of these the prin­ cipal—apart from party arguments, such as those which re­ gard the momentary strengthening of Tory, Whig, or ¿Radical, by the female vote—are as follows :— Why should the political incompetency of women receive so much attention when more pressing wrongs require a remedy ? Women are naturally unfit for the proper exercise of the franchise. They are indifferent about the matter. They are sufficiently represented as it is. Political power would withdraw them from their proper sphere, and would be a source of domestic annoyance. It can scarcely be necessary for me to clear my way by proving to you that there are such things as rights. “ Every great truth,” it has been said, “ must travel through three stages of public opinion : men will say of it, first, that it is not true; secondly, that it is contrary to religion; lastly, that every one knew it already.” The “rights of man” have battled through these first two stages, and have reached the third; they have been denounced as a lie, subversive of all government; they have been anathematised as a heresy, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians.; but now every one has always known that men have rights, it is a perfect truism.. These rights do not rest on the charter of a higher authority; they are not privileges held at the favour of a superior; they have their root in the nature of man ; they are his by “ divine ’’—that is to say, by natural—right. Kings, presidents, governments, draw their authority from the will of the people; the people draw their authority from themselves. �4 ! POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. It is quite a new light to the general public that women have any rights at all; duties ? ay, plenty of them, with sharp penalties for their non-fulfilment. Wrongs? ay, plenty of them, too—wrongs which will not be borne much longer. Privileges ? yes, if we will take them as privileges, and own that we hold them at the will of our masters; but rights ? The assertion was at first met with laughter that was only not indignant, because it was too contemptuous. Our truth is as yet in its infancy—first, it is not true; secondly, it is contrary to religion. The matter is taken a little more seriously now ; men begin to fancy that these absurd women are really in earnest, and they condescend to use a little argument, and to administer a little “soothingsyrup ” to these fractious children. Gentle remonstrance takes the place of laughter, and thus we arrive at my first head—surely there are more pressing female wrongs toattend to than the question of political incapacity. It is perfectly true that the want of representation in Parliament is not, in itself, a grave injury. In itself, I say, it is of secondary importance; its gravity consists in what it involves. You do not value money for its own sake— those little yellow counters are not intrinsically beautiful,, nor are they in themselves worth toil, and trouble, and danger; but you value them for what they represent; and thus we value a vote, as means to an end. In a free country, a vote means power. When a man is a voter, his wishes must be taken into consideration; he counts asone in an election—his opinion influences the return. When the working-classes wished to alter laws which pressed hardly on them, they agitated for Parliamentary reform. What folly 1 what waste of time 1 what throwing away of strength and energy! how unpractical! Why agitate for an extension of the franchise, when so many social burdens required to be lightened ? Why? Because they knew that when they won the franchise they could trust to themselves to remedy these social anomalies—when they had votes, they could make these questions the test of the fitness or unfitness of a candidate for Parliament. Non­ voters, they could only ask for reform; voters, they could command it. And this is the answer of women to those who urge on them that they should turn their attention to practical matters, and leave off this agitation about the franchise. We shall do nothing so foolish. True, certain laws press hardly on us; but we are not going now to �POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. S agitate for the repeal of these laws one by one. We might agitate for a very long time before we gained attention. We prefer going to the root of the matter at once. We will win the right of representation in Parliament, and when we have won that, these laws will be altered. Ten years after women become voters, there will be some erasures in the Statute Book. There will no longer be a law that women, on marriage, become paupers, unless steps are taken beforehand to prevent it; marriage will. have ceased to bring with it these disabilities. There will no longer be a law which gives to the father despotic authority over the fate of the child ; which enables the father to take the child from the mother’s arms, and give it into the charge of some other woman; which makes even the dead father ■able to withhold the child from the living mother. _ There will be no longer be a law which sanctions the consignment of thousands of women to misery and despair, jn order that men’s lives may be made more safely luxurious, and their homes, when they choose to make them, kept more pure. The laws whose action is more and more driving women (in the large towns especially) to prefer unlegalised marriages to the bonds of legal matrimony, will have vanished, to the purifying of society and the increased happiness of both men and women. The possession of a vote, by giving women a share in the power of the State, will Also make them more respected. Hitherto, law, declaring women to be weak, has carefully put all advantages into the hands of those who are already the powerful. Instead of guarding and strengthening the feeble, it has bound them hand and foot, and laid them helpless at the feet of the strong. To him that hath, it has indeed been given ; and from her that hath not, has been taken away even the ,protection she might have had. “ Women are naturally unfit for the proper exercise of the franchise.” It has been remarked, more than once, that, in this contest about the voting of women, men and women have exchanged their characteristics. Women appeal to reason, men to.instincts; women rely on logic, men on .assumptions; women are swayed by facts, men . by pre­ judices. To all our arguments, to all our reasoning, men answer, “ It is unfeminine—it is contrary to nature.’’ If we press them, How and why? we are only met with a re-assertion of the maxim. I am afraid that we women .sadly lack the power of seeing differences. It is unfeminine �6 POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. to be a doctor, but feminine to be a nurse. It is unfeminine to mix drugs, but feminine to administer them. It is un­ feminine to study political economy, but feminine to train the future Statesmen. It is unfeminine to study sanitary laws, but feminine to regulate the atmosphere of the nursery, whose wholesomeness depends on those laws. It is un­ feminine to mingle with men at the polling-booth, but feminine to.labour among them in the field and the factories. In a word, it is unfeminine to know how to do a thing, and to do.it comprehendingly, wisely, and well j it is feminine to do things of whose laws and principles we know absolutely nothing, and to do them ignorantly, foolishly, and badly. We do not see things in this light.. I suppose it is because we, as women, have “ the poetical power of seeing re­ semblances,” but lack the “ philosophical power of seeing differences.” We must, however, analyse this natural in­ feriority of women; it is shown, we are told, in their mental weakness, their susceptibility to influence, their unbusiness­ like habits. If this natural mental inferiority of woman be a fact, one cannot but wonder how nature has managed to make so many mistakes. Mary Somerville, Mrs. Lewis (better known as George Eliot), Frances Power Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, were made, I suppose when nature was asleep. They certainly show no signs of the properlyconstituted feminine intellect. But, allowing that these women are inferior in mental power to the uneducated artisan and petty farmer, may I ask why that should be a political disqualification? I never remember hearing it urged that the franchise should only be conferred on men of genius, or of great intellectual attainments. Even the idea of an educational franchise was sneered at, low as was the proposed standard of education. When a law is made which restricts the franchise to those who rise above a certain mental level, the talk about mental inferiority will become reasonable and pertinent; but, when that law is. passed, I fear that nature will not be found to have been sufficiently careful of the male interest to have placed all men above the level, and all women below it. Suscepti­ bility to influence is an argument that also goes too far. I am afraid that many people’s opinions are but rarely “ opinions ” at all. They are simply their neighbours* thoughts covered over with a film of personal prejudice. It is, however, a new idea in England that a class liable to. be unduly influenced should be disfranchised ; the Ballot. �POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. 7 Act lately passed was, I always understood, specially designed to protect the weak from the pressure of the strong. Oliver Cromwell said that it was unjust to deprive any one of a natural right on the plea that, were it given, it would be abused. Not so; “when he hath abused it, judge.” Business incapacity may, or may not, exist on the part of women; it is difficult to judge what power a person may have when he is never permitted to exercise it. Tie ' up a man’s hands, and then sneer that he has no aptitude for writing; or chain his feet, and show his natural inca­ pacity for walking. John Stuart Mill has remarked : “ The ladies of reigning families are the only women who are allowed the same range of interests and freedom of develop­ ment as men, and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to be any inferiority. Exactly where and in pro­ portion as woman’s capacities for government have been tried, in that proportion have they been found adequate.” In France, at the present day, the women rule business matters more than do the men, and the business capacity of French-women is a matter of notoriety. Lastly, I would urge on those who believe in women’s natural inferiority, why, in the name of common sense, are you so terribly afraid of putting your theory to the proof? Open to women the learned professions; unlock the gates which bar her out from your mental strifes ; give her no favour, no special advantages; let her race you on even terms. She must fail, if nature be against her; she must be beaten, if nature has incapacitated her for the struggle. Why do you fear to let her challenge you, if she is weighted not only with the transmitted effects of long centuries of inferiority, but is also bound with nature’s iron chain ? Try. If you are so sure about nature’s verdict, do not fear her arbitration ; but if you shrink from our rivalry, we must believe that you feel our equality, and, to cover your own doubts of your supe­ riority, you prattle about our feebleness. “Women are indifferent about the possession of the franchise.” If this is altogether true, it is very odd that there should be so much agitation going on upon the sub­ ject. But I am quite willing to grant that the mass of women are indifferent about the matter. Alas ! it has always been so. Those who stand up to champion an oppressed class do not look for gratitude from those for whom they labour. It is the bitterest curse of oppression that it crushes out in the breast of the oppressed the very �8 POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. wish to be free. . A man once spent long years in the Bastille; shut up m his youth, old age found him still in his dungeon. The people assailed the prison, and, among others, this prisoner was set free; but the sunshine was agony to the eyes long accustomed to the darkness, and the fresh stir of life was as thunder to the ears accustomed to the silence of the dungeon; the prisoner pleaded to be kept a prisoner still. Was his action a proof that freedom is not fair ? The slaves, after generations of bondage, were willing to remain slaves where their masters were kind and good. Is this a proof that liberty is not the birthright of a man ? And this rule holds good in all, and not only in the extreme, cases I have cited. Habit, custom, make hard things easy. If a woman is educated to regard man as her natural lord, she will do so. If the man to whom her lot falls is kind to her, she will be contented; if he is unkind, she will be unhappy; but, unless she be an exceptional character, she will not think of resistance. But women are now beginning to think of resistance j a deep, low, murmur­ ing is going on, suppressed as yet, but daily growing in intensity; and such a murmur has always been the herald of revolt. Further, do men think of what they are doing when they taunt the present agitators with the indifference shown by women? They are, in effect, telling us that, if we are m earnest in this matter, we must force it on their attention 5 we must agitate till every home in England rings with the subject; we must agitate till mass meetings in every town compel them to hear us; we must agitate till every woman has our arguments at her fingers’ ends. Ah ! you are not wise to throw in our teeth the indifference of women. You are stinging us into a determination that this indifference shall not last j you are nerving us to a struggle which will be fiercer than you dream ; you are forcing us into an agitation which will convulse the' State. You dare to make indifference a plea for injustice ? Very well; then the indifference shall soon be a thing of the past. ’ You have as yet the frivolous, the childish, the thoughtless, on your side 5 but the cream of womanhood is against you. We will educate women to reason and to think, and then the mass will only want a leader. “ Women are sufficiently represented as it is.” By whom ? oy those whose interests lie in keeping them in subjection. So the masters told the workmen : “ We represent you; we take care of your interests.” The workmen answered : “ We �POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. 9 prefer to represent ourselves : we like to have our interests guarded by our own hands.” And such is our answer to -our “ representatives.” We don’t agree with some of your views; we don’t like some of your laws ; we object to some -of your theories for us. You do not really represent us at all; what you represent is your own interests, which, in many cases, touch ours. The laws you pass are passed in the interests of men, and not of women; and naturally so, for you are made legislators by men, and not by women. There are few cases where men are really the representatives of women. John Stuart Mill—now dead, alas!—noblest and most candid •of philosophers and Statesmen; Professor Fawcett, a future leader; Jacob Bright, our steadfast friend: these, and a few others, might fairly be called representatives of women in Parliament. Outside the House, too, we have a few gallant champions, pre-eminent among whom is Moncure Conway, whose voice is always raised on the side of freedom and justice. But what we demand is the right to choose our own representatives, so that our voice may have its share in making the laws which we are bound to obey. We share the duty of supporting the State, and we claim the right of helping to guide it. Taxation and representation run side by side, and if you will not allow us to be repre­ sented, you have no right to tax us. I may suggest here, in reference to the contest about married women having votes, that this point is altogether foreign to the discussion. The right to a vote and the qualification for a vote, are two dis­ tinct things, and come under different laws. The one is settled by Act of Parliament, the other by the revising barrister. A blunder was lately made by putting into a Bill a special disqualification of married women. Such a clause is absurdly out of place. We are contending to remove from a whole sex a legal disability; the details come later, and must be arranged when the principle is secured. A man has the right to vote because he is a man; but he must possess certain qualifications before he can exercise his right. Let womanhood, as such, cease to be a disqualifi­ cation; that is the main point. Let the discussion on qualifications follow. Further, if it be urged that women are represented by their husbands, what are we to say about those who have none? In 1861, fifteen years ago, there were three and a half millions of women in England work­ ing for their livelihood—two and a half millions of these were unmarried, and were, therefore, unrepresented. Is �10 POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. there no pathos in these figures ? Two and a half millions struggling honestly to live, but mute to tell of their wants or their wrongs. Mute, I say, for not one in a thousand hasthe power of the pen. And this is not the worst. Oh, friends ! below these, pressed down there by the terrible struggle for existence, there is a lower depth yet, tenanted by thousands of whom it is not here my province to speak, thousands, from whom a bitter wail goes up, to which men’s ears are deaf. Surely, women need representation—surely, there are grievances and wrongs of women which can only be done away by those whom women send to Parliament as their representatives. It is natural that men should not desire that many of these laws should be altered. In the first place, it is impossible they should understand how hardly they press on women; only those who wear it, says the proverb, “ know where the shoe pinches.” And, in the second place, the holders of a monopoly generally object to have their monopoly interfered with. They can’t imagine what in the world these outsiders want pressing in upon their social domains. The nobleman cannot understand why the peasant should object to the Game Laws; it is so unreasonable of him. The farmer cannot make out why the labourer should not attend quietly to his hedging and ditching, instead of making all this fuss about a union. The capitalist cannot see the sense of the artisan banding himself with his brethren, instead of going on with his duty, and working hard. Men can’t conceive why women do not attend to their household duties instead of fussing about Parliament. Unfortunately, each of these tiresome classes cares very little whether those to whom they are opposed can or cannot understand why they agitate. We may be told continually that we are sufficiently repre­ sented ; we say that we do not think so, but that we mean to be. “ Political power would withdraw women from their proper sphere, and would be a source of domestic annoyance.” Their proper sphere—/.<?., the home. This allegation is a very odd one. Men are lawyers, doctors, merchants; every hour of the day is pledged, engrossing speculations stretch the brain, deep questions absorb the mind, great ideas swell in the intellect. Yet men vote. If occupation be a fatal disqualification, let us pass a law that only idle people shall have votes. You will withdraw workers from their various spheres of work, if you allow them to take an �POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. II interest in politics. For heaven’s sake, do not go and take the merchant from the desk, the doctor from the hospital, the lawyer from the court; you will disorganise society—you will withdraw the workers. Do you say it is not so— that the delivery of a vote takes up a very short time at considerable intervals ? that a man must have some leisure,, and may very well expend it, if he please, in studying politics ? that a change of thought is very good for the weary brain? that the alteration of employment is a positive and most valuable relaxation? You are quite right; outside interests are healthy, and prevent private affairs from becoming morbidly engrossing. The study of large problems checks the natural tendency to be absorbed in narrower questions. A man is stronger, healthier, nobler, when, in working hard in trade or in profession for his home, he does not forget he is a citizen of a mighty nation. I can think of few things more likely to do women real good than anything which would urge them to extend their interests beyond the narrow circle of their homes.. Why, men complain that women are bigoted, narrow­ minded, prejudiced, impracticable. Wider interests would do much to remedy these defects. If you want your wife to be your toy, or your drudge, you do perhaps wisely in shutting up her ideas within the four walls of your house but if you want one who will stand at your side through life, in evil report as well as in good, a strong, large-hearted woman, fit to be your comfort in trouble, your counsellor in difficulty, your support in danger, worthy to be the mother of your children, the wise guardian and trainer of your sons and your daughters, then seek to widen women’s intellects, and to enlarge their hearts, by sharing with them your grander plans of life, your deeper thoughts, your keener hopes. Do not keep your brains and intellects for the strife of politics and the conflicts for success, and give to your homes and to your wives nothing but your condes­ cending carelessness and your thoughtless love. Further, do you look on women as your natural enemies, and suppose they are on the look out for every chance of running away from their homes and their children ? It says very little for you if you hope only to keep women’s hearts by chaining their minds, or limiting thezr range of action. What is it really worth, this compelled submission—this enforced devotion? Do you acknowledge that you make home-life so dull, sowearisome, that you dare not throw open the cage-door, �12 POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. lest the captive should escape ? Do you confess that your service is so hard a one that she you call your friend is only longing to be free? You do yourselves an injustice, friends; you shame your own characters—you discredit your homes. A happy home, the centre of hopes and fears, the cherished resting-place from life's troubles, the sure haven from life’s conflicts, the paradise brightened by children’s prattle and children’s laughter—this home is not a place where women must be chained down lest they should run away. Admitting, however, for argument’s sake, the absurd idea that women would neglect their homes if they possessed the franchise, may I ask by what right men restrict women’s action to the home? I can under­ stand that, in Eastern lands, where the husband rules his wives with despotic authority, and woman is but the plaything ■and the slave of man, woman’s sphere A the home, for the very simple reason that she cannot get outside it. So, in this sense, in the Zoological Gardens, is the den the sphere of the lion, and the cage of the eagle. Shut any living creature up, and its prison becomes its sphere. But if the prisoner becomes restless—if nature beats strongly at the captive’s heart—if he yearns for the free air and the golden sunshine, you may, indeed, keep him in the sphere you have built for him; but he will break his heart, and will die in your hands. Many women now, educated more highly than they used to be—women with strong brains and loving hearts—are being driven into bitterness and into angry opposition, because their ambition is thwarted at every step, and their eager longings for a fuller life are .forced back and crushed. A tree will grow, however you may try to stunt it. You may disfigure it, you may force it into awkward shapes, but grow it will. One would fain hope that it is in thoughtlessness and in ignorance that men try to push women back. Surely they do not appre­ ciate the injury they are doing, both to themselves and to women, if they turn their homes into prison-houses, and the little children into incumbrances. In the strong, true, woman there is a tender motherhood which weaker natures cannot reach ; but if these women are to be told that ‘domestic cares only are to fill their brains, and the prattle of children to be the only satisfaction of their intellect, you run a terrible risk of making them break free from home and child. Allow them to grow freely, to develop as nature bids them, and they will find room for home-cares in their �POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. 13 minds, and the warmest nestling-place in their bosom will be the haven of the little child. But if you check, and fret, and carp at them, you will not succeed in keeping, them back, but you will succeed in souring them, and in making them hard and bitter. Oh, for the sake of English home life—for the sake of the tender ties of motherhood— for the sake of the common happiness, do not turn into bitter opponents the women who are still anxious to be your friends and your fellow-workers. This is no imaginary danger; it is a thunder-cloud brooding over many English homes. I can scarcely believe that men and women would be so unreasonable as to make the power of voting into a domestic annoyance. Of course, if a married couple want to quarrel, there are sure to be plenty of differences of opinion between them which will give them the proper opportunity. But why should political disagreement be specially fatal to domestic peace ? Theology is now a fruitful source of disagreement. If the husband is the free­ thinker, he does not suffer, because he does not allow his wife to worry him too far ; but if the free-thinking is on the side of the wife, matters are apt to become uncomfortable. There is only one way to remedy this difficulty. Let the husband feel, as the wife now does, that between two grown-up people control of one by the other is an absurdity. Bitterness arises now from disagreement, because the wife who forms her opinion for herself is regarded as a rebel to lawful authority. Remove the authority, which is a tyranny, and people will readily “ agree to differ.” There will pos­ sibly be a little more care before marriage about the opinions of the lady wooed than there is now, when the man fancies that he can mould the docile girl into what shape he pleases, and the future happiness of both is marred if the woman happens to be made of bright steel, instead of plastic clay. In any case, Parliament is scarcely bound tp treat one half of England with injustice, lest the other half should find its authority curtailed. One by one I have faced the only arguments against the extension of the franchise to women with which I am ac­ quainted. You yourselves must judge how far these argu­ ments are valid, and on which side right and justice rest. I would add that I feel sure that, when the matter is fairly placed before them, most men will sympathise with, and assist our cause. Some noble and brave men have come forward to join our ranks already, and speak boldly for �r4 POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. woman’s cause, and work faithfully for its triumph. The mass of men only need to study our claims in order to accept them. They have been reared to regard themselves as our natural superiors; small blame to them that they take the upper seats. Kind and gentle as many of them •are, working hard for wife and children, thinking much of women and loving them well, it cannot be expected that they should readily understand that their relations to the weaker sex are founded on an injustice. But if they want to see how false is their idea of peace, and how misled they are when they think women’s position satisfactory, let them go out and see what the laws are where the power they give is wielded by brutality and tyranny. Let them try to imagine what women suffer who are too weak and timid to resist the strength under whose remorseless exercise they writhe in vain , let them try to appreciate the sharper agony of those whose bolder hearts and stronger natures defy their tyrants, and break, at. whatever cost, their chains. Laws must be tested by their working ; these laws which make the woman the helpless servant of man are not enforced in happy homes; but they exist, and elsewhere they are used. Injustice is never good ; it is never even safe. There is a higher life before us, a nobler ideal of marriage union, a fairer development of individual natures, a surer hope of wider happiness. Liberty for every human being, equality before the law for all in public and in private, fraternity of men and women in peaceful friendship, these are the promise of the dawning day. Co-workers in every noble labour, co­ partners in every righteous project, co-soldiers in every just cause, men and women in the time to come shall labour, think, and struggle side by side. The man shall bring his greater strength and more sustained determination, the woman her quicker judgment and purer heart, till man shall grow tenderer, and woman stronger, man more pure, and woman more brave and free. Till at last, generations hence, the race shall develop into a strength and a beauty at present unimagined, and men and women shall walk this fair earth hand-in-hand, diverse, yet truly one, set each to each— “As perfect music unto noble words.3 �BOOKS BY ANNIE BESANT. The Freethinker’s Text-Book.—Part II. By Annie Besant.— “On Christianity.” Section I.— “ Christianity: its Evidences Unreliable.” Section II.—“Its Origin Pagan.” Section III.—“Its Morality Fallible.” Section IV.—“Condemned by its History.” Bound in cloth, 3s. 6d. History of the Great French Revolution.—By Annie Besant. Cloth, 2s. 6d. My Path to Atheism.—Collected Essays of Annie Besant.—The Deity of Jesus—Inspiration—Atonement—Eternal Punishment_ Prayer—Revealed Religion—and the Existence of God, all examined and rejected ; together with some Essays on the Book of Common Prayer. Cloth, lettered, 4s. Marriage: as it was, as it is, and as it should be. By Annie Besant. In limp cloth, Is. The Jesus 'of the Gospels and The Influence of Chris­ tianity.—Verbatim Report of Two Nights’ Debate between the Rev. A. Hatchard and Annie Besant, at the Hall of Science, London. Is. To be obtained of the Freethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. �PAMPHLETS BY ANNIE BESANT. The True Basis of Morality. A Plea for Utility as the Standard of Morality... ... ... ... ... q Auguste Comte. Biography of the great French Thinker, with Sketches of his Philosophy, his Religion, and his Sociology. Being a short and convenient resumé of Positivism for the general reader ... ... ... ... .. q Giordano Bruno, the Freethought Martyr of the Sixteenth Century. His Life and Works ... ... ... 0 The Political Status of Women. A Plea for Women’s Rights ... 0 Civil and Religious Liberty, with some Hints taken from the French Revolution ... ... ... ... ... q The Gospel of Atheism ... ... ... ... .. q Is the Bible Indictable ? ... ... ... ... ... q England, India, and Afghanistan ... ... ... ... q The Story of Afghanistan ... ... ... ... 0 The preceding two pamphlets bound together in limp cloth, Is. The Law of Population : Its consequences, and its Rearing upon Human Conduct and Morals. Fortieth thousand ... 0 An additional twenty-five thousand of this have also been printed in America, and translations have been issued and widely sold in Holland, Italy, and France. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity... ... ... .. 0 Landlords, Tenant Farmers, and Labourers ... ... 0 The God Idea in the Revolution ... ... ... ... 1 The Gospel of Christianity and the Gospel of Freethought ... 0 English Marseillaise, with Music ... ... ... ... 0 English Republicanism ... ... ... ... ... q Essays, bound in one volume, cloth ... ... ... 3 Christian Progress ... ... ... ... ... q The English Land System ... ... ... ... 0 Ethics of Punishment ... ... ... ... ... () Large Portrait of Mrs. Besant, fit for framing, 2s. 6d. A splendidly executed Steel Engraving of Mrs. Besant, price 2d. London : Fkeethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. d.. 2 6 1 2 3 2 2 3 2 & 1 1 a 2 1 1 a 2 1 1 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The political status of women Description An account of the resource Edition: 3rd ed. Place of publication: London Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Books and pamphlets by Annie Besant advertised on and inside back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [188-?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N069 Subject The topic of the resource Women's rights Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The political status of women), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Women-Suffrage Women's Rights https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/6ceced6ee8e4975b9a5a02cca1497d4f.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=QFlQpmQJJrRZIVWKpFp%7EoYNSvCJGa7ZdS1rflMAUHnp1NMpn21bwLttiW6eX5ugMSkqzHwhufUWnntSinoY8VJWBhluVleL88zotMlPgJKRLTxsfbe5tQxAYUvar2MR-c6Mxly3Fkq7B7SIhd0SiHBUwXsKZmdiqhxtwQ28RqqAYQgY%7ER4ULYZID1hepBp0plzmwQg6Rs87rTFbSQ4durnQ1jmen0VeXiRfcso9xf7WEpB0br75D4ZkUb91Q8T3RdZ2QDIf1Umpj80U7YBxMUKVK9otqLHlqco7UyuJA3Bz13aJhXYLuigZ98aBw8mnBdP8YEppXqOxBMIFdPQq-Fw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 19860e1e392392fe2c6662c14f975b77 PDF Text Text e>2^7£ NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY ISH’S CHARGE TO WOMEN. BY H. R. S. DALTON, B.A., AUTHOR OF “the education of girls” AND “religion and priestcraft.” LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. PRICE FOURPENCE. �LONDON :• PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. �PREFACE. The following extract is the concluding portion of the same book (second or prose volume) from which the author’s former pamphlet, “ The Education of Girls,” was taken. The asterisks mark omission of such passages as would be likely to give the reader a false impression, when sepa­ rated from the main work to which they belong and which as intended for scholars. ��ISH’S CHARGE TO WOMEN. I hold that all fundamental reforms must begin at the foundation, not at the summit. The foundation of a State is its masses, not its select few. The few may influence the many to move, but move without them they cannot; •or, if they do, the new position thus taken up is soon found inharmonious and untenable. We cannot be just in our estimation of historic despots, lay or ecclesiastical, without recognizing the fact that the serfdom of any people is in the last resort its own fault, after all, or •at any rate is its own doing. No one can be king or priest but by consent or submission of the masses over whom he presides; the mode of bringing about that acquiescence may be another matter; but there it is in any case, and is indispensable to the existence of any domination, good or bad. If you tell me that minds of high quality and culture •easily lead the sheep-like plebs, as these in their turn govern ■domestic animals by virtue of human understanding—I reply that the people are not born to be sheep-like, while the lower animals cannot help being what they are. The same kind of effort which creates an aristocracy, or the more powerful aristocracy of talent, would, if exerted, at least raise the masses to a capacity for self-government in matters of routine ; so that the idea of a divine right to govern despotically from above, is as one-sided and unphilosophic as the opposite extreme one, that the masses ■can act without organization. I do not say, mind you, that the masses are to be expected to originate the ideas which lead to change ; what I say is that no matter by whom pro­ gress has been conceived, it must be executed by the mass moving voluntarily under leaders, not by leaders trying to move the unwilling mass. As, then, little argument is needed to show that woman’s influence in the home and in social gatherings is already next to omnipotent in swaying the prejudices both of her own and of the other sex, I may safely affirm that whatever �ish’s charge to women. changes are to be made in the old grooves of thought and' feeling by the present adult generation—I mean apart from the boundless resource at hand in a revolutionized training of the young—must depend for their reality and permanence on the hearty co-operation, if not the independent will, of the female community at large. The emancipation of women must be effected primarily by women themselves. Since the opponents of woman’s emancipation are sofond of babbling the old ditty that her sphere is the home, I will take them at their word; not, indeed, to the extent of admitting that woman’s sphere ought to be anywise restricted to the home, but to the extent of giving themcarte blanche to exaggerate her power there as they please. I believe their most dilated expressions about, the sway of woman’s secret influence will not much overshoot the mark. And what is more, the men who are most perma­ nently affected by it are those of strong character, because the source of such strength lies in receptivity whereby they consolidate the results of others’ experience. Hence the rulers among men being themselves subtly and secretly guided by women, it may be said with some truth that women govern the world after all, though they are denied' any formal acknowledgment of their sway. How, then, women of our day, do you employ your powers, such as they are ? I do not so much ask with what motives you employ them, as with what results. The motives may be generally conscientious; but are the results generally beneficial ? What has your influence done toward improving and ennobling mankind ? Has it produced in­ ternational peace and concord ? Has it established internal content with any people ? Has it removed the injustice of the contrast between pauperism and wasteful superfluity ? Has it uniformly discouraged all cruel sports—Spanish bull­ fights, for example—wherein helpless- lower animals are the sufferers ? Has it done anything which might not equally well have been brought about in due time, had each com­ munity consisted only of men ? I fear we shall find it hard to prove that women have moved en masse toward many— if, indeed, any—really humanizing events. Good and highminded women there are in abundance, scattered over the world; but there are also good and high-minded men. What I seek to discover is something special and peculiar which has been wrought by women acting in a collective �ish’s charge to women. 7 capacity; something which shows that, the man-breeding office apart, this world would not have got on as well with­ out them. I believe we shall have a tremendous revolution; and then order, the true and Divine Order, will emerge out of the chaos. But all this does not. and cannot make the present abuses tolerable; and it is my duty to place them before you without gloss, however little grace and favour I may win by so doing. What are we to conclude from the obvious facts just noted ? Anything against woman’s untutored nature ? No. The nature of woman is faultless; it is what women are made that is corrupt and abominable, amn VJn nnu> in Corruptions Heis .? Nay. Her children, theirs is the spot, perverse and crooked generation that they are ! Women are capable of everything both for good and evil; and it is evil that they are mostly reared amidst. And so far, of course, the fault is not theirs individually; but it is their fault individually as well as collectively, that when they are called upon to rise, either by men ' or by other women possessed of exceptional wisdom, they are deaf to every appeal that ranges 'higher than petty personalities which afford occasion for over-reaching and mean jealousy. Esprit de corps, with the average female, means nothing like the dignity of the female sex ; it means only the ephemeral consideration one clique or party may succeed in gaining over another, to go in its turn to the wall when new favourites come into fashion. How easily, too, the warmest friendship between women is cooled and changes into spite when one of them happens to obtain a little worthless social triumph, or still more when she wins a race for the condescension of one of us sons of God ! The dear sweet angelic darling of yesterday is the nasty detestable creature of to-day, as all black now as she was all white then. I do not need to be told that women, like men, must have their occasional quarrels ; but a fit of anger and even a fierce resentment prolonged until the cause is removed, are quite different things from a systematic black envy which is called forth by the success of a friend, and would rather hinder than helj? many an acknowledged good work because it is associated with a particular person and a rival. In the face of such treachery in the camp, such untrust­ worthiness of women in relation to each other, is it any wonder that the female race has not yet shaken off its �ISH S CHARGE TO WOMEN. vassalage? Unity of purpose and of plan is needed to effect the liberation ; and the only unity that I have observed consists in a common consent to do nothing that may efface personal importance for the general good. I do not deny that there are exceptions to be found, but they are as one in a thousand. What, then, is the use of trying to better those who virtually reply that they do not want to be bettered? To what purpose is the multitude of philo­ sophies and sciences and studies and arts to which many of you, female friends, equally with us give both reverence and practical attention, when as an answer to the urgent representation that study ought, among other things, to raise you to a position of utility where it will be possible for your hidden capacities to come forth, you treat what is said as though such notions were mere jugglers' tours de force, or curiosities kept in a cupboard to be shown to visitors and put back again when they have afforded amuse­ ment ? For I will challenge any man who has woman’s cause at heart—and I am thankful to believe that there do exist a few such men at last—to broach opportunely any depart­ ment of this great subject, say at a quiet evening or afternoon party where there are young ladies to talk to—not some two or three superior women gathered with difficulty out of the society of a metropolis, but just chance acquaintances of the average stamp—and I will ask you to imagine for your­ selves what kind of response he will meet with or what impression he will make. Immediately the strange novelties of reform are propounded, the girls will glance into his face to see if he is essaying a sally of humour at which they are expected to laugh: and finding that he is not, they will politely compliment him on his chivalrous and liberal feel­ ings toward ladies, fancying that this stale old compliment was what he was fishing for, of course. And then, as soon as they get an opportunity to change the subject without rude abruptness, they will lightly laugh it all off, as who should say, £ Ah, these world-reforming ideas are very romantic, and gentlemen can make very pretty speeches to ladies upon them; but of course they wouldn’t do for real life; we should all be unsexed and lose our chance of a good match.’ I really do not apprehend having exaggerated the case; the shallowness of the average young lady’s mind is something that must be probed to be believed. The pro­ cess is not without interest for the curious psychologist; he need but press her a little toward first principles upon any �ish’s charge to women. 9 topic whatever, even her favourite one, and he will soon find that her first principles consist' in some great—or still better, fashionable—person’s ipse dixit, which it has never occurred to her to examine, far less to call in question. From religion downwards—or perhaps I should say upwards in this case—-the finished young lady does and thinks almost everything that she does and thinks merely because some one told her to do so ; and it does not much matter to her who that some one was. Independent judgment is, in the first place, beyond her capacity, and in the second, as indecorous in her opinion as independent action would be. So there she lives and moves and has her being, a flaccid automaton of the Proprieties, an Elegant Pheno­ menon, from whom both quantity and quality have been successfully washed out; her very talent, if she has any, having been trimmed and pared to avoid originality and to produce indifferent copies of the work of some one with a name. Such is the description of building we style a young lady ; and of ladies not young it may be said that the de­ parted grandeur of a youth like this leaves traces of its glory in the midst of their decay. These are not pleasant contemplations, but they have to be faced; nor can I halt in the task to be performed through fear of provoking the enmity of those I would serve. Yet let not the position be misunderstood. If instead of what I now see when I look around in the world, I saw women everywhere awake to their degradation, complaining bitterly of their moral chains, and striving unanimously to cast them off, with mean jealousies and petty rivalries for worth­ less objects laid aside in presence of that great purpose, just as the heterogeneous states of a federation waive their differences in order to withstand a common enemy ; not a hint would I then have breathed touching their acknow­ ledged evils, which I should regard as already put away by the earnest determination that they shall be. But when, so far from perceiving such a mind in women, I find them for the most part indolent and apathetic, and that, not because their sympathies and interests are absorbed in some other great problem demanding imperatively a prompt solu­ tion, but merely because they find it less troublesome to bow before idols than to ’ be valiant for any form of truth upon earth, less irksome to submit to small trials and feel small pleasures, to live in a sphere altogether small, than to ennoble themselves by one serious effort; then I �IO . ish’s charge to women. am bound to say that it is not so much vice or crime which can drag human nature down to the lowest depths, as this vile, sneaking, pitiful weakness of character, which amalga­ mates only with the worst side of experience, not having energy to turn adversity to account, to make past pain an instrument of present wisdom. All things in lower nature either answer their purpose perfectly as they are, or struggle onwards in gradual development to its accomplishment. She alone who is the crown and archetype of nature wilfully stands in her own light, and perpetuates her own and man’s misery. The purpose for which it is dispensed to us to be born into this world is twofold—the formation of noble character in the individual, and the furtherance of the race toward development of the true Humanity, the stature of the fulness of its own divinity. But . the attainment of either of these objects of existence depends upon the part assigned to each being played by each and not- shifted on to someone else’s shoulders. It is folly, indeed, to refuse to learn from others, but it is worse than folly never to achieve anything oneself from which others may learn. He who does the first may be a self-punishing egoist, but he who defaults in the second is a cumberer of the ground. To dread being, original, where originality means production of something beautiful or useful, is to shun humanity itself; and yet it is a patent fact that women as a class do systematically hide under a bushel whatever gifts they possess ; or if they let them appear, it is with timidity and uncertainty, caused, not by a doubt whether what they originate be good of its kind—such hesitation is sometimes desirable—but as to what people will say, especially the people who lead to-day’s fashions. There are plenty of brilliant original ideas to be ■ found among women, even as society has made women; but there is a want of wholeness and consistency and moral sinew when these ideas come to be definitely put forward, which completely prevents them from forcing a place for themselves in the current of actual life. The reason I take to be that the head and the heart do not work together. The woman’s heart is always trying to pull her aright; her poor addled head is always sending her wrong. Yet, moreover, in speaking thus confidently of the inherent goodness of woman’s heart, let it be clearly understood that I mean her innate feelings, not that mess of washy senti- �ish’s charge TO WOMEN. II ments which has been inculcated upon her. These senti­ ments only too often follow the lead of the head, and render the woman to all intents and purposes little better than heartless....... I assure you this is no ugly phantom of my own conjuring up; I speak from personal knowledge, from what I have actually seen of respectable and so-called reli­ gious women; and if the majority here can plead not .guilty to any charge of this sort, I cannot but think that the chief reason is because they have never been tempted. Often have I myself known the male as unwilling to let himself down to the depth of 'feminine heartlessness as he is unable, on the 'other hand, to. rise to the heights of feminine goodness; often have I known her who is bom the Saviour of mankind, and the form of heaven, trying in vain to eradicate all truthfulness and tenderness from the heart of him who is born in the opposite character and form. It. is even so. One woman regards another Simply as a weed which may be allowed to grow in peace so long as she herself does not happen to covet its place; when she does, it is to be torn thence by the root. * And who are these heartless supplanters, once more ? Do they belong to the “dangerous classes,” are they the companions ■of burglars and garotters ? No; they are the very same per­ sons whose lady v. gentleman conduct is in the most un­ exceptionable taste, and who, if you were to hint at a more natural and less selfish and one-sided code of sexual morality than the ecclesiastical one still in vogue, would dis­ play by countenance and gesture the very latest thing out in ■shocked modesty, or perhaps quote an apostle against you. Their reading of the duty towards one’s neighbour, how­ ever, is so far original as to consist in this, that while a woman who takes a fancy to a man may rightfully lacerate another woman’s, deepest affections wholesale, and make the rest of her life miserable, she must, still try to keep up appearances so far as attainment of the object will allow. Hearts maybe broken, but Society must not be scandalised. Think not that I am taking too much upon myself in ■censuring the frailties of others, while I of course have other frailties of. my own that are doubtless quite as bad in their way. It is not your frailties, my friends, but rather your * Dialogist Ish is haranguing a female audience from a platform. Let us hope that the consciences of most of his hearers would acquit them of this bitter and sweeping charge. �ish’s charge to women. 12 fictitious virtues that I inveigh against. I will even go so far as to say that were it not for these rotten “ virtues ” of yours, your frailties would have remained mere momentary impulses, to be overcome the next moment by a better impulse. If only you had not been made’ such models of Christian behaviour, it is probable you would have attained something of real human worth, and the world would have been a step nearer toward the knowledge of what a woman can be. This is no place to recur to the now well ventilated subject of sensual passions; but I cannot pass on without saying thus much, that so long as women think it their duty to cultivate flabbiness and imbecility under the names of delicacy and innocence, it is really they, the chaste ladies, who are accountable for whatever morbid abuses of the flesh may exist in the world. * * * There are several morbid gratifications which are un­ doubtedly injurious; and it is for these, I say, that the whole race of women is to blame, just in proportion as they truckle to the depositaries of effete superstition, and submit to be locked up in the village pound of an ignorant and corrupt prudery. Another matter which also makes the few champions of women’s cause among our sex despair is the puny, febrile, baseless character of feminine resolution. To adduce an example : many a good essay or article has of late years been written in journals' and periodicals by women on women’s rights and duties ; • productions so able, so graceful and even scholarlike, so replete with combined sweetness and strength, as to show clearly how women might, if they chose, add [in their own persons the divine presence and influence of womanhood to all those powers that are dis­ tinctly human in men. But only let a leading newspaper or other organ of public opinion print an illogical sour critique against the newly come forward champion of woman’s liberty, reproving her in the old set terms and phrases of conventional pig-headedness, for want of modesty, &c., &c., and we almost invariably see the hopeful volunteer “ subside into her boots,” with apologetic explaining away and deprecation of censure, instead of gladly seizing the opportunity for an uncompromising and crushing reply. �ish’s charge to women. 13 What can be done for a class so destitute "of back-bone that it allows its dearest wishes to be snubbed down by shallow critics, when it has, after all and in the last resort, full power to enforce them 2 Want of self-assertion and selfreliance in the face of public prejudice casts a not-altogether undeserved discredit upon the quieter virtues of kindness and generosity which women exhibit so largely. A slave’s virtues cannot be regarded quite as those of a freeman. They may proceed from spontaneous goodness, but the world is more likely to set them down as drilled habits or the results of weakness rather than strength, the products of compulsion and fear rather - than of love. The courage of meek endurance may win approbation—especially from the oppressor, whose interest it suits, of course—but it does not win the great battles of life; it does not further mankind toward happiness and unity. On the contrary, were there no other virtues in the world than those which fashion stamps as the Frauen-Zimmer virtues, the ornamental qualities of the lady’s bower—the state of modern society, bad as it is already, would then be far worse. Abject superstition overhead; narrow selfishness around, broken only by occasional idolatry of some favourite, the roc’s egg of the season; thorns and briars of evil temper and suspi­ cion and spiteful envy and hollow artifice and mean motives and “ whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie,” besetting every path underfoot—all that is noble and aspiring and progres­ sive in these hard days of ours would be eliminated from life, and the peace of hell which hateth all understanding would have to be purchased by each one of us at the price of degradation to be helpless sloths or murderous reptiles before our time. Another among the evil consequences of a false standard of honour set up in female society is the vulgar snobbish emulation of each class of social rank by that one just below it in the scale. Women, having been educated to frivolity, can seldom look upon works of any kind as honourable in themselves. . They regard them as mere stepping-stones to personal distinction and social consideration, as instruments of mammon worship, to be cast aside when done with and to be kept as much in the background as possible while they are being used. Hence they do not care to excel in their several stations, but each must needs trespass on the station next above. For example, the maid-servant, having �14 ish’s charge to women. no conception of any more solid mental pleasure, stints herself in the necessaries of health in order to buy a smart bonnet or cloak and make herself look as much of a “lady” as possible on Sundays and other holidays; often the un­ becoming ill-assorted finery is a direct though bad imitation of something worn by her own mistress. Of course she has as much right to her own tastes as the mistress herself; but that is no reason why either should be frivolous. Then look at the mistress whom she apes. Probably she is a lady properly so called, but of 'inconsiderable fortune and therefore not justified in attempting the display, whether in dress or other matters, which her neighbour the nobleman’s wife or large proprietress can make without sacrifice. But she must needs in her turn ape her titled or opulent neigh­ bour and live at agony point in order to keep up a style which may make her seem to hold a different position from that she really does. And so on with each class in its way; each resolves on seeming what it is not; and so long as women act thus, is it to be expected that men should keep themselves free from the taint ? Snobbishness, vulgarity, hollowness, heartlessness, whatever is greasy and unclean in polished morals will always remain prominent characteristics of our civilization, so long as our women have no worthier ambition than that of ephemeral peacock rivalry—a rivalry in which the successful competitor gains little that is real, except the spiteful envy and back-biting of the dear sisters she has outstripped in the discreditable race. I fear too that the women of England are more to blame than any others for the spreading of this social ulcer. However it may suit foreigners to have their jokes against England about this or that, it is none the less a fact patent enough to any one who will take the trouble to observe, that this country exercises a deeper influence upon the ideas of the epoch than any other in the world. This is not the place— nor do I profess to be historian or anthropologist enough— to inquire why it is so. What is more to the purpose is to ask whether we whose example is secretly so powerful abroad are taking care that that example shall be a good one. Are we endeavouring honestly to colonize the lands, so far as we may, with justice and truthfulness and humanity ? Perhaps we are; but what success is the endeavour likely to have, while the very source of justice and rectitude and fellow-feeling remains by our own consent and act a poisoned spring ? Bear this in mind, my �ish’s charge to women. 1-5 countrywomen: it is not merely the house or village or town you each inhabit, not merely your own small fidgeting and discontented circle, that suffers by your studied falsification of the name and nature of Woman ; there is a great world outsideTupon which your lives collectively and individually work with occult but immense effect; and you are each responsible to a far greater extent than you have any notion of for the happiness or misery of entire mankind. • If, then, you would not shrink from the task you are born into this world to fulfil, you must alter your course and cast aside your shams, though it be pain and grief to you; aye even if those shams constitute the whole of your present religion and nearly half of your present morality. I would not, my hearers, that you should think I am too swayed by passion to form a just judgment on these matters. Nor am I conscious of ingratitude to the Past; I do not forget that what is worn out and worse than useless now, was once justly hailed as a deliverance and a blessing. But I do refuse to admit the doctrine that expedients which were good for a bye-gone age should necessarily hold good for the present age. For instance, both Christianity and Christian marriage have had their day. The Christian form of hero-worship was a step in the direction of anthropomor­ phism from the negative Judaism which was its immediate predecessor; and as regards old heathendom, Christianity was better than creeds which sanctioned human sacrifice and torture. And Christian marriage, no doubt, came as a boon to .races of women liable to be bought and sold by the drove. But those times are gone, and we need not continue to apply the remedies which belonged to them; if we do, they become injuries instead of remedies, like a course of medicine which is still persisted in after its work in the body has long been done. Let us render the Past all the thanks due to it, and then bow it out of the door. We do not want it or its morals any longer; we are entering upon a different dispensation. We are getting up from all-fours upon our feet, and intend to walk without external props. We require no St. This or St. That to tell us our duty or supply us with canons of faith; the night of authority is past, the sunrise of rational liberty is at hand; the ungrown nations are beginning to foretaste their manhood, and they will not longer submit to be tied with the leading-strings of tradition. Let those who would so tie them beware ; they �*6 ish’s charge to women. make the attempt at their peril. An irreversible fiat has gone forth against the old order of things. Delenda est Carthago. It rests with you, women of our generation, to overcome the insanity of being ruled by a nightmare. You alone can remove the dreamy incubus of these false and hollow morals which have pinched and worried the masses of mankind until crime and cruelty became the inevitable outlets of suppressed heat; it rests with you to say,. Let there be light; and the rays of liberty shall dart into every gloomy abode of scowling hatred and murderous violence and pining misery, turning the blackness of darkness into rainbow colours, and the poisonous reek of disease into the zephyr of rejuve­ nescent health. The philanthropists of centuries have essayed in vain what you can accomplish in a few years if you will; great men here and there have educated them­ selves by long and painful ordeals, and when their steel has been tempered at last, they have, in their own persons, withstood the pressure and shocks of the current, and have persuaded a sprinkling of lesser minds to stand by them as against it; but you have the power, if you choose, to turn the course of the current itself, so that vice will become difficult and virtue easy, not indeed in the distorted sense hitherto borne by those terms, but when virtue shall have come to mean something that benefits oneself and others, and vice the deliberate preference of morbid excitement to sound and healthful' pleasures at hand. For, indeed, as things are yet, it may really be a question whether “virtue ” is not, on the whole, a rather worse evil than vice. It rests with you, I say, to look back shortly from a position of dignity and beneficence upon these grey cold days through which we are passing, with a shudder at your former infatuation. Ele­ vated to the divine throne, your birthplace, in matters spiritual, and set free to live instead of vegetating and wasting away mil­ dewed, in matters mundane—you will then, for the first time in history, become sensible that a woman ought not to be merely a well-dressed female biped; that she exists for something more than to make a little show and a little fuss in a little place and then vanish. Strike with a will, and you will soon find out the strength of your arm. You will soon find out what a pitiful weapon the alleged superior strength of men is against the fixed determination of woman to conquer by the power of sexual �ISH S CHARGE TO WOMEN. 17 fascination J I mean, plainly, to reward those who will stand by and advance her social and other rights, and punish all those who oppose them, no matter how they stand related. * It is useless to disguise the fact that women can and must enforce their rights. To trust in the generosity of the essen­ tially selfish is like waiting for the sun to rise in the west; those who will have to be deposed for woman’s elevation are not likely to yield but under compulsion. The day for that hope has passed; the crisis of your destiny is at hand, •and the reserve must be called up. Thus you see, women of every stage and station in life, it is to your better nature and your higher faculties that I would appeal in order to awaken you to a sense of the . evils you are fostering and to the ready modes of putting an end to them. But it is also my duty to show, that if you are determined to “keep the universal track which vain persons have trodden,”+ vain will be found those tinsel de­ fences of yours on which you rely for the conservation of a tinsel society; your narrow prudishness, your regulated ■coyness, your paste-board dignity—not too dignified, how­ ever, to stoop to any meanness—your stereotyped recipes for-catching- eligible men in matrimonial toils, your creed that marriage is a woman’s stimmum bonum to which she is to sacrifice every sound quality with which she was born ; vain, I repeat, will be these old bulwarks against the iron mis,sites ready to be hurled at them, when the victims of long imposture shall have found out the worthlessness of those ia whose hard service they have groaned with unrewarded patience, and shall have risen like one man to shatter their chains and grind the forgers of them in the dust. You ■cannot win in such a struggle, but you can by thus taking the wrong side aggravate all the miseries it may engender. It is, then, a practical question, female friends, which you at this day called upon to determine—no mere philosophic ■Speculation like the Sexual Symbol Theory, for example— but a vital matter which concerns this world rather than the ■Other, at all events, in the first and foremost place. You * This, of course, applies only to vindicating the rights of the female The Dialogist does not mean that women would be justified in making the home unhappy for the sake of any mere private personal whim. sex at large. f jib* »nn 10m note ninon [Job xxii., 15.] dSv nnstn �13 ish’s charge to women. have to choose between two positions for your sex at large, and so for your individual selves as members of it, either of which positions wholly excludes the other. By the one you will be emancipated from the long term of bondage which has dwarfed your minds and enervated your constitutions ; you will be made to feel an independent dignity instead of the menial one of belonging to a husband —in theory at any rate—as a dog or horse might belong to you; you will take your equal share in that humanizing sense of responsibility which the holding a worthy office in the human commonwealth and in that of your own country begets; you will know what freedom means, that it is poor freedom to be physically at large without having the soul free from influences of superstition more imperious and wayward and hurtful than any tyrant’s commands; and -in this true freedom you will lift your heads up and away from gazing upon the footprints of some historic hero and expect­ ing the empty shadow of his name to support you in the inevitable trials of life. You will become conscious of a power for good over all the departments of human—aye of animal—existence, very different from maudlin sentiment and impotent benevolence that wishes well but does nothing. You will see before you definite objects of a worthy ambi­ tion, which your own talents and energies may win without fear of being thwarted by bad laws and worse customs established by men in their selfishness as against you. It will be yours to command wars to cease in all the world, and nations to adjust their differences by arbitration, so that the miseries of wholesale maiming and bloodshed shall be counted among the horrors of vanished night; and crime under your wiser administration shall be reduced at all events from being an organized system into an occasional result of temporary passion. Above all, in this new posi­ tion, your rightful place, you will be the recognized home and source of each nobler human aspiration, and everything great and good and beautiful that the whole world contains, will be valued and admired in its relation to you. Your special pleasures will no longer be confounded with mere animal wants or with the coarseness of profane revelry• they will be understood as constituting that Holy Place which nothing unclean may come nigh. Thus known asthe prime source and final end of every keen physical delight and the one worthy object of every sublime ideal ecstasy, at the same time the'never-failing help and comfort �ish’s charge to women. 19. in what sorrow and-darkness may still remain—the king­ doms of this world will have become the kingdoms of your mercy and truth meeting together, your righteousness and peace kissing each other. As the waters cover the sea,, so will your knowledge cover the earth, its Saviour and Love and Life. Turn now to the other side, the alternative position. According to this you will indolently suffer things to go on as they are, even if you do not actively strive to keep them so. As a matter of fact, you1 are no more able to prevent the great final consummation, the “ one far off divine event to which the whole creation moves,” and which consists in * the liberation and elevation of your sex, than you can stop the next comet. But it is easy to conjecture what disastrous results will accrue to yourselves in the meanwhile, if you persist in suffering for a bad cause through moral cowardice or perverse obstinacy. You will forfeit the good opinion of those whose admiration you evidently value more than selfrespect ; their affections and esteem being transferred to that class whon| you make outcasts and despise. You will bring honesty and honour into discredit by showing that they who clamour for those principles are themselves hollow and vain; and narrow self-seeking will through your fault reconimend itself as the only safe rule for the conduct of life. You will give a. colouring of justice to the brutalities brutal men commit against their wives or other women, if they say, “ It’s all very well to preach about conduct to women; but you’ll find, sir, if you try it, that to be kind to a woman is only to feed a snake to bite you.”' By conde­ scending to fight man, where you must or wish to fight him, with weapons more ignoble than his own, you will still insure, as you have hitherto done, the easy victory of his; worse nature over his better and itsyet more easy victory over you. . By your contrivance the name of “ old woman” will remain the contemptuous epithet it always has been, and that of young woman will only fare better because of the sensual gratifications attached to youth, sensual gratifica­ tions having no more of the spiritual in them, if so much, as the coition of beasts of the field. By this perversity of' yours, misunderstanding, the cause of so much otherwise causeless hatred, will be perpetuated in the world, there being no common ground for the sympathy of diverse religions, philosophies and ethics ; so that no new light will. �20 ISHS CHARGE TO WOMEN. ■ever be able to appear as light to all, nor will aught be meat for one soul without being poison for others ; conflict, con­ flict everywhere will be the normal state of the inhabitants of the earth, there being no judge to set the opponents right. Your rule will not be a rule of right, but of cunning inspired by malignity against each other; and it will be con­ stantly over-ruled by the decision of men whom you gra­ tuitously make judges in their own cause. Discontent, beginning in your own hearts and homes, will grow louder and louder as it pervades all classes and expresses itself in various forms of unreason and disorder, until all are ready for an outbreak which will inundate the privileges of classes, and necessitate a painful reconstruction of society from its slowly settling foundations. Thus at every turn scorn and contumely will meet you; the God of your faith will prove a liar, and the men you idolize will sneer at you and turn to those other women whom you set at naught. Heavenly aid a mockery, and trust in man a disappointment, there will remain for you no refuge but the hell of your own concoct­ ing, where womanhood and manhood melt away alike. tK- Rouse yourselves, then, women, from your criminal supine­ ness, and take your destiny into your own hands, and be truly women and not “ dumb driven cattle ” without the cattle’s good qualities. The time is ripe for your united action ; action that is not united may accomplish a little, but not what the exigencies of the case demand. Make common cause for the assertion of your rights social, political, pro­ fessional, and religious; if assertion be not sufficient to obtain them, make common cause for coercion in that way you can coerce. Try and look at the matter seriously and ■act in it seriously ; do not treat it as a new sensation, which is to have a season’s run and be done with, lest haply the next great season’s sensation be one you will not like at all. Strive, above all things, to cast that slough of yours, that worst and most hideous part of undeveloped feminine ■character, your mutual jealousy and envy. When men are �ish’s charge TO WOMEN. 21 jealous of each other—well, they are fools for their pains * and that is ail; having no unborrowed spiritual worth, they cannot throw such away by misconduct. But you who have and are the very spiritual gold, and yet tarnish it by thwart­ ing and hating one another, especially when you do this in reference to rivalry for the admiration of some particular man or men, are guilty of profaning the Sanctuary itself, so that they who approach it in order to be cleansed become but doubly defiled. Rouse yourselves and doubt not your capacity to work OUt your own perfect regeneration and ours. The evidences, of your capacity are plentiful, and are daily increasing, as a Slightly more liberal education brings them out. No candid observer can fail to remark how, when a woman does take Up a thing in good earnest, she accomplishes it with a finish &nd grace unattainable by men, though her work may as yet lack that weight and depth which a man derives from his advantageous mental training both of private study and of public association. This training, then, is one of the things you have to insist upon, my friends, if you would choose the upward path ; and there is now no middle course between going up and going down. The age is in a transition state; old land­ marks are crumbling away, and new ones are not yet set up; the mariner has lost his former chart, and another is not -provided for him; the light in the compass binnacle hasgone out, and there is no pilot across the waves of this troublesome world. The portents of the latter day come thick upon us in the ever louder refusal on all sides to bow to the old ipse dixits ; the spirit of independence is breaking out violently, and is only here and there moderated by breadth of view. International associations, trade unions,, strikes, democratic forces of every kind, reasonable and unreasonable, are surging to the front; and though with Anglo-Saxon peoples they may rarely lead to serious riotsz their operation is all the more sure for being comparatively Steady and quiet. The so-called conservative section of society has not its heart in the defence of that which it defends; while the opposite party is not exactly certain what it is clamouring for, but would rather “ go it blind ” in the direction of any smash than stifle and stagnate longer under our fathers’ regime. Yours, women, yours alone is the healing hand that can allay all this fermentation ; not, indeed, in the way of arrest- �22 xsh’s charge to women. ing the great changes that are to come about, but so as to prevent animosity and injustice between the classes affected by them, and all classes must be affected in their turn. Learning, in the first place, to look upon each other with different eyes from what has hitherto been, your first thought will not be that of shining at each other’s expense, but of .grouping together to form a beautiful and efficient whole. Here—in the mutual love of women—may be realised the enjoyment of passions neither degrading nor defiling. It may be, however, that no such stimulant is needed to awaken women to a sense of their mutual obligation ; and in any -case when once they are awakened, the keen wits heretofore so sharp to create and foster unworthy class jealousies and estrangement, will be as ready and able to cement cordiality •and good understanding. Classes will not revile one another when each and all have felt the sweet feminine influence from each; bitterness will be short-lived as the hoar-frost melting before the morning sun. By the advent of woman’s reign on earth as in heaven will then be realised what a ■contemporary poet has made the answer of Liberty— “ Liberty ! what of the night ? I feel not the red rains fall; Hear not the tempest at all, Nor thunder in heaven any more : All the distance is white With the soundless feet of the sun ; Night, with the woes that it wore Night is over and done.”* The time for that great change is coming near, and those who refuse to join in the movement once fairly afoot, will dimply be swept away by it. They will have to go in the same direction after all, only with a bad grace and without 'claim for consideration. They will be self-appointed martyrs in an utterly thankless cause, that can neither •defend the ramparts of the past nor lay any foundation for the future. They will lose what they have and receive nothing ’in its stead, or nothing which they are able to appreciate. Ambition with them having proved a delu­ sion and affection become a smouldering ruin, their latterday judge will be their own heart, and one to pronounce their doom. Women, can you hesitate between these opposite courses, * Swinburne’s “ Songs before Sunrise.” “ A Watch in the Night.” �ish’s charge to women. 23 the upward and the downward path ? The voice of the age is rising loud around you, the looks of the age are growing fixed upon you ; the decisive hour of your .destiny is striking, and il it is a knell which summons you to heaven or hell.” By all you hold most dear in this life and all you most hope for in worlds to come; by the loves you trust to continue, the griefs you wait to put away; by the noble ambitions, the refined tastes, the pure and properly human joys you would develop instead of losing ; by everything which now or hereafter may constitute the happiness of you and yours -out of the deep we call to you to obliterate the disgrace of your woeful past, and no more to let the name of your -sex be a jeer in the mouths of thoughtless men, a bye-word for what is weak and pitiful. You and you alone by your -energy—your combined energy, undistracted by mean jea­ lousies of each other—can at once make this world better •and happier than it is, and can raise us all to a clearer insight and a firmer faith respecting what is to follow. On the other hand, you and yo.u alone will be the responsible authors of greater anguish than mankind has yet endured, if you continue to prostitute yourselves to falsehood and its votaries, and idly fold your saving hands, and while cower­ ing before the ills which your own apathy keeps alive, list­ lessly repeat silly commonplaces to the effect of saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.' Choose ye this day whom ye will serve ; the God whose •express image ye are, and who in your persons only can be worshipped and loved; or that vain deluded “world ” which has no personality but yet enough reality to continue what it has ever, been, the means of your distortion and degrada­ tion and bitter wrongs and woe. & -5^ ^4. There shall be quiet and safety for evermore among all the inhabitants of the earth, when she who is born’ their perfection and crown, their God and Giver of Life/ their Comforter, shall come to the knowledge of herself and her power, and shall arise and cast aside these unclean graveclothes under whose weight she has lain so long. In that sunrise of everlasting peace shall the night of woe and dis­ cord be remembered.no more; nation shall not rise up against nation, nor kingdom against kingdom; they shall not waste their precious substance any more in preparation for misery and blood. They shall not call bloodshed glory, nor make trophies of their fellow-creatures’ pain, nor �24 ish’s charge to women. be thoughtless and cruel toward the creatures below, as. though these, forsooth, had no kinship with us, no feelings as keen as ours. The sweet Holy Spirit of Woman, the Risen Saviour, shall lighten all dark and noisome corners, of existence with such rays as it has nowhere yet shed. As for the old false gods with their fiendish creeds, they shall be as forgotten filth by the wayside; and the True God nigh, in recognition of Herself, shall never again stoop, down to that reeking refuse, nor look away from her own sex for the joys of heaven. Acknowledged universally as the physician of- body and mind, their chief refuge and stay in trouble, their sole object of worship in health; as the only confessor to whom theheart’s secrets may be laid bare, and in whose hand is theonly power to absolve; as the healer and purifier and sanc­ tifier, the dispenser of blessings and author of good, the rewarder of virtue and talent; as the main theme of science and philosophy, the final aim of art’s highest ideals; as the source, end and eternal paragon of wisdom, beauty and love —to her alone shall belong all praise, might, majesty,, dominion and glory, in all worlds for ever and ever. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ish's charge to women Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dalton, Henry Robert Samuel Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: "The following extract is the concluding portion of the same book (second or prose volume) from which the author's former pamphlet "The education of girls" was taken."--Preface. Date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1878] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N185 Subject The topic of the resource Women's rights Education Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Ish's charge to women), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Women Women-Education-Great Britain https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/84f05148a09a392404d454979d37b355.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=HHhn1MJcLGdAr95pR-gXIhWRDuBxVW5Ox2XyBHNcZMCgs5YQ9jdKCV12dOo9RLXQpgBbGL2bP4ae88nuj6znw5NemVfkKzsDPDABtlwZ893Dj6d-0nKVRPjmUxS0XMkWPZxneDaZiyn7GTbz-BiAcz6xfCArieJcJyFoBYDO8G4tGfl7735X-gGYTq3zn6PGxPU6f8gBFul0qwt5WSKQ-dK31WThvjTDlBVxeFMiKgu0XALid9y9qieKIVV8c4wc3VOfcv74PdYyzzfSOcjiCgn4yUFbBsythUpVqo6jjk1eyRzX8Y5i1CTPYFNdp9zMTPg1V3Hd0UnYFUIZywj%7Ezg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 2c8c62b9c5a152c543b092592bc74d5f PDF Text Text Mrs. Lydia B. Denny, WIFE OF REUBEN S. DENNY, OF BOSTON, IN REGARD TO HER ALLEGED INSANITY. ��STATEMENT Early in the year 1861, I consulted a lawyer in rela­ tion to obtaining a divorce from my husband on the grounds of cruelty and adultery. My married life had been eminently unhappy, and the terms of, at least, indif­ ference on which I had lived with my husband, were noto­ rious. For the few years immediately preceding, I had been constantly subjected to most peculiar and insulting annoyances and outrages. So openly was I insulted that my mother felt it a duty at one time to speak to me on the subject, and my two sons repeatedly urged me to re­ sent the indignities to which I was subjected. Finally, when my expostulations and reproaches were met by per­ sonal ill treatment, I resorted, as above stated, to the law for redress. My counsel assured me from the first that I had ample grounds for a divorce on both counts. I made my own investigations, and the information I obtained I imparted to my counsel and to those whom I then consid­ ered as my friends. I also showed to many persons the bruises and wounds my husband had inflicted on me, thus giving (as I intended) publicity to a resentment which was excited by the grossest and most public insults. I told Mr. Denny of my intentions, and that I had consulted a lawyer in reference to a divorce. He also knew that I was in the care of an eminent female physician. Under these circumstances, on the 25th of March, 1861, Mr. Denny, assisted by two physicians, kidnapped me in open day, in the streets of Boston, and conveyed me to the McLean “ Asylum” (mad house), Somerville, Mass., without consulting or informing my friends and relatives, or my physician, though, had I been insane, they would have been the first consulted, and he would have been only too glad to have given me into their hands. In this dread­ ful prison, in spite of the unceasing efforts of my relatives �4 to obtain my release, and in face of the fact that Mr. Denny is notoriously and persistently guilty of all I ever charged him with, I was kept eighteen months ; suffering an impris­ onment the horrors of which must be endured to be un­ derstood, though it would seem that the plainly apparent, outside, inseparable cruelty of such an imprisonment must be clear to the understanding of every human being. A woman, a mother, torn from her home, her liberty, her children, and immured in a mad house I without help’ and without hope.. During this time I was allowed no com­ munication with my friends in any way, nor any knowl­ edge of them, or of anything whatever that it concerned me to know—I was literally “ buried alive!” Everything real in relation to my condition was utterly and systemat­ ically ignored, and I was constantly told by Dr. Tyler superintendent of the McLean “ Asylum ”), in reply to my entreaties, arguments, reasonings, &c., to “ get well ” —to “ get well.” Dr. Tyler was always unwilling to argue (or converse) with me on the subject of my alleged insanity, or to explain its nature, as I frequently urged him to do,—being, of course, naturally anxious to know what I was to “ get well ” of. I, however, soon under­ stood that to accept the fact of my (alleged) insanity was the indispensable first step toward getting “ well.” In­ deed, Dr. Tyler told me. at one time that my insisting so strongly on my sanity was proof to him that I was insane I My alleged insanity has been variously designated as “ Moral Insanity,Emotional Insanity,” “ Earnestness of Mind,” “ Morbid state ofFeeling,” “ Fixed Idea,” “ Mo­ nomania, li Spirit of Revenge,” etc. It has never, how­ ever, been convenient or agreeable (not to say possible) for Dr. Tyler to explain to me, my friends, or any one else, the manner in which it was developed. Dr. Tyler used often to assure me that “ Mr. Denny loved me very dearly.” I gradually learned to understand the system to which I had fallen a victim, and to know that I had no hope from those who placed me there, who kept me there, or who consented to my being there. I managed after a time to throw from the carriage, when I rode, letters, some of which, reaching my friends, incited them to fresh efforts in my behalf. In October, 1861, they obtained a hearing on habeas corpus ; but my “ counsel was so confi­ dent that the whole court would discharge me, on the �5 ground that my husband, when I was taking steps to ob­ tain a divorce, could have no right to imprison me, whether insane or not, that he introduced no evidence to prove my soundness of mind, and made no argument on the ques­ tion.” My sanity and perfect self-control were, however, so palpably evident that “ strangers who were present and heard the proceedings asserted my perfect soundness of mind with great vehemence;” and even Dr. Tyler, after I had gone through a long and severe cross-examination, was forced to admit that I had neither said or done anything incompatible with perfect sanity. Nevertheless, his gene­ ral statement, that I was “ insane,” held good, and on that general statement alone, in spite of my personal presence, an unimpeachably sane woman, I was remanded back to an imprisonment which every human being capable of reflec­ tion must know to be worse than death. The efforts of my friends to release me subjected them, also, to Mr. Den­ ny’s persecutions; and as he has always had all the prop­ erty of the family in his hands, he was enabled to annoy and hinder them most effectually. But they persisted in all lawful efforts, and finally Mr. Denny, finding it im­ possible longer to stave off a jury trial, released his wife from her imprisonment by an agreement with my mother and brother-in-law. By the terms of this agreement, I am under nominal guardianship for six months, yet the guardi­ an has no power to restrain my liberty without the con­ sent of my mother, who has always asserted my sanity, and whose only anxiety is in regard to my personal safety ; and it is expressly stated in the “ agreement ” that con­ senting to this appointment “ is in no manner to be taken as an admission that she (I) is of unsound mind, or to be used to her (my) prejudice in any legal proceedings which she (I) may hereaftei’ commence.” My friends consented to this agreement because they felt that it was of the first importance to obtain my release, it being impossible to gain access to me in any other way, my counsel even not being allowed to see me, thus leaving me without support, information, or advice, pending a trial which involved to me so much more than life. I, myself, was no party to the “ agreement,” and am not bound by it in any way. I never would have consented to any form of guardianship whatever, having always asserted (confidently and abso­ lutely) my sanity, and my perfect ability to take care of myself and my family, as I always had done, without help �6 or interference from any one, up to the very moment of my seizure; although Mr. Denny and some of his rela­ tives and friends have recently discovered, that, “ if I am not insane,” I have a “ devilish temper,” and am quite unfit to take charge of my children; and further, that “ if Mr. Denny is a licentious man,” my aforesaid peculiarity of “ temper” has, by rendering his home unhappy, driven him to seek consolation in the arms of courtesans! which discoveries, considering the circumstances under which they are made, will perhaps be considered as remarkable as they are original. As I said, I have always asserted my sanity, and I, my friends, my relatives, my counsel, and my physician, now assert that I have never said or done any thing to any person, at any time, which could by any (proper) construction be called insane. I have resented the most atrocious outrages, the most monstrous abuse ; and I do resent, and I should be ashamed of myself if I resented in a less degree. But my resentment has never impelled me to seek anything more than such poor redress as Massachusetts law affords to married women. Accord­ ing to the “ agreement,” Mr. Denny was to pay my board (ten dollars a week) and furnish money for my other rea­ sonable expenses. This he has not done—but on one and another frivolous pretext, has refused to pay one penny to­ ward my support, although he paid without hesitation OR DEMUR, TWENTY DOLLARS A WEEK, AND ANY OTHER EX­ PENSES Dr. Tyler chose to present, so long as I could and in the endurance of what he knew to be the most hideous misery. He also perse­ cutes me by circulating industriously, constantly, and per­ sistently the cruel falsehood of my “ insanity.” He has found newspapers (respectable !) to publish false reports, and the contemptible, petty lies on which his charge was first founded (or, rather, sustained), and he himself and his tools have stories adapted to all latitudes. To persons who have seen me since my release, and know that I am, and always have been, perfectly sane (and who tell him they know it), he says : “ The doctors do not say so. Mrs. Denny’s lawyers do not think so. They all admit that she is insane, and every physician who has seen Mrs. Denny has pronounced her insane.” Now, though seve­ ral physicians saw me at the “ Asylum,” no one of them (except those directly implicated in the crime against me) be kept out of the way, �has ever dared to say I was insane ; but, on the contrary, some of them declared that they saw nothing in me that indicated insanity. Of course, neither I nor my friends recognize the interference or authority of physicians in the matter at all. Yet I shall be infinitely obliged to any one of them who shall have the independence, the manli­ ness, the humanity to come forward (as I trust they will at the proper time) and declare, what they all very well know, namely—that I am, and always have been, perfect­ ly sane. To other parties Mr. Denny says : “ Mrs. Denny is very insane, as insane as ever (which to be sure is true), and I shall be obliged to put her back again soon.” Again, that I am “ only out for a short time”—that he “ let me out on his own terms,” &c. He even has not scrupled to say that “ Mrs. Denny’s family and relatives all admit note, that she is, and always has been, insane.” But what most excites the anxiety of my friends (and of course my own), is the report that I am considered “ dan­ gerous,” and that I have “ suicidal ” as well as “ homici­ dal propensities.” In the false newspaper reports pub­ lished at the time of my release this fatal charge was inserted, and it has been so boldly reiterated that my friends have received special cautions not to allow me at any time to venture out alone; and it was suggested to them, that these reports were preparatory to kidnapping and effectually disposing of me, when they would be brought forward to support the theory of suicide. I and my friends know that Mr. Denny and the power behind him are not to be trusted, and we feel that the course I now take is not only my only mode of defence, but an absolutely necessary precaution in reference to my per­ sonal safety. By keeping me dependent on the charity of my friends for support, Mr. Denny (besides the in­ separable mortifications and embarrassments of such a condition) puts it out of my power to see my children, except at rare intervals. My children, for they are mine. A woman’s children are hers by all laws of humanity, of Nature, and of God. They are her flesh and her blood, and my children are my groans, and my sighs, and my tears. They are my life and my soul. I long for them unceasingly; and this man knows—as have all tyrants, great and small, from the beginning of the world—that the most exquisite torture that can be inflicted on a mother �8 is to separate and estrange her children from her. It1 is not by any means a new device—only a comparatively new mode of executing it. I am suffering especial anx­ iety in regard to my youngest child (my only daughter), who is living with strangers, and entirely isolated from all her relatives. Her health is delicate and preca­ rious ; and I am assured by an eminent physician, who visited her at my request, that she cannot be properly cared for in her present situation; that her health for life, if not her very life, depends on the care she now receives, and that she ought to be with her mother. I understand my child’s constitution, and I understand my child as no one else can; though I am sure no one can help under­ standing the anguish I must endure in being separated from her in such a manner, at such a time ; and I PRO­ TEST against the CRUELTY of such treatment. When a woman is robbed of her liberty, as I have been—that is to say of her humanity, that is to say of her responsibil­ ity, that is to say of her soul—she is considered—no, not considered, but treated, like the “ thing ” she is repre­ sented. I have been, I am, robbed of everything; of my liberty (that includes all); of my property; of my children. I was taken to my prison on a cold winter night, without bonnet, or shawl, or wrapping of any kind. Afterward, at different times, portions of my wardrobe (not the choicest) were sent me ; and these articles, with what was obtained for me during my imprisonment, and what my friends have since obtained for me, constitute my entire worldly possessions. The remainder of my wardrobe, my personal and other ornaments, my money, my books and pictures, letters and papers, the presents of friends, all the souvenirs, memorials, and relics which are so invaluable to their owners—miniatures of my children and curls of their hair—this man refuses to restore to me ; and he withholds the property I inherited from my father, with much valuable personal property, bought with my money and marked with my name; all of which, and much more, I claim and demand. Before closing this defence, this protest, this appeal, I submit—that the pretense of my insanity is a falsehood, so monstrous, and so patent, that any man would hesitate to echo it. The terrible ordeal I have endured, so far from developing any weakness or infirmity of mind, has, �9 in the opinion of my friends, shown me to possess cour­ age and endurance, energy and strength, not often sur­ passed. Gentlemen, lawyers, physicians, conversing with me, express their amazement that I did not become insane. They say to me, “ Mrs. Denny, I wonder you did not become insane.” “ I think I should have become insane.” 111 am sure I should have become insane.” But as I did not, and would not, become insane, and as I am partially escaped out of the hands of my enemies, I am persecuted with slanders the foulest, the cruelest, the most malig­ nant, the most injurious. I appeal to human hearts; I am driven to this last extremity. Every one must under­ stand how desperate is my condition, when, to preserve, not my life only, but my liberty (without which life is worthless, yea, intolerable), I am compelled to a course, not less painful than unprecedented, and which is as utterly opposed to all the habits of my life as it is to the customs of society. But though my own immediate personal safety compels this course, I cannot forget nor neglect to warn all women to beware of a like fate,—for there is not ©ne who is not liable to all that has befallen me, with the added horror of its continuance for life. It remains to be seen if, in the “ freest country in the world,” in this “ boasted nineteenth century,” public opinion—“ society”—indorses an outrage (not to say a system) for which the annals of the darkest ages ©f feu­ dal tyranny could hardly furnish a parallel. LYDIA B. DENNY. Roxbury, Dec. 23, 1862. The letters appended (and to which I refer in my statement) are a few of the many written by me during my imprisonment. These were picked up by different persons and sent to Mr. Sewall in the first year. For the last four months or more all fell into the hands of the spies and keepers by whom I was constantly watched and guarded. I was never allowed pen, ink, or paper, but I had secured some bits of pencil before I was suspected, and I saved the scraps of paper that came around my parcels, and sometimes ventured to appropriate a blank leaf from a book. With such materials—in terror, haste, and se­ crecy—I tried to give some little idea of the cruel misery 1* �10 I was enduring. My friends made several copies of the letters, which were read by many persons, and they were also read in open court, at the different times when my friends were endeavoring to obtain my release. For these reasons I print the letters, and also because every person of ordinary common sense oi' intelligence who reads them, must know that they were not written by an insane person ; although the circumstances of my case are alone sufficient to prove, absolutely, that I was never insane. Of course, I utterly repudiate the modern theory of insanity, popularized by physicians and other interested persons—a theory which, wherever it prevails, holds un­ der its monstrous ban, subject to its hideous penalties, every human being ! It should be constantly remembered that during my whole imprisonment I was kept in entire ignorance of all that it concerned me to know ; that every thing real in my condition was absolutely ignored, while I was simply the insane wife of a tender and devoted hus­ band ! And I trust that the circumstances under which these letters were written, with the loss of many inter­ vening, will explain any seeming incoherence. LYDIA B. DENNY. The first six letters were written before the habeas corpus—the others after. LETTER I. George, you are deceived; believe nothing, but see me; and O, do not wait too long, till I am dead with despair and sorrow, but if I never see you again, I shall not think you have forsaken me. I know you are deceived. I have not much hope that you will get this, but if you do, it is best for me that you keep it to yourself. Did you get any letters from me after I left New York ? I have written you once before from here, hoping you may get one or the other, for I must have some hope. It does not seem to me I can bear it much longer. I ask the finder of this to inclose it—mail it—directed to Mr. George Kinney, No. 1 Henry Street, Brooklyn, N. I a �11 Y. I put in money for envelope and stamp, and beseech you to send it; and so may God send you help in your sorest need! [Picked up in Maplewood, Malden, 22d April, 1861, by J. Brown, Jr.] LETTER II. A gentleman of Boston keeps his wife confined, be­ cause, after enduring years of neglect and cruelty, she finally exposed his brutality, by showing to a number of persons the bruises he had inflicted on her person, and telling the outrages he had committed against her. To cover this, and prevent her obtaining a divorce, she is shut up—to be cured, she is told, of the “nervousness” which makes her fancy she was ill-treated. Her desire to be released from captivity and obtain justice is called a spirit of revenge, which is insanity. For four months she has not looked on a face she ever saw before, and only knows she has children and friends from the assurance (given when she asks) that her “ friends are all well.” Her health is giving way, and she fears she cannot endure till she is rescued. If the finder of this will send it to Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston, he will know if any­ thing can be done for her relief; or to Mr. George Kin­ ney, No. 1 Henry Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. Money en­ closed to pay for stamp and envelope. Mr. Sewall knows her story. He advised her what to do; but she thought she might take a little time to make up her mind, not knowing that what has happened to her was possible. She was taken from home by force, with­ out a moment’s notice. She desires to act as Mr. Sewall advised. Expressing that desire and intention where she is, she knows is fatal to her unless she is rescued, and she feels or fears she cannot much longer endure her cruel captivity and the more cruel injustice that causes it. The finder is again earnestly entreated to send this paper to Mr. Sewall. �12 LETTER III. Reuben S. Denny resides at No. 5 Union Park, Bos­ ton. His wife, after enduring years of neglect and un­ kindness, was finally rendered desperate by his cruelty, and exposed him by showing to a number of persons the bruises he had inflicted on her, and telling the outrages he had committed against her. To cover this, and to prevent her obtaining a divorce, which would further expose him, he keeps her confined in the McLean Asylum, Somerville, to be cured, she is told, of the nervousness which makes her fancy she was ill-treated. For more than four months she has not looked on a face she ever saw before, and only knows that she has children, a mother, brother, sister, by being told (when she asks) that they are well. She was taken from her home by force, without a moment’s warning. The cruel separation from her children and.friends, and the more cruel injustice that compels it, she feels is killing her, and she fears soon. She has no appetite, but forces herself to take as much as she possibly can, hoping to endure till she is rescued. The finder of this is entreated to take or send it to the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston, who knows her story, and she hopes will interpose to save her before it is too late. Mr. Sewall was her lawyer, and advised hei' what to do ; but she thought she might take a little time to make up her mind, not knowing that this which has hap­ pened t© her was possible. She desires to assure Mr. Sewall that she has no story to tell but the one she told him, and she demands an in­ vestigation. She wishes to see him, and her mother and brother, who are entirely deceived in regard to her con­ dition. Her mother, Mrs. D. Kinney, and her brother, Mr. George Kinney, resided at No. 1 Henry Street, Brooklyn, New York. She begs Mr. Sewall to see her, as he can know nothing of her unless he does; and, O, let it be soon, for she has no other hope. �13 LETTER IV. Reuben S. Denny resides at No. 5 Union Park, Boston. His wife, after enduring years of neglect and unkindness, was finally rendered desperate by his cruelty, and exposed him by showing the bruises he had inflicted on her per­ son, and telling the outrages he had committed against her. To cover this, and to prevent her obtaining a divorce, which would further expose him, he keeps her confined in the McLean Asylum, Somerville, to be cured, she is told, of the nervousness which makes her “ fancy ” she was illtreated. For more than four months she has not seen a face she ever saw before, and only knows she has children, a mother, brother, and sister, from being told (when she asks) that her “ friends are all well.” This cruel captivity and separation from all she loves, with the more cruel in­ justice that compels it, she fears she cannot much longer endure, as her health is much impaired, and her appetite entirely fails. The finder of this is earnestly entreated to take or send it to the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston, who knows her story, and she trusts will interpose in her behalf before it is too late. Mr. Sewall was her lawyer, and advised her what to do, but she thought she might take time to make up her mind—not knowing that this which has happened to her was possible. She was taken from her home by force, without a moment’s warning. She desires Mr. Sewall to act for her—she thinks with his knowledge of her case he can demand an investigation. She has, and has had, no story but the one she told him. She is sure that if her case was investigated, or if her friends had knowledge of her real condition, she could not be detained here one hour. She submits that her friends ought to understand that any distress of mind they might have seen her ex­ hibit was the legitimate and natural (immediate) result of the treatment to which she had been subjected—at least with her—and they ought to believe nothing from the man who was so careful to put her effectually out of the way before he made his explanations. If she dies here, they will probably never see her alive, as they would not �14 be sent for till too late. "Women, mothers of young children, have been kept here years, and finally died here, without once being allowed to see their children, not even at the last—not insane women—except with the peculiar insanity which only the husband and the physician can dis­ cern, or perhaps a friend or two who has the “ reputation of the family at heart.” Her mother and brother, Mrs. D. Kinney and Mr. George Kinney, reside at No. 1 Henry Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. She appeals to any one possess­ ing a human heart to pity her in her extremity, and send this to Mr. Sewall, her mother, or brother. [The greater part, indeed almost the whole, of this letter (D) is a literal copy of the above, the variations so slight, it has not been thought necessary to make a copy.] LETTER V. I am obliged to write in secrecy and haste. I hope the ordinary allowance will be made for incoherence. I think I need medical treatment (I beg not to distress my friends), but I will never ask or receive it from any per­ son here—not because I am insane or obstinate, for I sup­ pose it is only natural that I should prefer to choose my own physician, that I should desire to be treated by those in whom I can feel confidence, and that I object to placing myself in the hands of those toward whom circumstances compel me to feel some degree of distrust. I do not say this because I am anxious about my health (for if I cannot have liberty I desire death, which, being a patriotic senti­ ment, can’t be insane); but if I die here (I say again), it is murder, and I will never by word or act so much as imply consent, but, as from the first so to the last, I will protest; and I hereby take to witness the person or per­ sons finding and reading this paper, that I, Lydia B. Den­ ny, sound mind, declare I am unjustly and illegally imprisoned in the McLean Asylum, Somerville, and that I appeal to the laws of my country for redress, and demand my liberty, and an open, legal investigation, that I may establish the truth of what I here assert. The accompanying paper was written some time ago. I have neither opportunity or paper to rewrite it, and so �15 will add a few lines. Since writing it, I have taken such opportunity as I have, and spoken (appealed) to the Trustees, and with precisely the result I anticipated. The business of the Trustees is to indorse Dr. Tyler; not, by any means, to entertain complaints or redress grievances, which might possibly implicate him, the institution, or themselves. Of course this is merely my opinion, but it seems to me quite warranted by my experience. I finally asked one of the gentlemen, a lawyer, if, knowing or de­ claring myself sane, and my imprisonment cruel, unjust, and illegal—my friends, deceived as to my condition (or for any other reason), consenting—thus leaving me without help or hope—there was for me no redress—no resource. He said I could “ appeal to the laws of my country.” I waited another week, and, at the next visit, told him I de­ sired to appeal to the law, through you, and with your advice. I said, however, I should prefer to be released without resorting to the law. The answer was : “I will tell Mr. Sewall what you say.” I have waited two weeks longer, without result, and am forced again to try the for­ lorn hope. Sir, if there is any law for me, I appeal to it; and J submit that (sane or insane) the circumstances of my case give me a right to demand a legal investigation. I demand, first, my liberty-, and shall authorize or con­ sent to no investigation where that is not the first step. I assert confidently that my friends have no idea of my real condition. I assure them they would not find me troublesome. I am neither restless, nervous, or sad ; on the contrary, I am calm, quiet, cheerful, and withal indus­ trious. I never before preserved so equal a demeanor, for there was never before a time when I dared not act as I felt, and speak what I thought. Now, if I feel indigna­ tion, contempt, terror, disgust, pity, sorrow, longing, I endure, and am silent, and I wait. I have waited six months and in all that time, I have had no word, message, or greeting from any person outside these walls, except, sir, your visit; nor have 1 sent any except as I send this. L. B. DENNY. To the Hon. Saml. E. Sewall, Boston. Dr. Tyler says your visit was a matter of courtesy to you. �16 LETTER VI. I am compelled to write secretly and in haste, and cannot choose my words. I make as many copies as I can, hoping some one of them may reach you. I think I need medical treatment (I hope my friends will not be too anxious), but I will never ask or receive it from any person here, not because I am insane or obstinate—for I suppose it is only natural that 1 should prefer to choose my own physician—that I should desire to be treated by those in whom I can feel confidence, and that I object to placing myself in the hands of those toward whom cir­ cumstances compel me to feel some degree of distrust. I say again, if I die here, it is murder, and I will never, by word or act, so much as imply consent, but, as from the first so to the last, I will protest; and I hereby take to witness the person or persons finding and reading this paper that I, Lydia B. Denny, of sound mind, declare that I am unjustly and illegally imprisoned in the M<Lean Asylum, Somerville; and that I appeal to the laws of my country for redress, and demand an open, legal investiga­ tion, that I may establish the truth of what I here assert. When I was forced from my home and brought to this place I had four children. My youngest, a little girl, seven years old, is, I suppose, with her aunt, in Cambridge. Almost every time I ride I go in sight of the back of the house where she lives. I have often asked to be taken past the front, thinking I might get a glimpse of my child. The request seems to be regarded as rather a pleasant joke : it is never granted. Now, such may be excellent discipline for insane people—I can’t say, but to me, or any sane mother, it is simply cruelty, cruelty—equally wicked and contemptible. It is an easy thing for Dr. Tyler to say it is his opinion that I am insane; but is Dr. Tyler infallible ? I heard him admit that it was possible he might be mistaken. Ought the opinion of one, or two, or twenty men, subject a woman to such an ordeal as I have endured for the last six months, without at least giving her a chance for her life, or, what is of infinitely more value, her liberty ? �17 Dr. Tyler says he does not believe what I say of my husband is true ; and if he did, he calls my desire to be restored to my friends and to obtain justice a spirit of revenge. When I say Mr. Sewall advised me to get a divorce from my husband, and that if my condition was under­ stood he could not keep me an hour, he does not wish to argue the question. L. B. D. LETTER VII. To Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston:—I am afraid, sir, that you have failed (for the present) in your efforts to release me from this dreadful place ; and I am afraid, too, that it is my own fault. I suppose I should have told my story more fully; but I was so absorbed with anxiety and the dread of returning here, that I had scarcely any other thought or feeling. I had no chance. I can have none until I am removed from this place. I think, sir, I told you how I was brought here. On a cold winter night, with snow on the ground, and my feet wet to my ankles, without bonnet oi’ shawl, or wrapping of any kind, I was forced into a carriage and brought here. I asked to be allowed to get some covering and bid good-by to my child; I was refused. I suffered for three weeks writh a severe cold then contracted ; though I believe the theory here is, that “excited patients” do not take cold. If I am to remain longer here, cannot you visit me again ? I wish to tell you some things which I am sure it is import­ ant you should know, and there are circumstances I am desirous my friends should know, in case I never have an opportunity of telling them myself. If proofs are now of any importance, I think I can show how they may be obtained. I believe I have never told any one what I learned on my last visit to New York, and I certainly made important discoveries. Perhaps I am unwise in advising you at this time; but this suspense, anxiety, igno­ rance, dread, is so hard to bear; and yet, since I have seen my friends I bear it better, and, whatever may be the result, I shall continue to. My insanity here still consists in my thinking I am ill-used, and supposing that those who imprison me here �18 are not my best friends. The anxiety of my friends and your efforts in my behalf are utterly ignored. L. B. DENNY. (Received May 12, 1862. S. E. S.) LETTER VIII. Dr. Tyler has represented to (told ?) my friends that I was contented and willing to be here. I have never to any person, at any time, said or intimated anything which could by any possibility be so construed; but I have in­ variably expressed to him and others the most intense and earnest desire to be liberated and restored to my friends. I have said repeatedly to Dr. Tyler, and to my attendant, that I had rather die than to remain here as I was, even for a limited time—that life could offer me nothing to com­ pensate for such terrible endurance—that the separation and estrangement from my children alone was too much to endure. It is but a few days since I endeavored to express to Dr. Tyler the anguish of my mind in the thought that to my younger children I was already as one dead. I have expressed these feelings, and none other, repeatedly, to Dr. Blackman, Miss Barber, and my attendant, telling them it was simply compelled endurance ; I have at the same time presented a cheerful and composed exterior— employing myself constantly, and availing myself of every possible resource. Dr. Tyler said to me thWmy insisting on my sanity was a proof of insanity—if I were really sane, I should begin to think myself insane. I repeated these remarks to the trustees (Mr. Davis, Mr. Lowell). Mr. Lowell laughed and said, “ that is rather strong.” Dr. Tyler made some modifying explanation. One of the trustees said to me that my friends refused to receive me—Mr. Rogers. I submit that Dr. Tyler can now have no pretext for detaining me, as he must admit that it is impossible I should ever return to my husband. �19 LETTER IX. I wish to be at the Court next Monday morning. I think the law allows me the privilege. I asked Dr. Tyler, in presence of the trustees, if he intended to take me there. He does not. He thinks it is “ not good for me to keep this matter stirring ; it confirms my peculiar views.” I then asked him (and them) if the law did not allow me to decide for myself whether to be present or absent ? The question was evaded. Then I stated plainly and fully that I desired to be present in Court next Monday morn­ ing (Nov. 25, 1861), and demanded all my rights and privileges under the law. I wish at least for the opportu­ nity it would give me to see my friends once more. L. B. DENNY. The finder is requested to take or send this to the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston. Money inclosed for en­ velope and postage. The horrors I am compelled to wit­ ness and to hear are too dreadful for my endurance. (Received April 14,1862. S. E. 9. Left at my office with three other papers, I am told, April 12, by some person unknown. 9. E. S.) LETTER X. I was so closely watched, it was impossible for me to throw out the accompanying paper before the time speci­ fied, nor is the vigilance since relaxed; but I shall keep the paper by me, and if opportunity ever comes, trust to the chance that before befriended me. Of course I know no­ thing about law, but it would seem that there is none for me—that the insane (those to whom insanity is imputed) have no rights that the sane are bound to respect. I have not heard a -word of my friends, or anything that concerns me, since I left them in the court-house, nearly two months ago. I ask no questions. I could only hear they were well or ill, alive or dead ; and as I do not wish to know if they are ill or dead, I know nothing. None can realize �20 what such a life is, except they have experienced it; but it is not so bad, nor ever can be again, as before I saw my friends. My friends understand they can know nothing of my real condition, except as they know me, for the truth cannot be told by those who keep me here—who have kept me here already nearly nine months, when there has never been the shadow of a reason for keeping me one hour, as every person here well knows. In the very enormity of the deed is its safety. But I am not in the least blinded or confused. I know just what has been (and is) done to me, and why; and I know also that I am helpless, and, from those who keep me here, hopeless. I complain to no one here, nor mention my affairs in any way. I never intend to again. I maintain a demeanor perfectly tranquil, equal, and cheerful. I long for my children with unutterable anguish. For my mo­ ther and my brother I am most anxious, for I know they will suffer much for me. I wish them to know that I bear it as well as any one could; but it is bitter, it is cruel. The knowledge of their dear love and sympathy is my great support, my strong consolation; and may I not say to you, dear sir, that I know and feel (if I cannot express) what I owe to you. You said you would not forsake me, and I know you will not. But, sir, if you cannot save me, do not give up my cause. Save others. Truth (if you could get at it) and justice ought to be strong enough to break down even this monstrous “ refuge of lies.” Sir, this place is ruled by terror. (Received April 14th, 1862. Left at office April 12,1862. S. E. S.) LETTER XI. I have now endured this imprisonment for nearly a year. At times I am weak and tired, and able to sit up but part of the day. I have no exercise, and that, I sup­ pose, with the wearing anguish of my imprisonment and separation from all I love, wastes my strength. I suppose, too, that I need medical treatment, as Miss Z. will under­ stand. Of my own affairs I know absolutely nothing. I ask no questions; I make no complaints ; I am at all times cheerful, serene, equal; but my life is a burden. To every honorable mind, degradation is worse than death—and this life (of mine) is, besides its anguished longings, a daily �21 and deadly humiliation. Dr. Tyler has told me repeat­ edly, within the last three months, that I am “ much bet­ ter but to be “ well ” I am to acknowledge that I have labored under a delusion, and that the charges I brought against my husband (especially those in relation to his cruelty) were the result of said delusion. I shall never make any such acknowledgment. I feel that I take my life in my hand when I risk having it known here that I have again attempted to communicate with my friends; but, because I do not wish to live, here, I take the risk— not that I desire to die; except as a release from this fear­ ful imprisonment, wherein I am environed with miseries and terrors that sicken the soul and curdle the blood ; but I dare not say so here. Sir, no one can form an idea of the system here maintained—a very “system of terror” —and such terror as can compel its victims to appear cheerful. Can there be greater, except it produce death ? And that many do die here from terror and despair, is un­ questionable. It may be called the “ crushing-out ” sys­ tem, perfected. Such things as I have heard and known, seen and felt! And my experience is the experience of all here—modified and varied, of course, by intelligence, temperament, circumstances, and, above all, the sanity or insanity of the victim. Every one who knows anything of my case knows, of course, that I am not and never have been insane; and let not my friends ever for a moment admit the deadly lie—a lie that entails not only on my innocent children, but on theirs also, its blighting curse. I have been represented as an insanely jealous woman, a liar, and a murderess (in heart). Iwas jealous of my rights, my honor, and my dignity, as a woman, a wife, and a mo­ ther (for my sons were fully cognizant of my wrongs); but that I was ever jealous of that man, I disdain to admit. I was insulted, outraged, maltreated, bruised; and, in my desperate, but perfectly legitimate, grief and anger, I told the truth; and not all the truth even then. I did also at times express in tolerably strong language the hatred and contempt I felt, always have felt, and always shall feel, for cruelty and meanness. To cloak these exposures, and to prevent my obtaining a divorce, which would give them still further publicity, I was kidnapped and brought here, with circumstances of barbarous cruelty; and here, for nearly a year, I have been imprisoned, suffering terrors and anguish that cannot be described; and here, unless �22 my friends can rescue me, I shall die (not, alas! the first victim), for I am in the hands of those who are as cruel as guilt, and cowardice, and power, can make men, and, withal, as relentless and secret as the grave. Before I was brought here, I asked only such repara­ tion as the law would give me. Since, I have asked only my liberty and a fair and open investigation. Now I know nothing about law, but I do know what is just and right; and I know that any act, any system, any institu­ tion which shuns investigation when accused or suspected, shuns it because it cannot bear it; but I do not think Jaw keeps me here—it is money, and power, and influence. Patients sometimes die suddenly here. Of course, I know what would be said of this remark here, but the statement is, nevertheless, true; and if I die here, I say to my friends (to you, sir), do not let this matter rest. Try to save others. Let no consideration deter you from giving publicity to my story, and so exposing, as far as you can, a system which has in its dreadful toils thou­ sands of miserable victims, and which every year mur­ ders with torments hundreds of innocent and helpless human beings. Do not my sufferings and my treatment indorse my words ? I do not speak of dying because I am alarmed or anxious about my health. I am not; but let my friends bear in mind that I know nothing at all that it concerns me to know, or that I care to know. I do not even know if they are alive or dead, and my only prospect is an idefinite hope. For my children and my friends I long with intolerable longings. My poor heart is so wrung and tortured that I sometimes feel it can endure no more, no longer. God be merciful to me, and grant me the “ desire of mine eyes ”—my children, my friends I I am sometimes exhibited to gentlemen, strangers, besides the trustees, possibly that they may testify to my comfort, content, happiness. Of these papers I make several copies, that there may be the better chance for some one package reaching its destination. I entreat the person finding these papers to take or send them to the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston. I inclose money for postage and envelope. (Rec’d April 14,1862. Left at office April 12,1861, I am told, with three other papers. 8. E. S. S. E. g.) �23 LETTER XII. During my imprisonment in this place, the suite of rooms next mine has been occupied by a young lady from Boston. Last Saturday evening, March 29, this young lady was burned to death. She lingered till the next night, about midnight, when she died, here. Monday night her body was privately removed. Her death was re­ corded in the Boston papers, under the usual head, in the usual manner, as “ Died in this city,” &c. This accident is to be concealed, that the reputation of this institution may remain intact. I think but three of the patients know how she died. It is one of the secrets of this place. Sir, I know it is not safe for me to be acquainted with their secrets. I do not think I am afraid to die ; but this life is too fearful. Can you,do nothing for me? The Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston. (Deceived April 14, 1862. S. E. S. Left, I am told, at my office, April 12,1862, with three other papers. S. E. S.) LETTER XIII. Sir :—Saturday evening, March 29th,'a young lady from Boston, a “ patient ” here, was so terribly burned as to cause her death. She lingered till the next night, when she died, here, about midnight. Monday night her body was privately removed. Her death was recorded in the Boston papers, under the usual head, in the usual manner, as “ Died in this city,” &c. This accident is concealed, I suppose (I heard as much said), that the repu­ tation of the institution may remain intact. I think (for the subject is not alluded to, and I dare not ask) that but three of the patients are acquainted with the manner of her death. It is one of the secrets of this place. Sir, I am sure it is not safe for me to be cognizant of these secrets. This is a fearful place. You can have no idea of the system here maintained—a “ system of terror,” �' 24 which has in its cruel toils (here and in other places) thousands of miserable victims, and which every year murders with torments (the torments of fear, anguish, and despair) hundreds of helpless and innocent human beings. It is now more than a year since I was, with cruel vio­ lence, torn from my children and brought to this dreadful place. Since then, with the exception of which you are aware, I know absolutely nothing of them, my friends, or anything that it concerns me to know. I still cherish hope, and shall while life remains; but, knowing of this place and those who keep me here, and knowing (I may say) nothing else, I greatly fear. I long for my children and my friends with inexpressible anguish. I think sometimes I cannot bear it; but I do, and better than many others. The miseries and horrors I am compelled to witness ^nd to know add greatly to my sufferings. But I make no complaints here. I am always cheerful and serene—taking care, however, to have it understood that I am simply enduring what is inevitable. No one sup­ poses that I am either happy or contented,’ and no one has ever supposed that I was insane; but they all under­ stand their business. O, sir, if you (my friends) cannot rescue me, I shall never leave this place alive. From those who keep me here nothing of my real condition can be known. Facts and realities are utterly and systematically ignored. If it were not so terrible a tragedy, it would be an absurd farce; and it is, if possible, even more contemptible than wicked. No honest, honorable mind can conceive such mean wickedness ; it must be known to be believed. I, alas ! have had full experience. The finder of this is entreated to send or take this to the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston. I have no money to pay for envelope and postage, and inclose car tickets, hoping they will be deemed equivalent. Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, Boston. (Received April 11,1862. 88.) [Letter (C) was received April 10,1862. It is evident that one was copied from the other—I mean (C) from (H), or (H) from (C). The variations are so few and unimportant that no copy is made of it.] jq* � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Statement of Mrs. Lydia B. Denny, wife of Reuben S. Denny, of Boston, in regard to her alleged insanity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Denny, Lydia B. Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [Boston] Collation: 24 p. ; 20 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes letters written by Mrs. Denny to her lawyer, Samuel E. Sewall, during her imprisonment. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1863] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5226 Subject The topic of the resource Women's rights Domestic violence Mental health Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A defence of atheism: being a lecture delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston, April 10, 1861), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Divorce Domestic violence Mental Health Women's Rights https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/aee740f1ed16bb450f502eeb00201844.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=wDhbYZUB-vcHeiAlcpucgoX2nsDrMLZHJi7-WAcFQCroXnJBGZrfli%7EKKas5yRWiJG%7EiIYxFWitzui9h5YPZvODVw8p4X9UXxYzTxZy46HlXL93Um%7EhZq5vLRvEdTp-%7E6m3xcYeuqwM4JnR5eZdUI1FFecnhWbEJ3Pw3QkwT8SX34gDIPa%7EZYJ8URDW3jxOcEWW9R2nz1fWzTrf%7E-r3GFqtblodBh8yM8RBO-M11U3WvTL-ZmDMZAwMmGg%7EdRHjC3RN9Cadbk0pA%7Epg7cJPzqzmNycF6NW7KIqIe92YHrj6dy1otB4hzJtrh3xFId2BUAkFghnsgzfWtUe56ampsIg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f585da5399cf42ebb840d55758635b8b PDF Text Text EXTRA SERIES. With an Introduction by LADY FLORENCE DIXIE e I HE RELIGION OF WOMAN trai Clc ‘ 1i ; By Joseph MeCabe :ae # r, I ’ t * s fc ' E 'IfÊL. J j te ' Bl le fib Rv. 1 T1 TI <? i 4 j T * ' 1 \ Th. X. *. -4 1 P WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. ~of this Series will be “ The Fundamental Principles of the Positive Philosophy,” being two chapters from Auguste Comte ��JÌATONALSÈCULARSOGETY THE RELIGION OF WOMAN An Historical Study BY JOSEPH McCABE (Author of “Twelve Years in a Monastery,” “Peter Abelard)' etc.) WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LADY FLORENCE DIXIE [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1905 ��fig CONTENTS PAGE Introduction - 5. CHAPTER I. Woman and the Churches - il CHAPTER II. The Woman of Pagan Culture CHAPTER III. Woman Woman in the in the CHAPTER IV. Ages - 26 Early Christian Teaching - 35 Reformation ----- 44 Middle - - CHAPTER V. The Effect of the CHAPTER VI. The Churches and the The Religious Instinct Modern Woman Movement - CHAPTER VII. ------ CHAPTER VIII. - The Training of Children - - 50 59 66 CHAPTER IX. Where Do We Stand in Religion ? 76 CHAPTER X. The Humanism of To-morrow 84 CHAPTER XI. An Appeal 92 �TO GEORGE ANDERSON, Esq., WHOSE ACTIVE SYMPATHY HAS DONE SO MUCH FOR THIS Cause. �INTRODUCTION if A slave within the Land of Bondage, kneeling, person is denied her. Body and soul is Bows her bent form beneath the despot’s heel. she the property of others. She has no Bathetic picture on the landscape stealing, right in. herself. It burns into my heart and makes me feel Here and there a slave has raised her That freedom must be won. For woe or weal head and feebly questioned the justice I couch my lance to press the tyrant down. Poor slave, rise up ! Thou shalt no longer of such bondage. Each and all have kneel. been struck down and dishonoured. Belioltl the seed of Liberty zï sown ; Then others have made a dash for Come reap with me the golden harvest when freedom, and the lash has mercilessly ’tis mown.” scourged them in return. Yet have they The Wanderings of Izra.” I stand on the mountain tops, above the misty clouds, upon the far-extending range of free-born thought, and, peering through those clouds, I behold below the land of bondage whereon woman, as a subjected slave, yields reverence to the despotic taskmaster who has manacled her. Beneath his sway her form is bent, and her head is bowed to the earth. Only in supplication are her dim eyes raised, and then they rest upon the tyrant, who oppresses her, with reverent homage and adoration. In him she sees her master and her lord. His word is omnipotent, his fiats law, his com­ mands sacred, because, in her eyes, his mission is divine. He is the mouth­ piece of the Maker of all things, the Creator of heaven and earth, and there­ fore cannot err or order ill, for perfection does no. wrong. Believing this, woman submits and acquiesces in her slavery. She is a helot ; She has no voice in the framing of law, no right to assume governing powers, no tepresentation in the councils of the irorld. Even possession of her own gone down, protesting as they fell, and denouncing the tyranny of the task­ master who tortured them and oppressed their manacled sisters. What is this taskmaster ? Let me cry his name to the four winds of heaven and over every part of the earth. The taskmaster who has retarded the progress and development of woman, who has sealed upon her fetters of iron, who has withheld from her the heritage of life—z>., freedom—and who has subjected her to the grinding despotism of selfishness and falsehood, by whom she has been disinherited—is that cruel despot, that man-made idol, that wily serpent of intrigue and insinua­ tion, Superstitious Religion. Note that I say Superstitious Religion —not Religion. This latter, as I under* stand it, is a system of morality built upon the strong foundations of ordinary common sense; whereas Superstitious Religion is a system of faith in the products of imagination, belief in the miraculous, and credence in the unnatural —a worship of man-made fiats, which have been declared, without any substantiating �6 INTRODUCTION proofs, to be of divine origin. Divine origin! In the name of all that is truthful, who and what is God? Dare we, if we presume to think, uphold the analysis of this mighty mystery which man, in the early stages of his ignorance, has made? A thousand times, No! If God there be, the essence of such a being is beyond our comprehension, beyond our powers of realisation. Let us be honest and acknowledge this, and then very clearly we shall perceive that the Supreme Power we worship has been clothed by man in his own image and likeness, and endowed with many of the foibles and follies of the human being. All the gods of superstition are man­ made and the products of ignorance. As long as ignorance prevails, imagina­ tion satisfies ; but the moment the light of Science irradiates the dark corners of the mind, then Truth alone can satisfy its cravings, and where this cannot penetrate it reverently exclaims: “We do not know.” Every superstitious religion, more or less, enslaves woman, and proclaims her inferiority to man. Of these strange products of man’s early ignorance and selfishness there are none more potent than the one emanating from Bible pre­ cept and built on the foundations of its Old and New Testaments. I refer to Christianity. This religion dominates many nations of the earth, and, wherever it prevails, the laws governing woman are in accordance with Bible precepts. Here are a few of these latter “ I suffer not the woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto the Lord.” “ Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” “ She was the first in the transgression, therefore keep her in subjection.” So spoke, in this latter sentence, Christianity’s firmest friend and woman’s bitterest foe. To those twelve words she owes much of her degradation. To the religion which enforces and upholds them she bows in meek and humble submission. It decrees and ordains her inferiority, it commands her obedience, it enforces her adoration, and it denies her the birthright of-existence—liberty. Out on the falsehood that dares to assert that woman’s gradual emancipa­ tion from degradation has been brought about by the influence of Christianity. The chapters that follow this introduc­ tion will give clear proof that, far from this being the case, Christianity found her, under the protection of pagan civilisation, rising into honour and power, and that it forthwith pushed her back into the abyss of barbaric serfdom, and retarded for hundreds of years any attempt on her part to rise again. Pick me out, through the past nineteen hundred years, one single cleric who has ever raised his voice on behalf of the rights of that sex to which his mother belonged. Name to me one single pope, or ecclesiastic of either Catholic or Protestant denomination, who has con­ demned the Bible’s command that woman should be held in bondage, or who has spoken out on her behalf, and declared that man’s rights are hers, and that the only possible saviour of man­ kind is woman free. I ask the impos­ sible, for, since Christianity was estab­ lished, no cleric has so spoken. It is the business of Bibleites to obstruct the revolt of the female, and to prevent, if possible, the forces of Evolution and Civilisation from giving woman her freedom. �INTRODUCTION For what she has obtained of such woman is beholden to those two agencies. No one pretends that the first of these owes anything to Christianity, while the second is the outcome of mental deve­ lopment, in which freedom of thought has been the guiding factor. Science owes nothing to Christianity, which has fought against it tooth and nail; yet to scientific reasoning, and not to Bible reasoning, woman must turn to prove her earth-born rights. By religion and ignorance these rights are condemned and ridiculed. By the reasonings of science they are admitted and upheld. The noblest champions of woman’s free­ dom in the past, and now in the present, have been, and are, men swayed by scientific truth. These men, whom Christians scornfully refer to as infidels, are lovers of truth. Truth clearly tells them that the subjection of woman is the outcome of obedience to the false. They proclaim this immoral, and demand emancipation. Will Christianity effect this ? Not unless it turns its back on the Bible and its precepts, and admits the injustice and cruelty of these latter. Will it do this? No. To disown the foundation on which its existence is built would be the sounding of its own death­ knell. It is bound to protect itself, and, while its precepts rule the laws of our country, woman cannot be free. Point blank, then, this question pre­ sents itself to her: “ What must I do to obtain my redemption from the Land of Bondage in which I am a slave ? ” There is but one reply to this query. Here it is: “ You must no longer cringe to your taskmaster. You must no longer believe in the untrue. You must no longer acquiesce in your degradation by the false. You must recognise that truth alone can save you and give you 7 the freedom that you need. If this be not wrenched from your taskmaster, assuredly he will never give it to you, and you will remain his bond-slave in the Land of Bondage. There you will give birth to sons, who will oppress you by reason of their ignorance and acquired selfishness. The sons of free-born women would never act thus; but the children of serfs are well-nigh the same themselves, and act accordingly.” Urgently needed is woman’s emanci­ pation and her transformation from a bond-slave to a being born in freedom. Until this desirable object is effected, progress must be slow and the elevation of humanity be retarded. This is a question which cannot be too plainly stated and submitted, not only to women, but to men as well. Let these latter ask themselves if they desire the enslave­ ment of the female to continue. True Civilisation answers “ No,” because it aims at perfection, and there can be nothing of the kind where the fountain of life is held in check and drugged with poison. There is a vast unexplored region in woman’s mind which has not yet been opened out because of the hypnotic spell which superstitious reli­ gion has exercised over it. Once re­ move that influence, and a wealth of thought will arise which shall sweep away the false, and in scientific truth reveal the road to freedom. Science is godly because science is truth. Of what good to us or others is belief in the untrue? It will not avail us to cling to the shadows of Imagina­ tion, when common sense and proof positive proclaim them to be such. How is it possible to make real that which is not, or to endow with life the spectral ghosts of Invention? Assertion without evidence is not fact, for fact is the proven, �8 INTRODUCTION and superstitious religion is all assertion | without the proven. In submitting, therefore, to the rule of superstitious idolatry, women accept the serfdom that accompanies it, and are slaves. They cannot leave the Land of Bondage, for their minds are fettered. Strike those fetters from the portals of their brainsj and Reason shall rise triumphant. Then shall the free, upward flight of Thought carry all before it, and emancipated woman shall redeem the world by the force of majestic Truth. Upon the stern rack of research Science has stretched the Bible and mercilessly dissected it. With what result ? With this. It has proved that its tissues are shams. It has unmasked its inventions, and it has made clear that its foundations are Ignorance and Superstition. This being so, shall women continue to bolster up a lie ? Shall they work in and till the garden of Invention, and culture therein poisonous mushroom growths, to taste which means mental syncope ? Shall they, in short, connive at their own abasement and forge the fetters that bind them ? Ah ! surely not ? There can be no freedom for them where Superstition reigns, be­ cause this tyrant is an autocrat who will accept of no dictation, but who merci­ lessly dictates. Superstition has asserted, proclaimed, and enforced the subjection of woman, and enjoined its continuance in obedience to the precepts of the Bible, falsely called the Word of God. Abominable falsehood ! The Bible is the Word of Man, and the God therein is this creature deified. Into the lips of that Deity man has breathed his ignorant thoughts and selfish desires, chief of which was the possession of woman as a slave. How could this be enforced but by making her believe that she was the offspring of a male rib and the first to transgress the commands of God, where­ fore the mere chip of the former, and justly subjected by the latter to the con­ dition of a disinherited? Disinherited Woman ! Through long ages your eyes have been bound, and the light has not shone therein. Tear off the bandages which keep them in darkness, and see the truth for your own salvation and for that of your children and descendants. While Bible precept is held to be divine, there is no raison d'etre for the rights of woman, seeing that she is denied such thereby. But once it is plainly seen that Bible precept is man-made and not Godmade, then the barrier, so long held up by Falsehood’s props against woman’s freedom, must go down with a crash, by reason of its own rotten and decayed structure. It is for men to give Woman freedom, even as it is her bounden duty to demand it as her right. Let Reason be her guide and Truth her beacon. Then men shall cease to be the sons of slaves, and through their free mothers inherit the glorious birthright of true liberty. Once the origin of humanity is realised by all, Superstition must die, for Knowledge will never submit to Ignorance and Falsehood, who are the parents of Superstition. In the name of all that is noble, upright, courageous, and pure, I appeal for the destruction of this tyrannic fraud. Made by man, it has proved his worst enemy, for it has degraded woman and, through her, pulled him down. In plain, forcible language The Religion of Woman tells its own sad tale. Written by a man, it unfolds to her the truth, and invites her to revolt against her task­ master. Many there are who will do so, but yet many more, I fear, whose eyes have lost the power to see by long deprivation of the light, who will not �INTRODUCTION For these I plead to men. Assault the borders of their Land of Bondage, and bear them into the Land of Freedom. Then shall Freethought take possession of their souls, for the taskmaster who oppressed them will no longer over­ master them with protected power. Once Superstition dies, Intellect shall reign. It will nesd all the forces of Reason to accomplish this much-desired end. Unreason looms large upon the world, a giant in size and mighty in magnitude and power. Nevertheless, it is not always the vast armies that have prevailed against well-organised and disciplined small ones. Freethought is the David whose sling must cast the stone of Truth that shall strike the Goliath of Superstition down and give freedom and happiness to the world. 9 Of what avail life without these adjuncts to joy ? Is the cry of Misery eternally to go on ? Is this Misery, the only child which Superstition has produced, to live for ever? If the man-made God has made his creator so wretched, is it not time this latter deposed him and raised in his place one who shall bring about the Brotherhood of Man ? Yes. It is time, and this humanity must recognise. But, before it can enthrone the true God, it must banish the false. To accomplish this, it must realise the bondage in which the latter has placed the fountain-head of life, and this both men and women will do if they earnestly and thoughtfully study The Religion of Woman. Florence Dixie. �! is r �THE RELIGION OF WOMAN Chapter I. WOMAN AND THE CHURCHES The visitor to York Minster often lingers with an unexpected interest in tracing the remains of structures that have preceded the present magnificent church. You descend into the crypt, and examine the massive lower walls and columns from which the cathedral takes its upward flight. There your architectural interest is thrust aside for the moment by a curious discovery. In dim recesses, just peeping out from the swelling masonry, you descry the founda­ tions of an earlier structure; then, if you look more closely, the traces of a yet earlier temple, until the mind runs back along a period of religious history that far out-distances the Christian era. As in the dust of some most ancient town, you read into the thin strata long periods of the social and religious life of humanity. At this spot for thousands of years, apparently, the inhabitants of the historic place have met for worship, the religious spirit enduring amid a hundred changes of form and vesture. Human sacrifices have been displaced by the symbolic sacrifice of the Host, and this in turn has yielded to the service of song and light. Druid priests have given place to shaven monks and gorgeously-attired Catholic priests, and these again in the roll of ages to the sober-clad clergy of the Church of England. The costumes, the habits, the houses of the people, have not more changed than their religious forms and practices. Each Church, each priest­ hood, in its turn thought it expressed the final and absolute truth. But the time-spirit has sealed the lips of hier­ archy after hierarchy. New gospels have come from beyond the seas, or flashed in the hearts of the people’s prophets, and, with scorn and disdain, the old forms have been swept into the crypt. Reli­ gion grows and advances as humanity grows and advances. Enter the .minster now on some quiet evening and see the handful of wor­ shippers kneeling in prayer, soothed with the familiar confidence. The law of growth that is so vividly illustrated in the crypt has no message for them. They look up in pride at the stately fabric of the minster, and see a promise of finality in its beauty and solidity. The waves might shatter and sweep away the frail religious structures that had gone before, but they fall impotently before this building and the religion it stands for. Yet, if they would look more closely and less partially, how many �12 WOMAN AND THE CHURCHES indications they would find that the law is at work now, not less, but more, assiduously than ever! Look at the empty niches, from which the statues of Mary and the saints have been cast with a cry of idolatry. Look at the roof, blackened with the fumes of incense and candles that have been extinguished. The religion of the present worshippers is almost as different from that of the mediaeval worshippers who built the cathedral as this in turn differed from that of their predecessors. The minster itself is an eloquent witness to the law of growth. But perhaps now the term is reached, and the religious form perfect and final. Look into the faces of the crowds that roam about the minster with a pagan admiration, and inquire into the thoughts of the people of York. Read Mr. Seebohm Rowntree’s book on the moral and social condition of York. With all its prestige, its endowments, its aesthetic charm, its power of social aggregation, its devoted ministry, its alertness to the times, the Church which the minster represents is losing its hold on the nation. The majority of the people now pass by its open doors, and refuse to share in any form of worship whatever. Once, many ages ago, the people merely gathered under the open sky about a rude stone altar, on which the priest offered the tragic sacrifice. Then little sanctuaries were raised to shelter the altar and the images of the gods. Then the structure grew into a temple that would contain the worshippers them­ selves. The little temples have grown into huge churches and cathedrals, redolent with the scent of flowers and incense, or ringing with the sound of hymn and psalm. Now they in turn are being neglected. For York is but a type of the fortune of the Christian Church everywhere to-day. The increasing neglect of worship is visible on the surface of life, but there have been several careful inquiries with a view to accurate deter­ mination. Enumerations have been made at such places as Dumfries, Liver­ pool, Chester, London, Paris, and New York. In spite of the immense differ­ ences in the character of these places, the result was much the same in all. There is a considerable lapse from the Churches. No town to-day is small enough, or sleepy enough, to escape the new spirit. The Bishop of London—of a city where three-fourths of the popula-i tion avoid the churches and chapels— tells his clergy (as he did in a recent address) “ not to live in a fool’s para­ dise,” but realise the gravity of the situa­ tion. The Bishop of Worcester, speak­ ing for a rural district, equally deplores the decay of allegiance to the Church. A distinguished French bishop (Mgr. Turinaz, of Nancy) writes that “the Church is perishing in France year by year.” A well-known defender of the faith—and, therefore, an optimist by profession—the Rev. F. Ballard, tells an interviewer in Great Though'^ that “ the outlook is a serious one.” Another official optimist, the Rev. Rhondda Williams, writes that “ already the cultured laity on the one hand and the bulk of the democracy on the other lie entirely outside the Churches.” This is a very serious and interesting social phenomenon, and it has several aspects that are worthy of careful study. One might ask whether this decay of the existing religious forms is continuous and progressive, and what is likely to be the moral issue of it for the nation, or what further religious form, if any, is likely to �WOMAN AND TNE CHURCHES emerge out of the present chaos. I shall have something to say on these questions in later chapters; but my chief purpose is to discuss the attitude taken up by Women in the present phase of religious development, and I turn at once to that subject. The most careful inquiry yet made into the change of thought we are con­ sidering is that which was conducted by Mr. Mudie-Smith and a large body of trained assistants. All the flippant objections raised against this investiga­ tion by the religious bodies which suffered most by the publication of its results may be totally disregarded. The inquiry was almost ideally exact and impartial. It erred a little on the side of loyalty when the time came to esti­ mate how many people might attend church; but I am mainly concerned With its ascertained facts rather than its conjectures. It was controlled by a London journal with a pronouced religious following. As given in Mr. Mudie-Smith’s book, the general result is that, out of a total population of 6,240,336 souls, only 1,514,025 attend church or chapel; when we allow for the proportion of these who attend morning and evening, we get a total of about a million and a quarter worshippers, out of six millions and a quarter. As all the religious leaders who were asked to write about it said, this is a serious situa­ tion. In the words of the superinten­ dent of the census, a religious man: “ Four persons out of every five, not dwelling in institutions, are either care­ less or hostile as regards public worship.”1 The less careful enumerations of church­ goers which have been made in other towns gave, on the average, about the 1 The Religious Life of London, p. 18. 13 same result. Further, we are able to com­ pare this result with that of a census taken in 1886 by the editor of the British Weekly. London had then a population of 3,816,483, and of these 1,167,312 attended church. The same area has now a population of 4,500,000, yet only 1,003,361 attend any place of worship. As the latter figure includes some 50,000 Jews, Spiritists, Ethicists, and all kinds of people outside of the great Christian bodies, we must deduct these for the purpose of comparison. In spite of the immense increase of the population and the very remarkable stimulation of Church-work during recent years, there has been a positive loss of 200,000 wor­ shippers ; the real loss is very consider­ ably higher when we look to the increase of the population. One of the most noticeable features of this census, and of similar calculations elsewhere, is that women have remained attached to the Churches in a far higher proportion than men. Thus, for Greater London we find an attendance (apart from the Jews) of 372,264 men and 607,257 women (that is, without deduct­ ing 38 per cent, for double attendances). It is important to note, too, that the higher proportion of women is much more conspicuous in the older Churches —the Anglican and Roman Catholic— and in cultured districts. The Church of England has 153,365 men to 292,710 women. Taking three districts that may be considered to represent the better educated classes, we find this result: In Marylebone the Church of England had 4,051 men to 10,891 women; the Church of Rome, 1,161 men to 3,026 women. In Paddington the Church of England had 3,392 men and 9,237 women; the Church of Rome, 408 men and 1,254 women. In Kensington the Church of �14 WOMAN AND THE CHURCHES England had 5,362 men and 14,577 women; the Church of Rome, 1,866 men and 5,009 women. In all these cases 38 per cent, must be deducted for “twicers.” When we descend to indi­ vidual churches, this feature is still more striking. At the Brompton Oratory there were 267 men and 1,105 women; at the Carmelites’ Church, 276 men and 807 women; at the Pro-Cathe­ dral, 237 men and 701 women; at the Holy Trinity, Brompton, there were 160 men and 880 women (the Bishop of London preaching there on the occasion, if I remember rightly); at Christ’s Church, Lancaster Gate, 249 men and 1,034 women. It would be idle to question that these figures have a significance, and it would seem that every thoughtful woman should be anxious to discover what that meaning is. It is not a question of England alone. That distinguished woman-worker in the States, Miss Susan B. Anthony, tells us (Arena, May, 1897) that women form “ from two-thirds to three-fourths of the membership of the Churches of America.” Jules Simon said of France, even in his day, that “ woman had lost the force of religion— not that she was irreligious herself, but her husband was so, almost irremedi­ ably.” M. Taine, at a later date, gave some statistics. In 1890 there were 2,000,000 people in Paris. Of these (on the authority of an eminent ecclesiastic) only 100,000 made their Easter duty—a very strict test of membership for Catholics—and these included four women to one man. In other words, on a very reliable test, only one woman in twelve or thirteen, but only one man in fifty, owned allegiance to the Church at Paris in 1890. In the French pro­ vinces one woman in four and one man in twelve was found to be a real believer. That the situation has not improved is very clear from the fact that some 800 priests have left their Church in France alone during the last five years. We have here a very well-defined social fact, and one that should be of the deepest interest to women themselves. The present controversy about the differences in power or quality between man and woman is largely rendered tiresome by the lack of exact data to proceed on. In this matter of religion it is established that woman is far more conservative than man. The proportion of women in the Churches is vastly greater than their proportion in the general population. Why is this ? The question cannot be without interest to any thoughtful woman. We might, indeed, give a stronger expression to the fact, for few women will doubt that many of the men who do frequent the churches only do so under the pressure of professional interest or social or domestic influence. But we may be content with the sufficiently abnormal figures I have quoted. It is time for women to confront the facts of their religious life seriously. If their attach­ ment to religion is well founded, it will only be strengthened by examination. But if women hold aloof improperly from the greatest thought-movement of their time, they will endanger the chances of that intellectual respect which the world is at last yielding them. Women who are taking their part in the world’s work to-day are aware how frequently their claim for their sex is evaded, or even openly rejected, with a vague charge that they are reactionary, or thoughtlessly conservative. Now, there are several obvious arguments which it would be possible for them to �WOMAN AND THE CHURCHES put forward in justification of their con­ servatism in the matter of religion. It will not be urged that they have a finer perception of the intellectual evidences for Christianity, so that I shall not need in this work to discuss those evidences in themselves. But probably one of three reasons will be alleged by the woman who would justify the greater loyalty of her sex to the faith that is passing from our midst. It may be said —as it is widely believed—that the Christian Church has a peculiar title to the gratitude of woman for the share it has had in liberating her from the tyranny or the contempt or ill-usage of man. It may, again, be urged that woman’s more emotional and refined nature affords greater hospitality to the religious sense or instinct than does that of man; or it may be felt that woman’s deeper realisation, as mother, of the moral need of ideas in the training of children impels her to retain, as much as possible, the Church-influence which has so long been the only agency for the formation of character. It is unques­ tionable that large numbers of women do deliberately retain their faith on these grounds, and do not merely listlessly acquiesce in things as they are. There is a vague feeling abroad that woman’s greater attachment to religion has both utility and dignity. I propose in this little work to examine carefully these and other apologies for woman’s position in the Churches. Though I leave to a later chapter the subject of the religious instinct and its fuller development in woman, let me say at once that there is a natural conser­ vatism in her which is at once entitled to man’s respect, and yet should be an object of suspicion to herself. Mr. Havelock Ellis has devoted a chapter of 15 his Man and Woman to the subject. He says that woman is proved to have a greater general organic stability than man. Life has reached the high level it occupies in us to-day by a long and arduous struggle, as is now fully admitted. In this struggle a tendency to variation on the part of living things has been essential to any advance; and it has been equally essential to have a tendency to stability for the purpose of fixing the good steps won in the ascent, and check erratic wandering. Somehow, the ten­ dency to variation has found embodi­ ment more particularly in man, while the restricting tendency has been more absorbed by woman. This is probably a wise distribution (though a fresh arrangement of the needs of the world may very well claim an alteration). My only point here is that it should make men less impatient of women’s conser­ vatism ; while the consciousness of having such an organic bias should make woman more careful as to what she conserves, more resolute to use her reason and judgment on the opinions she hands to her children. It is at the same time proved—-if scientific determination of it were necessary—that woman has greater suggestibility (or is more receptive of outward influence), keener affectibility (or emotions), and less independence. It is, of course, an open question how far this is due to nature and how far merely to education. All this will find a closer application later on. For the moment I will only mention one or two facts which indicate how it works out in the province of religion. Thus, at the most intellectual period of the history of women, in classical Greece, there were great num­ bers of women philosophers. But of those whose names have come down to �i6 WOMAN AND THE CHURCHES us thirty-four distinguished themselves in the Pythagorean philosophy (the most spiritual and mystic of the Greek schools), while there were only three or four in any other school, and only one among the Cynics. So with regard to the history of religion. Mr. Havelock Ellis found that, out of 600 sects in a dictionary of religions (which he calls “the most pain­ ful page in the history of humanity ”), only seven had been founded by women. These seven sects, moreover, were all Christian, obscure, fairly recent, and of a mystic character; and their founders were all of a more or less morbid nature. Such facts as these show that woman has been a follower rather than a pioneer, and that she follows most easily along the line of her own temperament. It is surely, therefore, needful that she should examine more rigorously the part she plays in the world as a conservative force. But it will be more convenient to take at a later stage of this inquiry the question of woman’s religious instinct and of the necessity for religious influence. In the way of all inquiry, or, at least, prejudicing every inquiry by the plea of gratitude and loyalty which it seems to impose on woman, is the theory that Christianity has rendered considerable service to her cause. This claim must be examined before we proceed. On the surface of the matter, it is obvious that Christianity has in several ways aided in the libera­ tion of woman. A very imposing case is made by those clerical writers who press the subject on behalf of the Churches. But few are ignorant to-day how narrow and self-complacent ecclesiastical history has always been ; how it has only glanced back at pre-Christian times for the pur­ pose of discovering their errors and defects, while it has, with a narrow idea of loyalty, distorted the facts of its own peculiar province. It may be that, when the whole of the facts are known, woman may have to modify her so common opinion about the effect of the coming of Christianity upon her fortunes. Take, for instance, the position of woman at these two very different stages of human history—in ancient Egypt and in modern England and the United States. We have so rich a collection of remains of the ancient Egyptian civilisa­ tion, and so careful and industrious a scholarship has been set to interpret them, that we can with confidence recon­ struct the life of woman in that country 2,000 years before Christ was born, and even at a date which Christian tradition had named for the beginning of the world. Two thousand years before the time of Christ—and, if we went farther back, we should find the position of woman more rather than less honourable —woman was more free and more honoured in Egypt than she is in any country of the world to-day. She was the mistress of the house, her husband being merely, as Flinders Petrie says, “ a sort of boarder, or visitor, who had to keep up the establishment,” or, as M. Maspero puts it, “a privileged guest.” She inherited equally with her brothers, and had full control of her property. She could go where she liked, or speak with whom she liked. She was “juridi­ cally the equal of man,” says M. Paturet, “having the same rights and being treated in the same fashion”; and the same authority observes that it was not as mother, but as woman, as a being equal in human dignity, that she was thus honoured. There was polygamy in theory, but the first wife was generally able to exact conditions in her marriage­ contract which effectually prevented it. She could bring actions, and even plead �WOMAN AND THE CHURCHES in the courts. She practised the art of medicine. As priestess she had authority in the temples. Frequently as queen r Wia she was the highest in the land. In the irksT earlier times her marriage was probably ¿feníj indissoluble ; at all events, the inscrip­ gfeil tions show, says M. Maspéro, that she ï Sç,,, EjïïÎM remained to the end of life “ the beloved ifî To of her husband and the mistress of the gîrodj house.” “ Make glad her heart during 1 Sri i the time that thou hast ” was the tradi­ inorjj tional advice to the husband. Even when she proved unfaithful—and the fe® Egyptians had a high ideal of domestic relations 6,ooo years ago — he was told : “ Be kind to her for a season, send her not away, let her have food to eat.” $fe': Now pass swiftly from this remote iiorq picture of dignity and justice to a nation biriwi which represents i,8oo years of culture under Christian influence. I take the rrùÈSJEï nearest concise statement to my hand— a description of the position of woman JEfli in enlightened Boston about 1850 ifeíW.) (under English Common Law)1 :— dLtli bteJ [D9ÎÏI ffd- Woman could not hold any property, either earned or inherited. If unmarried, she was Mm3 obliged to place it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will she was subject. If she contemplated ïfcfiABŒ marriage, and desired to call her property her own, she was forced by law to make a contract f'dlívw with her intended husband by which she gave up all title or claim to it. A woman, either married íffi K or unmarried, could hold no office of trust or power. She was not a person. She was not ÍW recognised as a citizen. She was not a factor in the human family. She was not a unit, but a 8 '019 zero in the sum of civilisation........ The status of a married woman was little better than that of a ¡gaütól domestic servant. By the English Common Law her husband was her lord and master. He had toaban the sole custody of her person and of her minor 3®id children. He could punish her “ with a stick no bigger than his thumb,” and she could not ^1- 1 I am quoting it from vol. iii. (p. 290) of Mrs. Cady Stanton’s History of Women’s Stiffrage. 17 complain against him........ The common law of the State [Massachusetts] held man and wife to be one person, but that person was the husband. He could by will deprive her of every part of his property, and also of what had been her own before marriage. He was the owner of all her real estate and her earnings. The wife could make no contract and no will, nor, without her husband’s consent, dispose of the legal interest of her real estate........ She did not own a rag of her clothing. She had no personal rights, and could hardly call her soul her own. Her husband could steal her children, rob her of her clothing, neglect to support the family : she had no legal redress. If a wife earned money by her labour, the husband could claim the pay as his share of the proceeds. So painful a contrast as this in two civilisations, one of which long preceded the coming of Christ, while the other is a high type of Christian culture, must surely give ground for reflection. It is clear that the notion held by so many religious women—that their cause lan­ guished until the coming to power of Christianity, and then entered upon a grateful period of advance—is greatly in error. One need not be surprised at the error. It has long been the custom to judge pre-Christian civilisations by the lowest depths they ever touched, while the application of such a test to Chris­ tianity itself was bitterly resented. The result has been a wholly romantic idea that the world lay in the shadow of death until the first century of the Christian era, and then at last the pale dawn of a higher idealism broke upon it. This is a myth, and a very mischievous one. It is particularly foolish in relation to the progress of woman’s cause. The growth of justice in this or any other section of life is not for a moment com­ parable to the dawn of a new day. Rather has it been like the slow advance of a tide up an uneven beach. Here it has run quickly ahead by a pre-fashioned C �THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE channel; there it has found banks and obstacles, and has lingered impatiently. Did Christian thought smooth the way for it, or impede it? The contrast of pagan Egypt and Christian Boston more than justifies the raising of the question. Chapter II. THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE Religious-minded people who are con­ vinced that Christianity brought a deferred hope to womankind have a vague notion that she was degraded and enslaved under the Greek and Roman systems, whatever may have been her position elsewhere, and that from this condition Christianity set out to rescue her. It is important to look more closely into this than the ecclesiastical historian is wont to do. The time is, happily, passing away when men and women feared to be deprived of their conven­ tional shudder over the sins of Athens and Rome, and resented every effort to redeem or alleviate the character of those whose civilisation we barbarians inherited. To-day there is a feeling that it is better to err by generosity in our estimate of the dignity and promise of human nature. One need not ask so much as this. A careful inquiry into the condition of Greek and Roman thought as to the position of woman at the time when paganism yielded to Christianity will sufficiently answer my purpose. I have spoken of the condition of woman in ancient Egypt. This was, it is true, an exceptional civilisation in its treatment of women; but you will find broad gleams of justice in many other parts of the world long before, or wide apart from, Christian influence. One high authority, M. Revillout, tells us that he finds woman held in equal dignity with man in the earliest periods of Chaldaic and Assyrian civilisation. At a later date, Mr. Lecky says, we find that among the ancient Aryans and the Brahmans woman is the worker, and is subject to her husband, but he is reli­ giously enjoined to bear in mind all that he obtains through her. The ancient laws of India forbade the making of a marriage gift to the father of the bride, on the ground that he must not sell his child. In distant Japan women were freely honoured until the adoption of Chinese ideas. Several distinguished Mikados and chieftains were women. During the classic period of their litera­ ture (about 800 to 1186 of the Christian era—that is to say, just at the time when women were at the lowest point of legal degradation in Christian Europe) “a very large and important part of the best literature Japan has produced was written by women,” as Mr. Astor says in his his­ tory of Japanese literature. The position which woman occupied among the Germanic tribes, and which she retained to an extent in England for some time after its conversion, is very well known. Monogamy was almost universal; and not only does Tacitus contrast their general chastity with that of the Romans �THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE of his day, but Salvianus, a Christian priest, represents them as equally superior to his own Christian contem­ poraries. Women were “honoured by the Germans as something sacred and prophetic,” says Tacitus. They were often consulted about war or other important tribal affairs. Among the Goths, and some other tribes, the daughter inherited equally with the son; and the wife retained full control over the husband’s wedding gift to her. An ancient tradition declared that Odin had charged them to honour woman as a visible deity. Boadicea is a familiar illustration that among our Celtic parents, too, woman was able to play an impor­ tant part. In fact, some writers have held that all civilisation begins with the rule of the mothers in a community; but, though there are very extensive traces of a primitive matriarchate, it is by no means admitted to have been universal. It is important to bear these facts in mind, because European civilisation has drawn upon all these earlier polities, under the direction of Christianity, for its system, and we may pertinently ask how these good features came to be lost. But my more particular task is to deter­ mine the fortune of woman under the Greek and Roman systems, from which modern Europe more clearly emerged. Here, emphatically, we find a growth that must be likened to the irregular onrush of the tide rather than the measured break of the day. There has been no steady advance, and most certainly no sudden illumination at the appearance of Christianity. The real betterment of woman’s lot has been strangely tortuous and unromantic. With her position in Greece we need not delay long, as the Greek civilisation was for the most part absorbed in the 19 Roman. At the very earliest period of Greek history we find a concern to treat woman justly and honourably. Polygamy was generally abandoned. Schaible tells us that a Greek legend spoke of the abolition of polygamy by Cecrops in prehistoric times. It is, at all events, quite clear that they had abandoned it at a time when the Hebrews maintained it in a form peculiarly insulting and unjust to woman. At an early period, too, the gift to the father of the bride was changed into a gift from her father, which made a considerable difference in her moral position. Later, in the Homeric period and the*subsequent age of the great tragedians, woman holds an honoured though a restricted position. Moreover, her cry for complete justice is growing louder. Listen to it, for instance, as it is voiced in the Medea of Euripides. Then came the age of the great moralists, of Plato and Aristotle, and we find a distinct perception of the injustice of the Greek social order, in which the courtesan alone is free and the married woman is confined to the home and uneducated ; though legally, we must remember, the Greek woman was capable of all civic and many juridical acts, without her husband’s intervention. Plato, who seems not to have consistently denounced the prejudice of his time (and we can forgive some hesitation when we study the classic examples of Greek woman­ hood), said, nevertheless, in his Republic (I quote from Schaible) :— This sex, which we keep in obscurity and domestic work, is it not fitted for nobler and more elevated functions? Are there no instances of courage, wisdom, advance in all the arts? Mayhap thèse qualities have a certain debility, and are lower than in ourselves. But does it follow that they are, therefore, useless to the country ? No, nature bestows no talent with a view to sterility ; and the great art of the �20 THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE lawgiver is to make use of all the forces which nature confers. Alexandria, came to a close, in the fifth century, with the noble and gifted Hypatia, whose real greatness of mind and character Kingsley has so artfully concealed behind the figure of his charm­ ing but frail young heroine. Hypatia, a woman of perfect and solid culture, of formed and resolute character, of great civic dignity and importance, is the last outcome of the growing recognition of woman’s dignity in Greece. She stands out amid a darkening and reactionary age as a final reminder of what Greek culture would soon have done for woman. Into the development of woman’s position in Rome we must inquire more closely. It is here most precisely that the effect of the coming to power of Christianity will be felt, and where it has to be chiefly appraised. The majority of religious people know two things, and little else, about Roman life and thought in this connection. They know that in the stern, puritanic, earlier days of the Republic woman was the slave of her father until she married, and then the stave of her husband for the rest of her life; and they know that at the time of the coming of Christianity woman (and man, too) led a life of general and, in some respects, sordid licentiousness and cruelty. They vaguely ascribe the dis­ appearance of both evils to Christian influence, and so look with suspicion on every proposal to subvert it. This is a familiar pulpit account of the moral history of humanity. It is a complete distortion of the facts. It is true that in the early days woman was under the absolute control of father or husband, and that they had the power of life and death over her.1 But in most Aristotle, too, though he rarely breaks away from the conventional feeling of his time on this subject, is not without a contribution to the advance. He says in one place that the Greeks are superior to the barbarians in that their wives are not their slaves, but their helpmates; and in another place, Mr. Lecky says, he clearly demands of husbands the same fidelity that they exact of their wives. This marks an important advance in the application of moral principle to the rela­ tion of the sexes. Then came the conquest of Greece by Rome and the distortion of its natural growth; but if we follow patiently the tangled threads of its moral development, we find a continuous growth of the ideal of justice. In the period of disorder, of enfeeblement, and of dependence that followed, we cannot expect to find an equable progress of the cause of woman in Greece. Yet when we come to Plutarch, a Greek moralist of the early years of the Christian era, we find that the sense of justice to woman is still growing. Plutarch openly claims for woman a mental and moral equality with man, and a perfect reciprocity of their obligations. He claims, in particular, that woman shall be equally educated with man. Greek philosophy was clearly preparing the way for a full correction of the undue pressure of the social system on woman ; and Plutarch, unlike Plato, was not resisting, but voicing, the cultured feeling of his time. Thus, when Chris­ tianity was first brought to Greece, the age of woman’s oppression was virtually over, and a clear promise of a more enlightened social order can be dis­ 1 would refer the Englishwoman covered. Fitly enough, the Greek philo­ who Ireads of this powerhorrifiedand death to an of life sophy and ethic, now transferred to article in the Contemporary Review, December, �THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE other respects the Romans treated their women with far higher consideration than the Hebrews. The Roman religion, like that of the Egyptians, did not preach the inferiority of the female. Revillout and other scholars find proof that in the earliest accessible stages of Roman his­ tory the relation of the sexes was one of great humanity and concord. Monogamy was strictly enforced. Valerius Maximus affirms that divorce was unknown for 520 years after the foundation of Rome. Throughout the period of the Republic, in fact, woman was in a far better posi­ tion than in Greece; Nepos claims that his own civilisation is higher than the Roman in that respect. She eat at the same table, lived in the atrium (hall) of the house instead of being relegated to the gyneazum (women’s quarters), went out to dine, or to the theatre or temple, and was treated with the highest respect in the street. “The Roman matron,” says the French biographer of St. Ambrose, “was the first model of the Christian woman.” The classic portraits of Roman women are among the finest of all time. And, though they were excluded from political work, they held one office, that of Vestal Virgin, which was in some regards higher than the Consulate. The elder Cato, a type of the older Roman, said : “ A man who beats his wife and his children lays impious hands on that which is most holy and most sacred in the world.” But a momentous change came over the fortune of women about the close of the Republic, and it is this that we have chiefly to appreciate. It might be ex1899, by Signora Melegari. From this it appears that this custom is really not so far removed from our own day. “ In the south of Italy, especially, a woman may suffer death at the hands of the males of her family, and public opinion be not in the least moved to reprobation thereby.” 21 pressed in the statement that woman gained the liberty she had coveted and lost the moral dignity she had borne. After the end of the Punic wars the despotic authority of the father and hus­ band began to wane. This authority had been transferred from the father to the husband at marriage—that is to say, in the more solemn form of marriage known as the confarreatio. The radical change which now took place was that the stricter form of marriage fell into disuse, and a laxer form became general. In this way the husband lost the stern power which the confarreatio had given him, and the woman found a path to complete liberty. By the time of the beginning of Christianity woman had attained a liberty and distinction which she has not even yet completely regained. Emperors set their wives beside them on the throne, and the wives of the patri­ cians took the hint. They formed a conventus matronarum (a club), with a meeting-house of their own on the Quirinal for the discussion of their public affairs. They owned considerable pro­ perty, and at times lent money to their husbands—at more than shrewd interest. We find the wives of generals in camp with their husbands; and on the walls of Pompeii we discover election addresses signed by women in support of certain candidates. They had great wealth, con­ siderable culture, a large visiting circle (including male friends), and complete control of the slaves, freedmen, and clients of the house. In the provinces they sometimes held high municipal offices. Sir Henry Maine, whose chapter on this subject in his Ancient Law should be read by every woman, points out that, if it had not been for the discovery of the writings of Gaius (a Roman jurist �22 THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE who wrote about 130-180 a.d.), we should scarcely have been able to realise at all the force of the older law. “ It had fallen into complete discredit, and was verging on extinction,” he says (P- 154). The great jurisconsult himself scouts the popular apology offered for it in the mental inferiority of the female sex, and a considerable part of his volume is taken up with descriptions of the numerous expedients, some of them dis­ playing extraordinary ingenuity, which the Roman lawyers had devised for enabling women to defeat the ancient rules. Led by their theory of Natural Law, the jurisconsults had evidently at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of their code of equity. Thus, long before there could be any question of Christian influence on Roman society or Roman law, woman had attained in the Empire a position of almost complete liberty and distinction. The woman of the wealthier class had practically no grievances, and she was conscious of a power to secure whatever further ambition she might entertain. It is, therefore, wholly absurd to speak as if Christianity had delivered her from the despotism of earlier Roman law. But we must go further. The Christian Church must tell us how it came about that, whereas we find woman in Rome 1,800 years ago on the eve of complete inde­ pendence, we have had to fight the battle all over again in the nineteenth century; how it came about that in the intervening 1,800 years, and particularly during that period when the power of the Church was paramount—the Middle Ages— woman fell to a lower position in law than she had ever occupied under the Greek or Roman system. Let me approach the subject once more under cover of the great authority of Sir Henry Maine. After describing the degree of liberty won by the Roman women, he goes on (p. 156): “Chris­ tianity tended somewhat from the very first to narrow this remarkable liberty.” This opposition on the part of Chris­ tianity rested on religious and ethical grounds. I have explained how the new liberty of woman in Rome curiously sprang from the substitution of a laxer form of marriage, with a greater facility of divorce, for the old and stricter form. To this change Christianity was bound to oppose itself. But it went on to fatal excesses under the influence of its “passion for asceticism,” as I will explain in the next chapter. “ The latest Roman law,” says Sir Henry, “so far as it is touched by the Constitutions of the Christian Emperors, bears some marks of a reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults”; and he attributes it to “ the prevalent state of religious feeling” that, in the formation of mediaeval jurisprudence by the fusion of Roman law with the customs of the barbarians, the legislation of Europe “ absorbed much more than usual of those rules concerning the posi­ tion of woman which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilisation.” The Jus­ tinian Code had generally acted as a corrective of the barbaric customs, but the chapter of law relating to married women was for the most part read by the light, not of Roman, but of Canon law, which in no one par­ ticular departs so widely from the spirit of the secular jurisprudence as in the view it takes of the relations created by marriage. This was in part inevitable, since no society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Koman law, but the proprietary disabilities of married females stand on quite a different basis from their personal incapacities, and it is by the ten­ dency of their doctrines to keep alive and con­ solidate the former that the expositors of the Canon law have deeply injured civilisation. �THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE He then points out that those legisla­ tions which have kept the longest and the strictest in touch with Canon law have been the most harsh in their treat­ ment of women, and that the English law relating to married women is one of the most painful instances of this. This is a very grave indictment of the action of the Christian Church by a dis­ tinguished legal authority; it is a prosaic statement of the facts that must out­ weigh any number of sermons or apolo­ getic works. Nor can relief be sought in the idea that priestly legislators framed this iniquitous Canon law in defiance of the real teaching of the Christian religion. The truth is, as I will show, that it is the explicit and emphatic teaching of the great Christian leaders that brought about this unhappy result. Woman was thrust back into the gynecceum by the official action of the Church, under the clear direction of its most sacred writings. But before we pass on to consider the development of the Christian attitude towards woman and her aspirations, we must consider the second fallacy of which I spoke. Let us grant, it is said, that the sternness of the older Roman law and custom had been moderated, if not abolished, and that woman had won liberty and independence. But you admit, it is urged, that in gaining liberty she had lost her moral dignity; and it was more important to restore this than to secure the permanence of her inde­ pendence, with all its abuses. Chris­ tianity came into a world that seethed with vice, and called for moral rather than material redemption. That is an arguable position; only people should be consistent, and not claim that Chris­ tianity emancipated woman when they mean that, on however lofty grounds, it 1 23 neglected—nay, contemned—the greatest chance ever offered of emancipating her. But the chief defect of this new position is that it is a mere travesty of the moral and religious history of the empire. Women who wish to know the truth as to what Christianity has or has not done for them will do well to read this page of history very carefully. In the first place, one cannot protest too frequently against the fallacy of judging a people by the lowest depth they ever touched. It is stupid or dis­ honest in a high degree to describe the worst vices of the Augustan age, and then say this is paganism. If future ages are to test the era of Christian influence in this way, it will go ill with it. Religious writers talk, for instance, of the 6th Satire of Juvenal as an illustration of “ pagan morals.” It would be just as fair and logical to take the Liber Gomorrhaicus of Cardinal Peter Damian (a far more terrible exposure of the morals of the clergy in the eleventh century) as an illustration of “ Christian morals.” It would be just as fair to judge our own nation by the degraded condition of the people in, for instance, the eighteenth century; when, says Sir Walter Besant, “ for drunkenness, bru­ tality, and ignorance the Englishmen of the baser kind reached the lowest depth ever reached by civilised man.” If we look about us, we shall see a hundred warnings of the folly—a folly of which hardly a single religious writer on the subject is not guilty—of selecting the darkest shades of Roman life and repre­ senting these as typical. Indeed, I could go further, and claim that these shades have been greatly exaggerated in the comparison with our own time. The yagueness with which we necessarily discuss these matters lends itself to such �24 THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE interested exaggeration. The truth is that some of the worst vices scourged by Juvenal at Rome are just as prevalent in London or Paris to-day. However, it is no part of my plan to institute comparisons. I would rather direct attention to this undoubted but little appreciated fact—-that, long before Christianity became powerful enough to exercise the slightest influence on the morals of Rome, there was a very remark­ able improvement. Christianity had not converted two per cent, of the Empire by the reign of Constantine. It was not in a position to affect the general character until near the close of the fourth century. But by that time there had been a considerable change in the pagan character. A number of regene­ rating influences were at work in the Empire. Those who imagine that Christianity was the sole spiritual force in operation at that time are strangely ignorant of the period. Two philo­ sophies and three religions, besides Christianity, were working to restore the moral dignity of the Roman people. Greek philosophy had, as I said, been transferred from Athens to Alexandria, and there it took almost the character and fervour of a religion. It had an appreciable influence, in this form of neo-Platonism, on the moral temper of the age. The Emperor Julian was a follower of it. Saint Augustine and several others found it the ante-chamber to Christianity. Its last great teacher, the brilliant Hypatia, shows that its spirit was one not only of abstract justice, but also of justice to woman. On the other hand, the Stoic philo­ sophy was even more effective, both in improving the general moral temper of the Empire and in securing justice for the woman and the slave. Its chief Roman writers, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, are teachers for all time. It had completely altered the tone of Roman society before the middle of the second century. The vicious luxury and gluttony of the Augustan age, the crucifixion of slaves, the licen­ tiousness of the emancipated women, and other disorders of the “ pagan ” world, were healed by purely pagan influences. Renan, glancing from the age of Marcus Aurelius to the later develop­ ment of European history, exclaimed that “human life was suspended for a thousand years.” Certainly, in respect of the particular question we are con­ sidering, the plaint was perfectly just. Clearly, what was needed, as far as woman’s cause was concerned, was an agency that should not destroy, but purify and consolidate, the new liberty. It was based, to an important extent, on the new laxity of morals. The serious task of the moralist was to transfer it to a sounder foundation. This is what the Christian Church disdained to do, and what the pagan moralists were doing. Seneca spoke, like Plutarch, of the equality of man and woman in moral dignity and moral responsibility. Anto­ ninus Pius embodied in one of his judg­ ments the opinion that the husband was just as strictly bound to be faithful as the wife, and it is given as a legal axiom by Ulpianus. We have seen that another jurisconsult, Gaius, sharply rejected the notion of woman’s inferiority. Dion Chrysostom demanded the suppression by law of prostitution. All the neoPlatonists insisted strongly on pre-matrimonial chastity. As a French Christian writer, M. Thamin, says : “ The ancient wisdom had taken on a new and quite Christian form.” �THE WOMAN OF PAGAN CULTURE But the efforts of the philosophic moralists were aided among the people by three religions which sought, no less eagerly than Christianity, to regenerate the Empire. The cult of Isis, the cult of Mithra, and the Manichean religion were spreading even more quickly, and with no less moral effect, than the Chris­ tian religion. Most of the Roman senators who made the last stand about the year 380 against the new Church belonged to one or other of these cults. And these religions, introduced from abroad, tended to help the settlement of the “ woman­ question ” of that time. The cult of Isis brought to the women of Rome, not only a pure if not ascetic ideal, not only the great moral prestige of conceiving the Deity in female form, but also a relic of the old Egyptian tradition as regards woman. The cults of Mithra and Mani brought equally elevated ideals of con­ duct ; St. Jerome scornfdlly told his Christian followers that, when he met a woman of sedate and spiritual appear­ ance at Rome, he knew at once that she was a Manichean. They embodied some of the best moral traditions of Persia. In Manicheism women formed an im­ portant part of the administrative system. These religions took deep root in the Roman world. By the time Christianity came into the position to exercise a wide­ spread moral influence, they had already 25 half accomplished the work of regenera­ tion, and not until the thirteenth century did it advance any further. The last group of “ pagans ” which we find oppos­ ing the advance of Christianity was a group of high-minded men and women. In the centre of it we find the last great Roman, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, and his equally distinguished wife, Fabia Aconia Paulina, a priestess of Isis. The letters of Symmachus and the Saturnalia of Macrobius show us the fine and sober and humane temper of this group. We have, in fact, reached here (the latter part of the fourth century) a turningpoint, not only in the religious history of Europe, but also in the fortune of woman’s aspiration. Up to this point the better tendencies of the Greek and Roman moralists were steadily advancing. The new freedom which woman had won in a period of licence was being legiti­ mised and consecrated. There was no longer question of her inferiority, of putting her under the tutelage of her male relatives, of shutting her up in the gynceceum. Already she looked from the slope of Pisgah. Then every other moral agency was swept out of Europe by a politically triumphant Christianity—and the hopes and ambitions of women were sealed up for 1,500 years in the tomb of paganism. Let us see how this dire result came about. �2Ô WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING Chapter III. WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING In the introduction to her Woman's Bible, Mrs. E. Cady Stanton says : “ The canon and civil law, Church and State, priests and legislators, all political parties and religious denominations, have alike taught that woman was made after man, of man, and for man, an inferior being, subject to man.” She goes on to show us the root of all this when, after describ­ ing woman according to the Bible, she says: “ Those who have the divine insight to translate, transpose, and trans­ figure this mournful object of pity into an exalted, dignified personage, worthy our worship as the mother of the race, are to be congratulated as having a share of the occult mystic power of the eastern Mahatmas.” This is the new influence that began to colour the social life and the legislation of Europe, and extin­ guished the brilliant promise of the closing years of paganism. “ The life of woman,” slightly to alter M. Renan’s phrase, “ was suspended for a thousand years.” It will hardly be questioned seriously that the teaching of the Old Testament with regard to woman was a menacing element. To-day we read our Old Testa­ ment in a circuitous way. We are told by every theologian who has any authority on the interpretation of the Bible that the Prophets were written first, the Law second; that those dreadful earlier books of the Old Testament, with their crude morality, are a late and fictitious com­ pilation from fragments of ancient legend and history, invested with a quite illegi­ timate divine authority. They express the efforts of the early Hebrews, who were barbarians at a time when the civili­ sations of Egypt and Babylon were grey with age, to emerge from their low moral condition. It has been a fatal accident, or artifice, that gave a uniform divine authority to the whole of this very different mass of literature. It involved the sanctioning with a divine authority of some of the crudest and most primi­ tive conceptions of a late-developed race. Little did Esdras dream, when he finally edited the earlier books, that his action would have so grievous an influence on the social development of Europe ! Yet it was this primitive Hebraic image of woman that from the year 400 onward cast an ever-deepening shadow over Christianity. It is unnecessary to linger over this conception. Woman was to the Hebrews an inferior being, the cause of the Fall, a fragment detached from the virility of Adam. Polygamy and concubinage carry the story of woman’s inferiority far into the best ages of Hebrew development.1 1 Polygamy only began to disappear among the Jews in the fifth century b.c. And so curious was the influence of the Old Testament on the early Christian Church that several of the Fathers could not bring themselves to condemn it, and it was not officially suppressed by the Church until 1060 a.d. Luther and the Re­ formers allowed it even later. Yet polygamy was one of the surest signs of a disdain of woman, and had been rejected by Greeks, Romans, and barbarians long before the Hebrews began to perceive its enormity. �WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING The familiar ritual of the Temple sanctioned it with a stern and odious injunction. The purification ceremony, with its reference to “ sin ” and “atone­ ment,” was in itself an offensive survival of a barbaric taboo ; but when the law went on (Lev. xii. 2, 4) to direct that the process should last seven days in the case of a male child and fourteen for a female child, the inference was clear. Consis­ tently, the Hebrew law and custom ignored females in the family chronicle. The Hebrew word for “ male ” is equi­ valent to “ memory ”; the word for “female ” cannot with decency be trans­ lated literally into English. A daughter had no will to consult as to her marriage; she was virtually sold by her father; and she had no share of the inheritance. Repudiation of a wife was repulsively easy for a man, and punishments fell unevenly upon the sexes. The saYne strain of contempt is seen in the rigid exclusion of women from the service of the Deity, and even from the inner court of the Temple; and, indeed, all through the life and religion of the Jews. It is true that a few women contrived to win an honourable position in the Hebrew chronicles or romances; but, setting aside such equivocal heroines as Judith, they are types, to use the words of Mr. Lecky, “ of a low order, and certainly far inferior to those of Roman history or Greek poetry.” We need not delay, however, in deter­ mining the inferiority of the Hebrew conception of woman to that of the great pagan nations which surrounded Pales­ tine. We shall see that, rightly or wrongly, the Old Testament was the source of the fatal theory which grew up in the mind of the Fathers. For the same reason I will not stay to determine the attitude of Christ himself towards 27 woman. Moreover, he would be a bold man who would, in the present condition of New Testament scholarship, venture to formulate the opinion of Christ on any point. Theologians are beginning to dissect the Gospels in the same way that they have taken the Old Testament to pieces. The chief clerical scholars of Germany and England and America now speak freely of earlier and later “layers” of Biblical tradition. Already some of the most characteristic sayings and doings of Christ are rejected—by the leading theologians themselves, be it remem­ bered—as late and unreliable interpola­ tions. Until this process has reached its term, it is quite useless to speculate on Christ’s attitude towards woman. There are traits in the Gospel figure of Christ which contrast gratefully with the harsh Hebraic tradition. Whether, how­ ever, these are not contributions of the Alexandrian Greeks to the Gospel mosaic it is impossible to say. This much is certain—the Christ of the Gospels gave not one word of clear guidance on this or any other social problem, and entered not one word of explicit protest against the injustice of the Judaic treatment of women. But it will presently appear that this point is not really relevant to our purpose. It was the teaching of the Fathers that barred the way to the progress of woman’s cause in Europe, and this was based on St. Paul and the Old Testament. The numerous references of St. Paul to woman are familiar. She shall veil her head in the churches, and shall not ask questions there as her husband may. She is sub­ ject to her husband as “ head.” The man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. She shall not teach, for she brought ruin on the world, but shall be saved by child-bearing. �28 WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING Here was a strong re-affirmation, under the new dispensation, of all the harsh and sophistic teaching of the old. The Gentile converts evidently fought at first against the Hebraic strain of contempt. St. Paul is clearly rebuking active revolts of Christian women here and there. In the spirit of the cultured pagan thought of the first century, they are claiming equality of treatment and a share in the work of the new Church. Salutations to women-workers are frequent. Deacon­ esses are active. There seems hope that the new religion will not follow the familiar masculine type. Then St. Paul smites down the feminist movement with his apostolic authority. Then the priest­ hood and episcopate rise into power, crushing out the deaconesses, and sub­ ordinating the deacons. The hierarchy becomes rigidly masculine. The Old Testament is, after long struggles, retained in the canon; and the mainte­ nance of the old Hebraic harshness towards woman becomes inevitable. No impartial student of the period can profess to have expected any other issue. Christianity was not a great intellectual movement. It was the out­ pouring of a stream of religious emotion that had been pent up by centuries of Judaic formalism. Its great task was to spiritualise religion. Of social problems it knew and cared nothing. To social injustice it was blind, for the real social order lay beyond the clouds. Hence on secondary questions, like this of the treatment of woman, it acquiesced in the feeling of its environment. Cultured pagans had reached a higher stage on the question; but the people at large held the older ideas, and Christianity, as a popular religion, took its colour from them. Thus, instead of taking up the nobler appeals of moralists like Seneca, it came to ignore, and finally resist, them. Except in a few imperfect ways, it brought no hope, but a fresh refusal of hope to woman. I have said that Christianity was not really in a position to influence the Roman social order until three centuries later. During those three centuries the Fathers raised the structure of Christian teaching which was to command the absolute allegiance of Europe until the Reformation at least. It is a matter of no less interest than importance to trace the growth of a religious contempt for woman through the patristic literature. But it is a sad page for any Christian woman to read. I begin with the Greek fathers, as these were not only earlier in time, and therefore present the theory of woman’s inferiority in a slight and im­ mature form, but they were also, through Alexandria, in closer touch with the humanist culture of the neo-Platonists. Theology was born when the cultured Greek mind at Alexandria, then the Athens of the civilised world, came to reflect on the Gospel message. In this first stage of the theoretical interpretation of the New Testament we find the earliest traces of the reaction of the Hebrew tradition on Greek thought. Clement of Alexandria, the subtlest of the school, exhibits the ordinary improved feeling of the educated Greek of his time as regards women, when he writes as a philosopher. When he is asked if she may study philosophy like her brothers, he answers at once in the affirmative. She has the “same nature” as man. But as soon as he is confronted with the familiar texts from the Epistles of St. Paul, his humanism begins to waver. He must bow to the ruling of the Apostle that the man is her head, and all the rest. The first shadow of the �WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING Hebrew idea of woman is creeping over the fine prospect that Greek culture has opened out for woman. Moreover, we find already in Clement of Alexandria that contempt of marriage which was soon to become one of the great errors of the Church. It interests us because it ever either springs from or leads to a contempt of woman. He says in the Stromateis that “fornication is a lapse from one marriage into many.”1 Origen, the most learned (and least orthodox) of the Fathers, betrays (it is hardly neces­ sary to say) the same contempt of marriage. “Digamists”—that is to say, those who married a second time when the first wife was dead—“are saved in the name of Christ, but are by no means crowned by him”; and there are texts where he speaks with something very like censure of even first marriage. Athenagoras had already set the example of calling second marriage “a decent sort of adultery,”2 and the phrase was to be repeated time after time, until at length a Church Council should introduce it into its decrees. But Origen and Clement and Athanasius were humane enough in their independent expressions concerning the nature and dignity of woman. In this they are Greeks. They merely bow to the harsh phrases of St. Paul when these call for comment. 1 I take this and the next quotation from Lecky. In all other cases I translate direct, and literally, from the Greek or Latin. 2 The early Romans had themselves looked with disfavour on second marriages, but this was on the ground of sentiment and loyalty of memory—on principles which were in themselves most commendable. The Fathers renewed the attack on second marriages, but on grounds which were socially mischievous. They had granted a first marriage as a concession to the weakness of the flesh, and drew an ascetic line at second marriage. This not only encouraged immorality, but tended always to obscure the dignity of woman and her love. 29 The other great trio of the Greek Fathers was St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory of Nazianzum. In their writings we find the shadow deepening and lengthening. They were trained in the best Greek schools, but soon passed out of touch with the culture of the day. St. Basil, of strong and trenchant mind, insists that woman is “man’s equal in mental power, only less in bodily strength.” When, however, he comes to deal with the Old Testament, he is prevented by his religious regard for all its books from setting its awful teaching aside. He can only murmur that its treatment of woman is “a mys­ tery.” St. Gregory of Nyssa, though a married bishop, furnishes to the monas­ teries of a later date a great deal of that religious depreciation of marriage of which I have spoken. He dwells con­ stantly and morbidly on the praise of virginity. It was no part of God’s primi­ tive design that the race should be con­ tinued by sexual union. Marriage is the outcome of sin. St. Gregory of Nazian­ zum, the sweetest singer and most eloquent and emotional of the Greek Fathers, takes us a step lower in this degeneration of Christian culture as regards woman. In his poem to Olympias he expresses the growing feel­ ing of woman’s inferiority. Shall the maid Olympias learn philosophy? By no means. “Woman’s philosophy is to obey the laws of marriage.” She must refrain even from going to weddings and christenings; must not give a thought to public affairs—“Let thy house be thy city.” Then the usual concern for vir­ ginity appears : “ Blessed is the one who leads a celibate life, and soils not the divine image within him with the filth of concupiscence.” And it has the inevit­ able ending in a contempt of woman :— �30 WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING “ Fierce is the dragon, and cunning the asp; But woman has the malice of both.” at length he is moved to tell the virgin that marriage is “ not far removed from fornication.” The second great African Father, St. Cyprian, is more moderate in his phrases, though he forbids women to teach when a fresh effort is made to secure that outlet for the activity of Christian women. When we pass to St. Augustine, how­ ever, the tendency becomes at once pain­ fully apparent. It must not be believed that St. Augustine had, to use the common phrase, “burnt his fingers,” and so went too far in the inevitable moral reaction. He never led the licentious life which it has been thought fit to ascribe to him.1 We have in his writings a simple illustration of the way in which the teaching of the Old Testament and St. Paul with regard to woman entered into the social life of Europe. Saint Augustine, by nature one of the most humane as he was one of the ablest of his day, never loses an opportunity to express his disdain for woman. “ After the manner of her sex,” he observes in a sermon when speaking of a woman’s anger. “What does it matter whether it be in the person of mother or sister; we have to beware of Eve in every woman,” he writes to a youth who hesi­ tates to join his monastery because his mother implores him to remain at home. But it is chiefly in his final and mature commentary on Genesis that the working of St. Augustine’s mind is seen. Why was woman created at all ? he asks himself, and he can find no answer but the painful need to carry on the race. Perhaps, he suggests to himself, she was made to be a companion to man. No, he replies at once, for “ how much better Finally, we have in St. John Chrysostom a continuance of this unhappy tendency. A great and popular preacher, with crowds of women always hanging on his lips in one of the chief cities of the Empire, he is nevertheless thoroughly Pauline. He sees symptoms of the feeble revolt that even Christian woman is ever raising against this new despotism of man, and he insists that “ she shall not demand equality, for she is under the head.” But Chrysostom never breaks into expressions of contempt. When, however, we pass from the Greek to the Latin branch of the Church, and examine the writings of those Fathers who were the absolute guides of opinion for the next thousand years, this pious misogyny at once takes a more sombre, though at times a most amusing, form. A gulf was beginning to yawn between profane culture and sacred culture. A constant brooding over the Scriptures was accounted the only desir­ able form of learning; and the conse­ quences were disastrous for the cause of woman. Tertullian, the first of the Latin Fathers, a sternly ascetic figure, opens the chapter with the most violent phrase­ ology. The first sentence of his work, On the Adornment of Women, runs: “If your faith were as firm as its eternal reward, my beloved sisters, no one of you, after learning of the living God and her own condition as a woman, would dare to seek gay apparel, but would dress in rags and remain in dirt as a sorrowful and penitent Eve.” “ Thou,” he says, a few lines afterwards, “thou art the devil’s gate, the betrayer of the tree, the first deserter of the divine law ! ” He, more 1 As I have shown in my Saint Augustine and than any others, praises virginity, until His Age. �WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING two men could live and converse together than a man and a woman.” Later, how­ ever, he discovers a peculiar reason for the creation of woman. He asks him­ self how this glorious being, as he has described Adam, could be deceived by the clumsy trickery of the serpent. Pos­ sibly, he goes on, God created a being of inferior intelligence and will—woman —with a view to the carrying-out of this pre-arranged drama of the Fall. So it is when St. Augustine comes to deal with the polygamous lives of the patriarchs of the Old Testament. As a heretic, he had boldly ridiculed them as barbaric types. As a convert, he had taken refuge in the broad harbour of “mystery.” Now, in his new conviction of woman’s absolute inferiority, he sees polygamy to be a perfectly defensible arrangement. In one of his works (De bono conjugal!) he is ready to allow that, even in Chris­ tian times, a man may have a second wife or mistress if his first is barren, though still alive. But would he allow a wife two husbands? No, because “by a secret law of nature things that are higher must be unique, while the things that are subject are set under—not only one under one, but, if the system of nature or society allow, even several under one, not without becoming dignity.” The two other leaders of Latin Chris­ tianity, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, are little more favourable to woman. St. Ambrose does not, indeed, show any deliberate contempt. Woman must be obedient, but not servile, to her hus­ band. In one place he makes an amus­ ing attempt to find a ground for the restriction of her work and education. She is more fitted for bodily work, he says, because “remember that God took a rib out of Adam’s body, not a part of his soul, to make her.” And when he is 31 asked why she must veil herself in the churches, while her husband does not, he answers, because “ she was not made to the image of God, like man.” St. Jerome, who through most of his life had a circle of noble Roman ladies in daily intercourse with him, has never­ theless a fine theoretical contempt for woman. A great Scriptural scholar, he never fails to endorse and amplify the dis­ dainful references to woman in the Old Testament, such as that she is “the root of all evil.” He points out with some complacency how rarely the saints of the Old Testament are described as having daughters, though they have many sons, and how the reverse is true of the wicked kings. In his attacks on Jovinian—a Luther of the fourth century—he habitu­ ally depreciates woman for the purpose of discrediting marriage; “ but marriage is good for those who are afraid to* sleep alone at night,” he says. In a letter to Heliodorus, who hesitates to join him in the desert, he says: “Though thy father cling to thee, and thy mother rend her garments and show thee the breasts thou hast sucked, thrust them aside with dry eyes to embrace the cross.” This letter is said to have been learned by heart by Jerome’s lady pupils. We thus see that while, as I described in the preceding chapter, a remarkable advance was being made in the cultured mind of the age with regard to the treat­ ment of women, the Christian Church was preparing a terrible reaction. Stoic and neo-Platonist thinkers, and educated Romans in general, were forming a more enlightened judgment. From the north the barbarians were marching down with a great and menacing fund of undis­ ciplined passion, it is true, yet with an ideal of womanhood which was singularly just and elevated. From the south and �32 WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING east the new religions of Egypt and Persia were bringing an equally liberal and humane temper on this point. A fair field was opening to the hope and ambition of woman. But all the time the shadow of the Hebraic ideal was falling over the Christian Church, and the Christian Church was destined to reach the supreme authority. By the end of the fourth century “ paganism ” was in its agony. By the middle of the fifth century it was dead, and Christianity was all-powerful. The writings of Augustine and Ambrose and Jerome ruled the life of Europe. Their ideas about women enter into the Church life and social life and the legislation of every country, as it settles down into orderly administration. In the fifth century the Councils began to close the door of the ministry effectu­ ally against women. Few deaconesses can be found after that time. One by one the public functions were reserved for the clergy. Women were forbidden, successively, to teach, to baptise, to preach, or take any order whatever. Councils of bishops began to dispose of women in a curious fashion. At the Council of Macon, in 585, a bishop was found to hold the opinion that woman had no soul.1 He was immediately cor­ rected, but the appearance of a bishop with such a theory is significant. At the Council of Auxerre, in 578, the bishops forbade women, on account of their “impurity,” to take the sacrament in their hands as men did. On every side woman was forced to retire from the position she had won. The dignity which the Stoics had at length granted her was flung to the winds once more. “The chain was broken,” says Mlle. Chauvin in her Professions accessibles aux femmes. “ With these Jewish doctrines, supported presently by the old legal texts, tradition recovered its force. A new and larger and more painful evolu­ tion had to commence, in the course of which the two conflicting principles, con­ quering and conquered in turn, gave to the Middle Ages a very varied and often contradictory legislation.” The profound social importance of the adoption of this reactionary view of woman is best realised in the legislation of the following centuries. We have seen that the harshness of the old Roman law had almost disappeared by the beginning of the second century. Custom and legal devices had taken the stiii£* out of what was left. But when the influence over the legislative authorities passes from the Stoics to the Christian prelates, reaction sets in. I have already quoted Sir Henry Maine's judgment that “ the latest Roman law, so far as it is touched by the Constitutions of the Christian emperors, bears some marks of a reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults.” In the political disruption of Europe that followed the barbarian invasion there was a period of judicial chaos, during which the modifications induced by cus­ tom were lost sight of. When the study of the texts was resumed, their literal harshness was felt to coincide with the teaching of the Fathers, and was applied without mercy. In the feudal legislation which was built up out of the barbaric customs and the Roman law, under 1 Bebel and Mlle. Chauvin, and other feminist writers, give a wrong impression that the Council Church influence, woman sank lower and deliberated on the subject. The acta of the lower. In this section theology and Council make it clear that only one bishop held canon law interfered more than anywhere the opinion, to the horror of his colleagues. �WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING else. In the end a legislation emerged which was compounded of the old Roman injustice and the new JudseoChristian contempt. The whole of the ground won in Greece and Rome was lost. Woman, as Mr. Lecky says, sank to a lower legal position than she had ever occupied under paganism. “In this union of Church and State,” says Mrs. Cady Stanton, “ mankind touched the lowest depth of degrada­ tion.” I am, however, descending too speedily into the abyss of the Dark Ages, though it is, perhaps, advisable to point out at once the frightful retrogression that took place. But before examining in greater detail the miserable period for woman which the teaching of the Fathers initiated, it is advisable to glance at the brighter side of the influence of Chris­ tianity. How, in the face of all this, can ecclesiastical writers make such urgent claim to the gratitude of women ? How could a humane and elevated religion like early Christianity fail so utterly to support this social reform ? The truth is that Christianity did bring into the Roman world—though it was not the only religion to do so—ideals and prin­ ciples which aided the cause of woman; but it nullified their action by unprac­ tical excesses and mischievous errors. I am not thinking so much of the elevation of Mary to the supreme position among mortals. So far was this from being a novelty in the Roman world that it was, on the contrary, forced on the Church itself by the inveterate custom of the pagans. Isis and Cybele and Frigga and Minerva, and the hundred other pagan goddesses, could only be banished from the hearts of the people by a substitution of the image of Mary. Statues of Isis and hymns to Cybele were adapted to 33 the mother of Christ. Moreover, the Church strictly insisted that Mary had been raised to such an altitude by no effort, and for no merit, of her own; hence the elevation gave little real encouragement. But it is urged that Christianity at least aided the cause of woman by rais­ ing matrimony to the dignity of a sacra­ ment. Those who write like this read the teaching of the modern Church into the early centuries. It is perfectly true that the Roman world needed a more serious conception of the marriage bond, though it is also true that the Romans of the fourth century had less to learn in this direction than is usually supposed. It is true, again, that the Christian Church brought a severe ideal of mar­ riage, and so far rendered a social service, and a service to woman. But the Church took away with the left hand what it gave with the right. While sus­ taining the rigour it destroyed the dignity of marriage. It set itself, as St. Jerome expressed it, to “lay the axe of virginity at the root of the tree of matrimony.” It never declared marriage sinful, but it went as near to such a declaration as was possible. It strongly and persistently, by all its great teachers, advocated abstinence from marriage. It denounced divorce with an irrational zeal—though the Fathers said it was not absolutely unjustifiable for the husband to re-marry when the wife had sinned—and it used violent language of second marriages. It represented sexual love to be an out­ come of sin; strictly forbade indulgence in it, even for married folk, for its own sake, and on the eve of holy days; con­ demned it as incompatible with the holy office of the priest; and generally ascribed to it an odour of the pit. No great social service, and no advantage to D �34 WOMAN IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHING woman, could result from a gospel which was marred by such eccentricities. Of the other services to women which are alleged only a few gave absolute advantages. The opening for women which was provided by the founding of nunneries will be dealt with more fully in the next chapter, but it may be said at once that this is a strange claim. The theologian might just as well boast that he opened up the profession of usury to the Jew by closing every other profession and employment against him. Legouve finds that Christianity conferred an in­ calculable boon on woman by insisting, “ for the first time in the history of the world,” that the husband was just as rigorously bound to fidelity as the wife. We have already seen by many quota­ tions that this was a common doctrine of the Stoics and neo-Platonists; and Legouve admits that what the Church did in this respect soon disappeared in the disorder of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, one can readily and gladly admit that several of the Christian emperors did obtain changes in law in favour of women; but these were quickly neutralised in that fatal reconstruction of European law which all admit to have been disastrous for women, and which was in this department predominantly ruled by the Church law. “ This will never be a good world for women,” said Kingsley, repeating the opinion of Maine, “ until the last remnant of the canon law is swept from the face of the earth.” In this wise, therefore, came and passed a great crisis in the affairs of women 1,500 years ago. We have seen that the notion of woman being uniformly oppressed or degraded under pagan ideas, and of her condition beginning to improve as soon as Christianity came to power, is the reverse of the truth. Here and there over England you find, perhaps on a desolate moor, some trace of one of the solid roads that the Romans extended over Europe 2,000 years ago, and that no succeeding people would even try to maintain until our own age. Those relics of Roman roads, peeping out of centuries of idle undergrowth, fitly symbolise the fortune of woman’s cause in Europe. The work that was done for woman was allowed to lapse—nay, was stricken from the hands of the converted peoples. The life of the Middle Ages has clothed it with idle weeds, so that we only recover it with difficulty to-day. Woman has had to wait for the new paganism of our time—our Condorcets, and Robert Owens, and J. S. Mills—to stretch a hand back across the gulf of the Christian domination, and take up afresh the work of Plutarch and Seneca and Hypatia. With what truth the interven­ ing age is called a gulf (in this respect), and into what depths the Judseo-Christian theory of woman allowed men to descend, I proceed to indicate, as briefly as possible, in the next chapter. But 1 cannot but apply in this connection the words in which Mr. Lowes Dickinson refers to Plato’s teaching on another social question: “ With what a breath of the air of dawn, what a gleam of Mediter­ ranean light, do these words come waft­ ing, as in a blue heaven, over the deli­ rious fumes of the Middle Ages, to remind us of what men were before they had learned to distrust their own fairest impulses and instincts, and to seek in authority the good and the true, which it is their privilege to divine through experi­ ence.” These words come spontaneously to the pen when one passes from the old pagan work for woman over the abyss of the Middle Ages to the awakening of Europe in the nineteenth century. �WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES 35 Chapter IV. WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES The period through which I am now going to follow the fortunes of woman, in so far as they were influenced by the Church, stretches from the fifth century to the fifteenth. It is necessary to pick one’s way through this part of history with care. Nothing would be easier than to plunge into medieval chronicles, or the writings of Lecky, White, Buckle, Milman, Lea, etc., and pile up an indict­ ment of the Middle Ages, and so of the Church which dominated the Middle Ages, that would unnerve any apologist. It is just possible, on the other hand, as Maitland showed, to avoid the mud, and step daintily from tuft to tuft, and then per­ suade the world that the Dark Age is not a morass at all. I wish to do neither. I wish to outline with impartial pencil the course of the woman cause from the fifth to the fifteenth century, to touch the features of social life only in so far as they illustrate this, and so to discover with what gratitude or resentment the woman of to-day may look back to the dominance of the Christian Church in Europe during that period. The subject is enormously complicated and seductive, so that I must keep conscientiously to the narrow path lit by my inquiry. One of the women writers who has best succeeded—apart from unreliable sectaries—in discovering the consola• tions which medieval life offered to women says : “ Although women appear to have had a wider field of activity than they afterwards enjoyed when social life became more complex, there was a counteracting influence which told against the development and free exercise of their energies. This was the influence of the Church. It was the policy of the Church to keep women in a subordinate position.”1 Other writers on the fortunes of women use stronger phrases. Mlle. Chauvin says that “ at the close of the Middle Ages reaction was triumphant in the whole of society, in every rank, every subject, every function,” and she expressly traces this to that shadow of the Hebraic ideal of woman which I have described as stealing over Christendom. Legouve fHistoire morale des femmes, p. 183) says that “under the feudal regime conjugal morals return to brutality.” I will not venture to quote the language of Mrs. Gage, or Mr. Lecky, or Mr. Lea, or Professor K. Pearson, or Professor W. White, or Bebel, or Büchner. Let us examine the question with patience and method. Medieval Europe arose from the fusion of the dissolving Roman Empire with the invading Celts and Teutons. On both sides there was, to begin with, or before conversion to Christianity, a fair ideal of womanhood. What was the result of the fusion as regards the general esteem of woman and her work ? And how far was the Church responsible for the result ? After all that we have seen, from Sir Henry Maine and Mlle. Chauvin, and 1 Georgiana Hill, Women in English Life, p. vii. �36 WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES other legal writers, it is hardly necessary to linger over the question of woman’s position in law. It became worse than it had been in any civilised nation for many a century. By the end of the eleventh century the dominance of the Church or Canon Law was supreme, and it determined the common law, whose barbarities we have only lately repealed. In an earlier chapter I illustrated it from the legal condition of woman in Massa­ chusetts little more than half a century ago. Its fundamental principle was the inferiority of woman. She was deprived of the control of her person and property, deprived of the resource of legal testi­ mony, and made morally and economi­ cally dependent to a pernicious extent on her husband. There is no defence of this legal degradation of woman, and there is no question but that, after allow­ ing for the influence of the ancient Roman texts, it was due to the domi­ nance of Church law over civic law. It is unnecessary to say more of disabilities which are yet fresh in the memory of women. .It is not so easy to express in brief the industrial and political position of woman during the Middle Ages, as the conditions were exceedingly varied and the authorities seem to be discordant. It is possible to distinguish three broad stages. From the fifth to the eleventh century the industrial position of woman remained what it had been under the older religion, but she lost the old respect. It had been a recognised and necessary institution of barbaric life that the women should work while the men fought. As Christianity completely failed to check their pugnacity and bloodshed, the work of the women was little changed. But they were no longer held to be “ something sacred and pro­ phetic.” The Age of Iron (up to the eleventh century) had no time to think of the economic position of woman. Here and there the women of "the higher class had some distinction. The AngloSaxon woman could inherit and dispose of property, and could sue in the courts. Sometimes she succeeded to a barony, and exercised the full local jurisdiction attaching to it; there are records of her attendance at the Witenagemote. With the coming of the Normans, however, she lost her right to hold property—the root of all power and enduring respect— and became more dependent. And the condition of the poorer women was everywhere degraded. Professor K. Pearson suspects that the men of the Germanic tribes had accepted Chris­ tianity eagerly because it was a masculine religion, and lent itself to the subjection of their wives. The older religions were women-made, as they went back to a matriarchal age. Hence the women suffered heavily by the conversion of the tribes to Christianity. But in what I call the second stage of the Middle Ages woman’s industrial position greatly improved. Almost every craft and trade was open to her as well as to men, and some, such as brewing, were almost reserved to women. They were admitted to guilds, they joined with the men in building the great cathedrals and in making pilgrimages, and so on. As abbesses of the great monasteries that now sprang up, women here and there obtained a very high distinction in the community. The old Germanic feeling towards them re-appeared in the well-known form of chivalry. The new­ born poetry of Europe was filled with the praise of woman and the desire to serve her. In places they had a considerable culture. Learned ladies corresponded in �WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES Latin with eminent prelates. Sometimes they opened public schools—as when the widow and daughters of Master Manegold continued that teacher’s school of philosophy at Paris after his death. This is the period of medieval life in which enthusiasts seek evidence with which tb rebut the name of the “ Dark Ages.” As the Middle Ages embrace seven or eight long and changeful centuries, it is obvious that one can easily select sufficient passages of romance and even beauty from its chronicles to make an alluring picture—if one ignores all the rest. I have not to defend here the phrase “ Dark Ages,” except insofar as woman is concerned; but I may admire, as I pass, the facility with which these optimistic writers can overlook the crass ignorance of the people, the violence and knavery that covered the whole country, the plagues and famines that decimated towns and villages every few years, the flood of spurious and in­ decent relics, the degradation of the clergy and monks, the slavery of the serfs, the daily brutalities of the ordeal and the torture, the coarse and bloody pastimes, the insecurity of life, the triumphant ravages of disease, the check of scientific inquiry, and a hundred other features of medieval life. A humane romanticist, like Scott or Morris, will temper those features; but spend a few hours over the Latin text of the medieval chronicles ! If, indeed, this were only a transitional stage between barbarism and civilisation, we could pardon much. But we know perfectly well to-day that the Roman Empire at its death had handed on to Europe a fine system of education, an excellent beginning of medical science, an effective restraint of violence and cupidity, a concern for culture and humanity, an admirable legal system, and 37 a superb scheme of roads, bridges, aque­ ducts, and other material conveniences. However, to return to my point, the position of woman in the best period of the Middle Ages fell far short of what the earlier progressive movement had promised. The medieval woman of the wealthier class had one choice—marriage or the nunnery. In the latter case she might become abbess, and so exercise a certain power over her community and the dependent villagers. In neither case could she hope, except in an illegitimate and unenviable way, to take any active interest in public affairs. The lady of the manor dwelt with her young children in an upper part of the house. She came down to dine and meet visitors in the hall; and her position as mistress, and the frequent absence of her lord, gave her some distinction. But her world was a painfully narrow one. Rarely educated, immersed in the task of seeing to the sewing and brewing and spinning, united for life to a man she had not chosen, and jealously screened from intercourse with other men, her chance of happiness was limited. We find a great lady highly praised because in forty years she never went ten miles away from her home. Her life was a species of slavery in comparison with the life of woman at that very period in pagan Japan or among the Moors in Spain. Moreover, it was only the woman of the higher classes who had any recom­ pense for her loss of liberty under the feudal system. The wife of the labourer was a chattel of the estate. Her life was one of unceasing drudgery; it is folly to take the village pastimes of her teens and early twenties as any redemption of her bondage. See was sold into slavery to her husband by her father, and was treated with a different legal code from �38 WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES her brother. Her husband had the legal “right” to flog her—a legal and religious encouragement of the most brutal act man can stoop to—and to claim for her the pain and degradation of public punishment if she resented his coarseness. The ducking-stool, the scold’s bridle, the stocks, and other such institutions, ensured her submission and silence. And if she attempted to live apart from the coarseness and violence when her first husband was dead, there hung over her continuously the dread accusation of witchcraft and the brutal and stupid tests of it that the Middle Ages provided. From the Church she could get no word but “ obedience man was made in the image of God, but woman was not. I have said that there was a third category of medieval woman—the nuns, and the women who worked at trades and crafts in the towns. I will speak presently of conventual life as such; but, though it is true that for a short time the towns and the convents offered varied employment to women, the in­ creasing penetration of the canon law into the general system, and other causes, soon brought this to an end. Through the nunneries women had resumed the profession of teaching, which the early Church had taken from them. Nuns were also taught and practised the rudimentary medicine of the medieval world. In the towns all the lighter and some of the heavier crafts were opened to them. All this, Mlle. Chauvin says, disappeared in the course of the thir­ teenth century — the most Christian century of the whole era. It would be absurd, no doubt, to see the action of canon law alone in this narrowing of woman’s industrial sphere (and therefore of her economic independence), but it would have been impossible for men to accomplish it if there had not been a lowering of the general feeling with regard to woman. That there was this perversion of the general attitude towards woman needs little proof. For the earlier portion of the Middle Ages it is plausible to hold the Church excused on the ground of its powerlessness to restrain the violent and semi-civilised northern barbarians. One cannot help recalling that it is clear from their legends that their earlier religion, as long as they believed in it, had been able to restrain them, especially in the matter of respect for their wives. It is singular that Christianity should have suffered so many of them to descend even to polygamy for several centuries. However, it is more im­ portant to observe that the violence of the wicked was not a whit more injurious to woman than the religiousness of the good. That is a paradoxical statement, but the reader must remember at what point we left the Christian conception of woman in the fifth and sixth centuries. The extravagances of the Fathers were repeated with terrible emphasis in the Middle Ages. St. Jerome and St. Augustine had urged their friends to thrust aside their mothers with stern disdain. St. Columban, accordingly, stepped over the prostrate form of his mother as she clung to the door-posts to keep him from the dreaded monastery. St. Elizabeth of Thuringia sent her children away because the love of them interfered with her spiritual growth ; she was content when at last she could look on them with the same indifference as on other children. It was an act of heroism; but it was a crushing in­ dictment of the religious system that directed her. St. Catherine of �WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES Siena1 assured her contemporaries, who believed her to be inspired, that the blessed in heaven were so united with God that “if a father or mother sees her son in hell, or the son his father or mother, they will not be troubled.” Often enough this kind of piety took the form of the patristic con­ tempt of woman. We have a letter (No. III.) written by St. Bernard in the name of one of his monks to parents who were emploring him to return to them. There is no question but that it was written by St. Bernard himself, the greatest spiritual ruler of the Middle Ages. It contains passages such as this :— What have I to do with you ? What have I received from you but sin and misery ? Only this corruptible body that I bear do I confess that I hold from you. Is it not enough for you that you have brought me into this miserable world ; that you, being sinners, have begotten me in sin; that, being born in sin, you have nourished me in sin ; but you must envy me the mercy of God I have obtained, and wish to make of me a son of hell? You may choose to neglect your own salvation, but why should you wish also to destroy mine ? Such scenes as the Egyptian desert had witnessed—when, for instance, an aged mother had crossed the wilderness, with great pain and fatigue, to have a last look at her hermit sons, and they slammed the door upon her—were seen on every side in the Middle Ages. This question of the conventual life of the Middle Ages has many sides, it is true. It is frequently said that woman was indebted to the Church for providing this retreat from a violent world. From the description, which Mrs. Hill—who urges this point—gives of the painfully retired character of woman’s life in the 1 I quote this and the two preceding incidents from Miss Eckenstein’s Woman -under Monas­ ticism. 39 upper storeys of the great manor houses, one would think that further retreat from the world was unnecessary. It must be noted, too, that other apologists for the conventual system commend it for a precisely opposite reason ; that is to say, because it affords women their one opportunity of taking a share in the active work of the world. However, we shall the more quickly reach a true estimate of its value if we grant both claims, in different applications, and pass on to consider the other side of the conventual system. On a broad view of the situation it is impossible to doubt that the concentration of women in nunneries during the Middle Ages was a great social evil. Let me put it in a concrete form. A few years ago I had occasion to study the conventual system in France about the beginning of the twelfth century, for the purpose of writing a life of Abélard and Heloise. I found that the chief ecclesiastical chroniclers of the time spoke with bitterness of the moral condition of the great majority of the nunneries, and case after case turned up in the chronicles of the suppression of convents on account of their immorality. On the other hand, two or three reformers of the type of St. Bernard were causing the erection of huge nunneries of a strictly virtuous character. But what was the social effect of this new crusade? Its chief result was to break up thousands of refined homes, and to withdraw from their natural task of sweetening the world thousands of married women of the better type. In the one abbey of Fontevraud there were many hundreds of married women who had left their husbands. Abélard’s mother and wife both entered nunneries. This was happening in every Christian country, in �40 WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES direct proportion to its religious earnest­ ness, all through the Middle Ages. We may fully recognise that this was heroic conduct, and that it was prompted by the most elevated motives ; but it was a disastrous procedure for the cause of womankind, if not of mankind. Now that the world at large has discarded the conventual ideal as an illusion, this should be obvious. Then, if ever, there was work for women to do in the world, and women like Heloise knew it. But they were persuaded or forced to bury themselves in convents, where, if they escaped the degradation which so often befel those institutions, their devotion was absorbed in a pitiful struggle against maternal instinct and the sense of injustice to their sex. Nor can this question be left without some reference to the effect on the world at large of setting up these unnatural standards of virtue. The strange idea is entertained sometimes that it was par­ ticularly expedient to set up this trans­ cendental ideal in a vicious world like that of the Middle Ages. It would be difficult to conceive any theory less warranted by the actual experience of the Christian Church. From the days when St. Jerome and St, Augustine gave their austere message to the Roman world such preaching had been a failure. A few were converted, and realised the ethereal type set before them at the expense of a sacrifice of all the best gifts of life. The vast majority of the people felt the message to be an unnatural one, and totally disregarded it. The excesses of the Fathers were fully sustained by the medieval theologians. One monk of Monte Cassino published a vision of hell (from which Dante probably borrowed) that had been vouchsafed to him. In one of its most fearful depart­ ments were the souls of men and women who had not abstained from their con­ jugal rights on the eves of holy days 1 Peter Lombard, one of the most weighty of the schoolmen, laid it down that it was a venial sin only for married folk to have intercourse, when children were impossible, for the purpose of avoiding incontinence, but a mortal sin to do it for the pleasure alone. St. Thomas, and practically all the theologians, held (and hold to-day) that the pleasure attaching to procreation was not part of God’s original design, but a direct consequence of sin. A woman was made to kneel out­ side the church to be “ purified ” after child-birth before she could again share in the worship. Naturally, the people at large felt this conception of love to be unnatural and untrue, and they followed their own inclinations. Prostitution assumed terrible proportions, and was virtually sanctioned by Church and State at times. Burckhardt says that there were found to be 6,800 prostitutes (besides innumerable concubines) in Rome alone in 1490. In German cities foreign princes were greeted with bands of them provided by the municipality; and the Church was content to enact that they must attend worship at times. When venereal disease was introduced from America, it spread through all classes, from pope to peasant, with the most appalling rapidity. I am loth to enter in detail on the question of the unrestrained licence of the Middle Ages, but there are still one or two respects in which it concerns our subject—namely, the culpability of the Church and the mischief wrought by its reactionary conception of woman and the family. The first is the right of the baron, and at times of the ecclesiastical potentate, to the newly married woman �WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES 41 for one or more days. This was only eleventh century written by a cardinal seriously attacked in France, and then and warmly commended by the pope— by the peasants themselves, in the does not concern us. But the growth sixteenth century. The sacred prostitu­ of concubinage was a frightful comment tion practised in some of the Syrian on the Church’s claim to have uplifted temples was a perverse religious custom, woman. Things came to such a pass enjoined by the priests. This medieval that parishioners, for the protection of custom was suffered by the Christian their own families, compelled their clergy Church in defiance of its sternest ideals. to keep concubines. Even when the The second important point was the higher clergy met sometimes for ecume­ enforcement of obligatory confession in nical councils, the occasion was marked the thirteenth century. It is unneces­ by a notable concourse of women. sary to enlarge on this. The third was It has been necessary to touch briefly the fateful and fatal enforcement of on these well-known features of medieval sacerdotal celibacy. Lea’s History of life in order to bring out the position Sacerdotal Celibacy must instruct those of woman and the responsibility of the who desire fuller information about the Church for that position. At the same effect of this. I will only quote the time, the canon law itself was making conclusion of Mr. Lecky, that “ the enactments that obviously increased the writers of the Middle Ages are full of the growing disorder. The Church had accounts of nunneries that were like raised marriage to the dignity of a sacra­ brothels, of the vast multitude of in­ ment. But, besides undermining that fanticides within their walls, and of that dignity by the free use of “the axe of inveterate prevalence of incest among virginity ” and a morbid disdain of love, the clergy which rendered it necessary it largely neutralised its work by fencing again and again to issue the most strin­ marriage about with numerous restric­ gent enactments that priests should not tions and impediments, for the lifting of be permitted to live with their mothers which money had to be paid to Rome. and sisters.” When Hildebrand failed As early as the ninth century marriage to induce the civil and ecclesiastical was forbidden—without a bought dis­ authorities to enforce celibacy among pensation — within seven degrees of the clergy, he sent emissaries to stir up kindred. The degrees of carnal relation­ the people against them, and frightful ship were reduced, but at the same time disorders ensued. Urban II. gave it was enacted that spiritual relationship nobles permission to enslave the wives (of god-parents and god-children) should who would not surrender their priest­ be an impediment. All these restric­ husbands. Other nobles levied a tax on tions tended to foster disorder and free the clergy of their districts under the unions. The same must be said of the title of permission to keep concubines. Church’s irrational rigidity as regards The whole proceeding was in itself a divorce. Sexual disorder increased. contempt of woman, and it had for one Woman became cheaper in the esteem of its chief consequences an increase of of men, and the narrowing of her interest her medieval degradation. The terrible to domestic work and the desire to please growth of unnatural vice among the men proceeded apace. clergy — described in a work of the The subject would not be complete �42 WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES without a formal reference to the treat­ ment of witches. It is possible to exag­ gerate the culpability of the Church in this matter. The age was intensely superstitious, and it was a part of the almost universal practice of men, in or out of Christian times, to regard an injury as the work of malicious deities, or evil genii, or devils. When Chris­ tianity had, as is usual with triumphant religions, turned all the old pagan deities into devils, this practice was inevitably increased without any direct encourage­ ment ; but that the distinctive teaching of the Christian Bible and Church was particularly responsible for this awful chapter of medieval history cannot be questioned. The mere fact that men such as John Wesley retained the old idea in the full light of the nineteenth century is proof enough of its having a Scriptural base; nor is there the slightest doubt that the Church fostered, instead of moderating, the practice, just as it solemnly presided at the clumsy and brutal ordeal and judicial duel. Mrs. Hill goes so far as to claim that “the Church was largely responsible for the terrible persecutions inflicted on women, and chiefly on the poorest and most helpless, on the ground of witchcraft,” through its “dissemination of the theory of woman’s inherent vice.” Most certainly this side of the teaching of the Church had a great deal to do with it. There is ample evidence for this in the language of the time. The painfulness of the facts is not mitigated when we remember that these “ witches ” were among the very few who brought relief to the sick poor in those days. Professor K. Pearson, in his most suggestive chap­ ters on woman in his Ethic of Freethought, puts the indictment in a more interesting light. The witches were largely, he thinks, the successors of the “ wise women ” (the name was given to them, it will be remembered) who were held in such honour among the Germanic peoples before their conversion. Chris­ tianity had no further use for them. It brushed them disdainfully aside, and represented their communications with the pagan gods as a social evil. Thus, by the simple process of giving the name of devils to the gods of the older religion, it turned priestesses into witches, doctors into maleficent hags, and a disposition that had been respected as almost more than human into a less than human viciousness and ugliness.1 The-ghastly and prolonged outrage on the more help­ less women of Europe that ensued must be considered when one is calculating what woman owes to Christianity. Finally, a balanced and impartial judgment on the position of woman in the Middle Ages must take account of chivalry. The progress of historical truth is impeded by nothing more fatally than by exaggerating the evil or ignoring the good of the Middle Ages. When a Freethinker like William Morris can represent the golden age of the future as a sort of revival of the Middle Ages,2 there must have been some beauty and joy in it. There was a great deal of both in the later Middle Ages, though the Church was not at all responsible for the latter, and was only the director, 1 For a convenient glimpse at the old Germanic idea of woman’s dignity and closer approach to the gods, I would commend the relevant pas­ sages in Kingsley’s Hypatia. It is almost the only part of the novel that may be taken as sound history. 2 But it is hardly necessary to point out that Morris is thinking of a fourteenth century puri­ fied of the horrors I have described; he is not denying that they were there in the past. Hence the fallacy of quoting him as an admirer of the Middle Ages. �WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES 43 for woman, with this difference, that it now looked chiefly to her physical beauty, and made a doll of her. Hence, though here and there it encouraged culture in women, and generally relieved the gloom in which the new religion would enwrap her “ as a sorrowful and repentant Eve,” it was not of much lasting use to the cause of woman. At the most, we may welcome it as a sign that at this time the nobles bade the priests keep for them­ selves their pessimistic estimate of woman, and acknowledged that she was, at least, a pleasant and amiable creature. Women who have no higher ambition may be content with that. Others will patiently observe that, behind all this glittering show and lip-worship, woman’s legal and economic and political position steadily deteriorated. In summing up, therefore, we must say that through the whole of this strange and chequered period we find the patristic depreciation of woman sinking into the mind of Europe and breaking out in its social life. In the better features of the time women have, as a rule, no part. They are not benefited by the quest of the Holy Grail; they have very little share in the vivid intellectual movement of the twelfth century, and none in that of the thirteenth, or in the artistic move­ ment that sprang up beside it and formed the chief glory of the Middle Ages. Like the Jews, they are gradu­ ally driven from every profession and public office. Theologians and ecclesias­ tical jurists obtain supreme power, and these are the most deadly enemies of women. Life-long seclusion in the inner apartments of a man she has not chosen, or interment in a nunnery that is either 1 Even Hallam says: “ The gallantry of those degraded or unnatural, is the choice ages was often very adulterous........ The morals (within limits) of the daughter of the of chivalry, we cannot deny, were not pure” wealthy. Life-long drudgery, with few (p. 666). Hot the creator, of the former. However that may be, we have to take account of this great movement known as chivalry, which is so much urged on us by those who, for some occult reason, think them­ selves bound to defend the Dark Ages. In some respects, the history of chivalry lies like a path of light across the gloom of the period. People are apt to jumble together a good many things under the head of chivalry—the Holy Grail, the troubadours, the knightly champions of ladies, and so on. We must distinguish. The movement which centres about the quest of the Holy Grail was a great force for good; but it was an ascetic move­ ment, and did nothing for woman. Study Parsifal, or Tennyson’s Holy Grail, in default of serious history. The trou­ badour movement was a defiant denial of the theological advice as regards woman, yet was based on much the same estimate of her. To this movement she was a centre of sexual charm, a pretty doll—little or nothing more. Chivalry proper was a more complicated matter. It is now, however, recognised by many historians that it was mainly an erotic and licentious movement. Dante was near the truth when he ascribed the sin of Paolo and Francesca to reading some of their gay exploits. Professor K. Pearson suggests that the sole object of all these knightly adventures was sexual gratification. Certainly the whole of the legends are redolent of free love.1 That there was incidental good issue from it is obvious; but it was not a movement that could have been inspired by the ascetic Christian Church. It was rather a resurgence of the old Germanic regard �44 THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION and coarse pleasures, with a long vista of sticks and whips, and scolds’-bridles, and ducking-stools, with, perhaps, the brutal ordeal on the slightest suspicion, or the ghastly death of the witch, is the prospect of the daughter of the poor. Let us see what the next stage of Chris­ tian development will do for her. Chapter V. THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION Thus far the cause of woman has had little reason to welcome the supplanting of the native religions of Europe by Judaic Christianity. It must be distinctly understood that I speak of the cause of woman as a problem of social ethics. I am meeting the claim that woman has been freed, uplifted, or ennobled in some way by the coming of the Christian Church. To test this I took woman as she was, and had fair hope to be, in the fourth century, when Christianity became a social force. She had then obtained almost complete control of her person and her property, had the right to make independent recourse to law, was respected in public life when her ability won a position in it, and had beaten down in the minds of most thoughtful men the older feeling of her inferiority. The average active woman of our day will say that it remained to secure for her complete economic independence and civic and political equality ; and she will hardly even ask if Christianity gave any assistance in this direction. But we may just as confidently meet the woman with less ambition for her sex, and say that the coming of Christianity wrought evil even from her modest point of view. The teaching of the great Chris­ tian leaders, caught up by the medieval theologians, embodied in the canon law, and thence conveyed to the civil law, stamped afresh upon the mind of Europe the idea of woman’s inferiority. Only a desperate champion of the Church will find consolation in the thought that some few evaded the pressure by unsex­ ing themselves in nunneries and becom­ ing abbesses or saints. The sacrifice of all the joy of life is a heavy price to pay for a little dignity. We must take a broad view, but not a vague one. We must not think that all was well because we can quote a few prominent names of queens or ladies from English history; or because we catch a glimpse of feminine culture here and there in the course of a thousand years ; or because the Church canonised women in whom it believed their human nature to have been suppressed. The fact is that, on the one hand, the Christian Church did nothing for woman which the Stoic and neo-Platonist moralists were not doing—except to build nunneries ; and, on the other, it re-introduced the ideas they were success­ fully uprooting, undid the whole of their reform of the law with regard to her, suffered the most violent and unjust �THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION 45 woman’s social position. He says that, if we would understand the Renaissance society, it is essential to realise that “ woman was held in equal esteem with man.” There is no talk among them of the “ emancipation ” of woman; but the absence of such phrases only means that it was assumed that the recovered Greek culture was equally accessible to both sexes. Women’s higher education at that time was substantially the same as man’s. Many women abstained from marriage in order to devote themselves more fully to culture. We find them constantly in learned conversation with men. Few turned very eagerly to art, but literature and philosophy were assiduously cultivated. The wives of the distinguished princes of the time are associated with their fame, and a “crowd” of other women became pro­ minent—“ even if their only distinction lies in their harmonious blending of grace, beauty, culture, morality, and piety.” In some senses, in fact, the women of the Renaissance were exceedingly “advanced” from the modern point of view. There was the inevitable attempt to set up the Greek institution of the hetaira, and many of these courtesans were highly cultured and much respected. But apart from this eccentricity there was a general consciousness of charm and of energy in the women, which was completely antithetic to the Church ideal. There was even a tendency to welcome the title “virago”; though, of course, the word had not then degenerated to our present usage of it. This movement is very interesting in that it shows us* the old Greek culture, that had promised so much for woman on the whole, reviving again in Europe 1 Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien. It and at once making for the greater free­ contains a special chapter on the position of dom and culture of woman. I have women (section v., ch. v.). usage of her to spread, and by its absurd conception of love and marriage and celibacy occasioned a vast amount of disorder. By the fourteenth century woman (on the average) was not morally higher than in the fourth, and she was much lower in all other respects. We now begin to ascend once more from the valley of the Middle Ages, and we must see how much Christianity had to do with this tardy return to the path of pro­ gress. The question naturally occurs at once, whether the Reformation brought any advantage to the cause of woman; but we may first give a passing glance at the effect of the Renaissance. This hardly extended beyond Italy, and was not permanent. There are women writers who think the revival of Greek culture in the Renaissance had, if anything, a bad effect on the position of woman. Mlle. Chauvin, usually so well informed, commits herself to the statement that “ education, so generous in the convents of the Middle Ages, was now restricted to the catechism, to writing, reading, and a little arithmetic.” She is wrong in both terms of the comparison. Profane culture was usually very much discouraged in the convents of the Middle Ages; and, in fact, the amount of teaching done by these institutions was trifling in com­ parison with their number and the number of their inmates. On the other hand, it is not difficult to discover that the higher culture was very much encouraged among the women of the Renaissance. Burckhardt1 gives a very different, and, of course, far more authoritative, account of the effect of the Renaissance on �46 THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION already mentioned an earlier revival of it. While Christian countries were sunk in the morass of the Middle Ages, the Moors in Spain “offered all Europe a shining example of a civilised and en­ lightened State,” as one historian puts it. In their social order women, like the Jews, were free and respected. This Arab civilisation was, as is known, founded on Greek culture, which, in­ active now in the land of its birth, had gone round by Syria to the Mohamme­ dans, and been brought by these to Spain. In the thirteenth century direct relations with Greece began to be renewed. About the middle of the fifteenth century the Turks took Con­ stantinople, and Greek scholars flocked to Italy. It was thus the humanist culture of the older world that lit again the hope of woman in Europe for a season. But, though prelates leaned freely enough to the new culture in its least austere forms, it was in strict an­ tagonism to the formal ideal of the Church, and excess and disorder were bound to ensue. Lucretia Borgia must not prevent us from appreciating the better elements of the Renaissance, any more than the Messaline can be thought to stand for the women of pagan Rome. The Renaissance brought back to Europe the broader view that was characteristic of the last days of paganism. As in its first years, the Christian Church again failed in its obvious duty (as far as the cause of woman is concerned) to place the new liberty on a moral foundation and purge it of mere abuses. The Reformation in the north of Europe, and the Counter-Reformation within the Church in the south, revived the Judaic ideal in all its narrowness, and drew a veil once more over woman’s prospects. That the Church of Rome was quickly and thoroughly purged of all tendency to a humane alleviation of the condition of woman—except through the usual narrow way of asceticism, if that can be called an alleviation—needs no lengthy proof. It was the last branch of the Christian Church in our own day to withdraw its opposition. But the ques­ tion of the effect of the Reformation on woman’s position is not so clear. While Mrs. Cady Stanton thinks that the Reformation “ loosened the grasp of the Church upon woman, and is to be looked upon as one of the most important steps in this reform,” her colleague, Mrs. Gage, says that the old idea of woman’s inferiority and natural iniquity “took new force after the rise of Melancthon, Huss, and Luther.” While Mr. Lecky thinks it is the great merit of Protes­ tantism to have restored a truer view of marriage and the sex-relation, and Bebel says that “ the legitimate wife, who had long since become an enemy of the Catholic sensuality of the later Middle Ages, gladly welcomed the Puritan spirit of Protestantism,” we find Professor K. Pearson maintaining that the Reforma­ tion led to an increase of prostitution, and gave woman only the choice between that and a dull domestication, and that Luther’s ideas encouraged sexual licence. On some points, however, the contradic­ tion is more apparent than real. The Reformation being, above all, a concentration of the Bible and a protest against paganism and philosophy, its general bearing on the woman-question can be almost determined in advance. Protestantism shrank in horror from the new Greek culture, or any culture that was not Biblical. Hence, as the New Testament laid down no principles on the subject, and certainly did not undo the harshness and injustice of the Old, �THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION 47 the clergy, monks, and nuns, but in its turn tended to encourage the contempt of woman. The destruction of all this fine structure by Luther was,- therefore, a social and moral service. One grave excuse for licence—celibacy—was swept away, and the Protestant Churches, in setting up a more sober and rational standard of conduct, could appeal with more effect to the people. But, partly owing to the perverse Biblical idea of woman, partly owing to economic changes which now set in, or were increased, woman does not seem to have gained much by the Reformation. Bebel admits that German women were “ in general no better off than before,” and Mrs. G. Hill makes the same ad­ mission for the women of England. Mrs. Gage concludes that the Reforma­ tion altered, but did not improve, the condition of women. The exclusion of women from trades and other than domestic employments was now com­ pleted. Bebel admits that this was not due to religious influences, and, as a fact, he does not realise that it was mostly accomplished long before the Reforma­ tion. Whatever the causes of it, this total restriction of women to domestic work made their life duller, stunted their capacities, and completed their fatal economic dependence on men. “What the Greeks accomplished in the age of Pericles—the domestication of woman— the Germans achieved in the age of Luther,” says Professor K. Pearson. It is a perilous comparison of two very different ages, and is hardly just to the age of Pericles and Aspasia; but it expresses 1 I shall hardly be misunderstood to the the fact for Germany. Whether, as extent of being thought to put the married state above the unmarried. It is a matter of Professor Pearson goes on to say, it had taste. I am only attacking the idea that there the effect of driving more women than is anything superior or elevated in physical virginity, or that there is anything inferior or in ever into public disorder is very much any way lowering in physical love. disputed. This, at least, is clear: it it was to the very clear teaching of the latter that the Reformers turned. Luther had no personal vein of refinement to correct or moderate the impression of woman left by his assiduous study of the Old Testament. He was frankly con­ temptuous. “ No gown worse becomes a woman than the desire to be wise,” he said. So fully did he and the other reformers submit to the Old Testament, where the New did not expressly abro­ gate it, that they were willing to permit polygamy. Milton, on our side, pointed out that the New Testament had not withdrawn this privilege of the saints. It seems indisputable that the Reformers held that low estimate of woman in her­ self which we should naturally expect their constant brooding over the Old Testament to engender. But, on the other hand, Luther ren­ dered a limited service in rejecting the old patristic and medieval nonsense about love and marriage. It is quite unjustifiable by the facts of history to say, as many do, that the preaching of virginity was advisable in the fourth century, but was very properly withdrawn in the fifteenth. This familiar sophism of our day rests on the assumption that the fourth century was much more im­ moral—more impenetrably immoral— than the fifteenth. Such a belief is wholly incorrect. The gospel of vi rginity was an unfortunate error from the first.1 A contempt of marriage was the inevit­ able accompaniment of the praise of virginity; and this contempt of marriage not only led to the terrible disorders of �48 THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMA TION robbed the life of woman of much of its remaining colour and variety, and it reduced her to the position of a mere breeder of children. Moreover, with the closing of the convents, and the pro­ hibition of earning money in respectable fashion, a larger number of women had to remain unmarried, yet dependent on their male relatives. This suppression of the nunneries is cast against the Reformers as an injury to the cause of women by many writers ; but the opportunity of distinction or employment which the nunneries had provided is altogether exaggerated by Mdlle. Chauvin and those who deplore the suppression. That the nunneries often gave a most welcome place of retirement to distressed, or sensitive, or ill-situated women is quite clear. These, however, were a small fraction of the whole. But when the nunneries are looked upon as providing an outlet for woman’s energy, and a wider than domestic interest, a still smaller fraction is taken for the whole. The amount of teaching and other philanthropic work done in medieval nunneries was ex­ ceedingly small. All the great active congregations of Catholic nuns have been founded since the Reformation. The life led in the bulk of the huge convents of the Middle Ages was one of idleness and impossibly lengthy spiritual exercises. It tended constantly to disorder. Moreover, the superioress of a small nunnery had an occupation of little interest, far less interesting than that of such a household as she would probably have presided over if she had married. The number of abbesses with real power, with positions of distinction, and with fiefs to administer (and possibly a community of monks), was very limited. It is impossible to regard this closing of the nunneries as an important restriction of woman’s sphere of interest. And the disorders it swept away were so great, the service rendered in destroying the morbid illusion that had led them to sacrifice home and pleasure was so important, that it is difficult to under­ stand how any woman can rebuke the Reformation on this ground. As a priest, I have seen hundreds of brave and noble women struggling in nunneries to live up to their terrible ideal—most of them probably induced to make their vows before they were eighteen. I do not believe one of them would welcome an inspection of convents or a forcible sup­ pression ; but I know that, if their own Church would surrender the great illusion that God is pleased with all this un­ natural struggle and sacrifice, there would be many happier women in the world, and happier men, and better children, than there are to-day. On the whole, then, the Reformation made little difference to the cause of woman, and it is a stern indication of its failure to do so that “ for three centuries after the Reformation the history of woman in Germany was a blank,” as Professor Pearson says. German women lagged far behind their English and American sisters in demanding justice, though they make up for that to-day. In England women have always been freer than among other Christian peoples. The old Teutonic spirit never wholly yielded to the pressure of priests. In the reign of Elizabeth England is said to have been “ the Paradise of women.” But I must repeat that we have to beware of brilliant exceptions, either of vice, or virtue, or power. The unjust and tyrannical system which J. S. Mill described in his Subjection of Women had existed among us for ages. English �THE EFFECT OF THE REFORMA TION common law in regard to married women is a notorious instance of the distortion of a humane civic law by priestly dicta­ tion. From the time of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons woman’s position deteriorated. After the Norman inva­ sion it became much worse. In the later Middle Ages it sank lower and lower, the Throne alone being left open to her. The Reformation brought no legal relief or political interest. A statute of Henry VIII. forbade “womenand others of low condition ” (I quote from Mrs. Gage) to read the Bible. From Mrs.' Hill’s picture of this period it seems that no change took place in woman’s social position; and, as on the Continent, the withdrawal of employment and closing of the nunneries made matters worse for marriageable daughters and the un­ married. For a time a higher culture was encouraged, and life became more interesting for the women of the wealthier class. But the coming of Puritanism again “ obscured the clearer thought which the Renaissance had brought,” as Mrs. Hill says. Once more the grim Biblical idea of woman prevailed. The Old Testament had greater influence than ever now that printing had been invented. American women, and many English women, will* still have recollec­ tions from life in the new world, to which Puritanism migrated, of its influence on their position. Milton is an instructive example of its work, even on the most intelligent. With the Restoration came scepticism and licence—and the inevit­ able betterment of woman’s social posi­ tion. Nothing is more significant of the perverse attitude of priests towards woman than this constant recovery of her position in intervals of irreligion and laxity. However, as we look back on the last 49 2,000 years of the social history of woman, we quickly learn that her fortunes must not be measured by this rise and fall of public opinion. Such movements are only interesting in letting us see the character of the influences at work. The temporary improvement of public feeling brought its pleasure—the brighter life that was inaugurated by the Carolingians in France in the eighth century; by the Minnesingers in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; by the gay homage of the troubadours, or the gallantry of knights-errant, or the freedom of Tudor or Stuart or Bourbon Courts. All these things brightened her path for a time, but the swift reversal was a warn­ ing. When the coming of an eloquent preacher or the return of a serious moral consciousness meant the extinction of woman’s hour of sunshine, it was time to demand a change. In every single instance of the improvement of woman’s position during the Christian era the change was effected by a departure from the principles which men were understood to hold. Anything more profoundly un­ satisfactory and more mischievous socially it would be difficult to conceive. The attitude of man towards woman must be grounded on principle; and it must be a principle that admits the dignity and full humanity of woman. Throughout all these changes of outward bearing towards woman, the fact of her legal, civic, poli­ tical, and professional inferiority re­ mained unchanged. It may seem to many women who are happily married a sweet thing to depend wholly on the love of the stronger sex, but all men are not angels, and the temptation to selfishness is strong; nor can anyone question the evil of virtually compelling women to seek marriage as a livelihood, or reason away their desire to have a voice in �50 THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT public affairs. “ I do not like women to meddle with politics,” said Napoleon unctuously to Madame Condorcet. “You are right, General,” she answered; “ but in a country where it is the custom to cut off the heads of women it is natural that they should wish to know the reason why.” As soon, therefore, as the coarser medieval feelings had been mastered, and the humaner spirit of the nineteenth century asserted itself, the cry of radical change in the position of woman was raised. A few isolated writers had antici­ pated the cry during the preceding two centuries, though these were generally sceptics or heretics. The transfer of inspiration from the Fathers and School­ men back to the Bible had made no difference to the cause of woman. The sex still waited for some strong voice to take up the cry where it had died away on the lips of the dying paganism. This was done in the earlier part of the nine­ teenth century. In country after coun­ try the strain was taken up. The old injustice must be abolished. The insult and the wrong of woman’s legal and political disabilities must be righted, and the restrictions on her education and her activity must be swept away, or at least placed on that ground and in that measure which careful experience should recommend—if it recommended any restriction at all. Was this long-delayed cry for reform due, in the cant phrase of our day, to the fact that the preceding seventeen centuries had misunderstood the Christian doctrine of woman, and the Christian Church of the nineteenth cen­ tury had tardily realised it ? Did the clergy at last perceive and avow the injustice of their long-drawn error? Did they take up the new-born demand for truth and equity, and throw themselves with a moral zeal into the task of undoing the evil they had wrought ? How far have the women of our day, who cling so strangely to the Churches, to thank them for the great advance made in the course of the nineteenth century ? It is the last stage of the first part of my inquiry into the attachment of women to traditional religion, and I approach it in a fresh chapter. Chapter VI. THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT The nineteenth century has been chiefly remarkable, on its moral or social side, for two tendencies—the decay of religion and the sturdy growth of justice and humanity. For the moment I do not say that these were connected tendencies; but of the fact that they are characteristic of “ the wonderful century ” it seems hardly possible to doubt. The proper authorities on each subject assure us of it. The clergy declare the one, and humani­ tarians gladly proclaim the other. These two tendencies are wholly concerned with the inquiry we now enter upom �THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT For among the wrongs which the knightserrant of the last century set out to redress the subordination of woman was not the least. Men were busy undoing the industrial evils which the creation of machinery had caused. They were looking abroad to the condition of the blacks; they were shuddering at the horrors of warfare; they were stooping to consider the lot of the lower animals ; they were setting the Turk’s house in order; they were flashing the new search­ light of a zeal for justice on the hill-tops and in the deep valleys everywhere. And suddenly a voice rang out with the peal of the clarion :— The social subordination of women stands out as an isolated fact in modern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their funda­ mental law; a single relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded in everything else, but retained in the one thing of most uni­ versal interest; as if a gigantic dolmen, or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympus, occupied the site of St. Paul’s, and received daily worship, while the surrounding Christian churches were only re­ sorted to on feasts and festivals.1 Then men turned their search-light upon their own homes, and a long struggle began. It is not my place to study the new woman or the advanced woman, or in any way the discrepancy of ideals among the women of our time. I have to deal with the generally admitted fact that a great injustice has been partly remedied, and to determine the part the clergy have played during the fight. No doubt there are few who will expect to find that this great reform was initiated or very strongly supported by the clergy. A few years ago the Women’s Suffrage Society published a little work that was made up of quotations from eminent living clerics in favour of women’s suffrage. 1 J. S. Mill, The Subjection of Women, p. 36. j 51 A very interesting companion volume might be issued containing the expressions of the clergy of fifty years ago. How­ ever, the little work was instructive enough. It assumed that there is still a widespread feeling among Christian women that the clergy object to their having a voice in the appointment of the administrators of their country. If this is true in the early years of the twentieth century, we know what to expect in the nineteenth. Nevertheless, it is advisable to make some inquiry. If my suggestion is correct, it will be said, the French Revolution of 1789 ought to have started the work of reform. It was the first great rebellion against clerical control. Many writers express a lively disappointment that this is not found to be the case; but it is hardly just to blame a movement that failed in its own direct issues for not succeeding in one that was, in the circumstances, bound to be regarded as a secondary issue. The conservatism of Voltaire and Rousseau, though unfortunate, is not wholly surprising. They lived in one of those periods when the real injustice to women was rather concealed behind a great deal of practical liberty and universal respect. This did not diminish with the Revolution, and so the ideas of Rousseau excited little resentment. Even so fine a woman as Madame Roland accepted them. Moreover, the work of the Revolution was terribly hampered by the financial ruin that hung without ces­ sation over the country, and the universal and prolonged war in which the French were involved. It took years to make a constitution, and it could never be launched when it was made. Finally, the more violent factions seized the power, and made any grave constructive work like the settlement of woman’s �52 THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT position impossible. Several of the leaders of French thought at the time— and they among the least religious—did plead for the political equality of woman. Thus did, especially, Sieyes and Con­ dorcet. Even many of those who set down woman as inferior said, as Diderot did, that this was possibly due to defec­ tive education, not innate, as the Church described it. However, I no more believe that every humanist is a wise man than I take every clergyman to be unwise. The opposition of such men as Mirabeau and Danton was deplorable. But the terrible and exceptional difficul­ ties of their task may be understood to have somewhat concentrated and narrowed their energies. It is more profitable to inquire into the actual birth and progress of the reform. It would obviously be impossible to cover the whole ground of the agitation in Europe; and, indeed, the documen­ tary evidence has not yet been collected. Some day the wromen of every country will raise to the memories of their respec­ tive pioneers such a memorial as that raised by Mrs. Cady Stanton and her colleagues in America. As, however, the earlier work was chiefly done in America and England, and sufficient evidence for my purpose is available here, it will be enough to deal with them. The story of the redress of women’s wrongs in the United States is a painful story of Might endeavouring by every fair or foul means to stifle the voice of Right. It is told chiefly by Mrs. Cady Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Miss Susan B. Anthony, in their History of Women Suffrage. I am only concerned with it under two aspects: with the character of those who started and bore the brunt of the battle, and with the attitude of the clergy. There is a paragraph on page 499 of the first volume which reads only too like a summary of the whole story. Speaking of the vicious opposition which the early workers encountered in New York, the writer says : “Throughout this protracted and disgraceful assault on American womanhood the clergy baptised each new insult and act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion, and uniformly asked God’s blessing on pro­ ceedings that would have put to shame an assembly of Hottentots.” The clergy of New York were not, as will be under­ stood, exceptionally stupid or reactionary. Smaller and less enlightened towns were not likely to improve on their conduct, as a rule. In fact, especially in its earlier stages, the struggle leaves an impression on one’s mind as if it were a conflict of heretics and sceptics against the clergy and a laity that made equal use of the Bible. The Americans were first compelled to face outright the question of justice to their wives and sisters by the dramatic invasion of their country by Frances Wright, an able and fearless young Scotchwoman, in 1820. She aroused the most lively interest and resentment by mounting the platform in various parts of the country and delivering a series of eloquent lectures on behalf of her sex. It was the first time a woman had addressed a public meeting in the States; the first time anyone had ventured to denounce that legal status of the American woman of which I have earlier quoted the description. The descendants of Washington’s soldiers received her with expressions of horror, but the work was begun. She was shortly followed by the brilliant and charming Polish Jewess, Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, and by the sternest fighters the �THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT 53 stonecraft, George Eliot, George Sand, and Lucretia Mott.” I will not go on to discuss the reli­ gious view's of those other distinguished American women who bring the memory of the great campaign down to our day; but to judge from the writings of Mrs. Gage and Mrs. Cady Stanton, if not of Miss Anthony, I fear that the good Christian aforesaid will shudder not less painfully over their graves as well as over those of my friend, Mrs. Biddulph-Martin, and her sister, Lady Cook, or Lady Florence Dixie. But let us turn to the other side of the ques­ tion, and see whether Christian orthodoxy, if it did not inspire the reformers, lent any inspiration to their opponents. This is sufficiently clear from what I have already said, but a little may be added. No one would seriously expect the Catholic clergy, with their rigid retention of medieval ideas, to countenance such a movement as this, until it had undeni­ ably established itself; but the Protestant clergy of America were hardly less unjust. “ A few of the more democratic denomi­ nations,” says Mrs. Cady Stanton in the Woman’s Bible, “accord women some privileges, but invidious discriminations of sex are found in all religious organisa­ tions, and the most bitter and outspoken enemies of women are found among clergymen and bishops of the Protestant religion.” This is not quite so true of England, as we shall see, but it is not an unfair statement of the case in America, and the statement is made by one who knew. I do not find a single clerical supporter of the cry for justice to women in America until seventeen years after Frances Wright opened the campaign, 1 These have lately been republished in cheap and for many years after 1845 clerical and handy form, and may be had in paper cover supporters were very rare. The earlier for 6d. from the publishers for the Rationalist and most arduous stages of the fight are Press Association. Quaker community has given to the world—Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelly, and the Grimkes. No one who has read Frances Wright’s remarkable lectures On the Nature of Knowledge1- needs to be told that she was anything but conven­ tional in religion. She is described in the History as having “ radical ideas in theology,” as having the compliment, “ infidel,” cast at her wherever she went, and as numbering the clergy “among her most bitter enemies.” Ernestine Rose is described as “equally liberal” in theology. Robert Dale Owen says that her scepticism went as far as disbelief in a future life. She too was hailed as an “ infidel ” in every part of the States, and she fully deserved the title. She was from her fourteenth year a very thorough “unbeliever” in the Bible and the theo­ logy which were set against her. The third great pioneer, Abby Kelly, was a liberal Quaker—very liberal, even for that undogmatic sect. Many a man and woman was expelled from the Churches for listening to her stirring addresses on the Sabbath. Her biography tells us she was “ equally familiar with the tricks of priests and politicians.” And the fourth great pioneer of the woman movement in America, the noble Lucretia Mott, was equally, and with equal justice, greeted as an “infidel,” even by her own Quaker community. She held a vague deism, but very independent views as regards the Bible. One of the contribu­ tors to the History is moved to some irony when she describes a Christian writer of the time as “shuddering over the graves of such women as Harriet Martineau, Frances Wright, Mary Woll­ �54 THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT distinguished by “infidels” and Quakers laying down their lives in restless, brilliant struggles for the cause, while the orthodox look coldly on or jeer and calumniate. When, in 1837, Abby Kelly and Lucretia Mott and the Sisters Grimke were delivering their anti-slavery lectures in Massachusetts, a special pastoral letter was circulated among the clergy urging them to denounce everywhere the new woman-movement. It called attention to “ the dangers which at present seem to threaten the female character with widespread and permanent injury,” and spoke of the impending “degeneracy and ruin ” of the sex. It took its stand on Scripture, it expressly stated: the New Testament, it claimed, clearly pointed out woman’s true sphere. J. G. Whittier—not very orthodox—answered their pastoral letter with a poem that cut like a whip. I have quoted the comment of the History on the behaviour of the clergy of New York. When these noble and gifted American women came to speak at the Anti-Slavery Convention at London, in 1840, they were preceded by a flock of these American clergymen, whose aim was to stir up the clergy of England against this dreadful ambition of a hitherto docile sex to speak in public. They succeeded in a painful degree. In a Convention gathered in the name of liberty and justice in the most enlightened city of the world, about the middle of the nineteenth century, eight American women, of superb devotion to the cause and fine oratorical gifts, had to fight for hours for the right to speak, and lost it. “ She shall not speak in the convention [eKKXTjo-ia],” said Saint Paul. The clergy opposed them on religious grounds. One said it would be “ a violation of the ordinance of Almighty God.” Another said it was against “ the plain teaching of the word of God.” Even so late as 1878 we find formidable attacks by the Protestant clergy, led by the President of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Rochester, on the work of the woman movement in America. The history of the cause in America bristles with them. “And to-day,” says Miss Anthony, “from two-thirds to three-fourths of the members of the American Churches are women.” We have not as yet a detailed and systematic history of the campaign for justice to women in this country,1 but probably when it is written it will not leave so painful an impression on the mind as does this published by the women of America. The American Church had not been shaken to the same extent by the Deistic and Unitarian attack on the supernatural idea of the Bible. Here in the practical work of effecting reforms in detail a certain amount of support was given by the clergy. But here, as everywhere else, here­ tics and Freethinkers gave the impulse to the reform, and the clergy generally opposed it. The names of Mary Woll­ stonecraft and Harriet Martineau should be written in red letters in the calendar, if not the canon, of every Englishwoman. When their orthodox sisters bent timidly under the yoke, they summoned them in burning words to stand erect, and make themselves as much an image of God as man was. Frances Wright, too, was a Scotchwoman and Freethinker. More­ over, a series of very able and influential English men supported their cause from the beginning, and these were nearly all Freethinkers. Godwin joined himself with Mary Wollstonecraft; Robert Owen 1 Though the Pioneer Women in Victoria s Reign of Mr. Edwin A. Pratt deserves honour­ able mention as a modest contribution. �THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT pleaded for this as for nearly every other conceivable social reform. Jeremy Ben­ tham and Cobden favoured it. George Jacob Holyoake began, in 1847, to plead the cause of woman, and has not yet retired from supporting it. John Stuart Mill’s powerful pen was drawn in its defence in 1869, and lent it incalculable prestige. Disraeli was one of the first statesmen to recognise its justice. Such men as these have earned the gratitude of the women of England. They trod down in scorn that ridicule and misrepre­ sentation which a man was likely to get from his fellows in those early days; but the clergy were silent. Yet to-day so many women listen without protest to the clerical calumny that a rejection of Christianity tends to make men selfish and sensual, and devoid of idealism. It was just those who most radically aban­ doned Christianity—Owen, Holyoake, and Mill—that were the most logical and ungrudging in their plea for woman. It was the Mary Wollstonecrafts, Harriet Martineaus, Frances Wrights, George Eliots, Helen Taylors, and Annie Besants that distinguished themselves by fearless­ ness and unselfishness. In the task of opening the reforms in detail a great number of deeply religious women were engaged, and a number of eminent clergymen, like Canon Kingsley and Dean Farrar, went to their assistance. There is no adequate and convenient history from which we can estimate the weight of the clerical opposition, but one notices, even in Mr. Pratt’s sketch, recurrent traces of it. For instance, one of the most arduous reforms, workhouse nursing, was taken up by Agnes Weston, a fervent Protestant. Yet over her grave Florence Nightingale had to say : “ She had disarmed all opposition, all sectarian zealotism, so that Roman Catholic and | 55 Unitarian, High Church and Low Church, all literally rose up and called her blessed.” Elizabeth Fry found hardly any but the Atheist, Robert Owen, to support her at first in what was strictly and properly a moral reform. The fundamental reforms of opening employment to women, and of the more rational edu­ cation of women, were led by Miss Martineau; but there is no need to go into detail. The battle was begun by Freethinkers in defiance of the clergy. The conservative defence was largely based on the religious conception of “ woman’s sphere,” as was so clearly shown in the clerical speeches at the Anti-Slavery Convention. The women of England were slow to respond, because of the ideas the clergy had instilled into them : it has been found necessary in our own time to issue a book for the purpose of meeting this difficulty. And the state of the controversy in our own day sufficiently suggests what it must have been in the days of weakness and poverty. What proportion of the womenwriters and women-workers of to-day belong to any orthodox Church ? What proportion of the clergy support women in the remaining struggle for the suffrage, for public offices, for the learned profes­ sions, for university degrees ? On the continent there has been the same story of general clerical opposition and general heterodox support. Michelet and George Sand occupy in France the places of J. S. Mill and George Eliot. Saint-Simon, and Fourrier, and the Communists supported the cause of woman, and the anti-clerical Socialists advocate it to-day. “ In France,” says Signora Melegari, “ those who take the woman question most seriously are, in general, Protestants or Freethinkers but the Protestants are a minority of �56 THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT 800,000 in a population of 40,000,000, mostly of no religion. In Germany Max Stirner, and Buchner, and other “infidels,” raised the cry. Marx, and Engels, and Bebel, and Liebknecht, Freethinking Socialists, sustained it with vigour, and their great Social Democratic movement spreads it among the people. In Scandinavia Ibsen and Bjornson shattered the religious prejudice against it. In Spain none but a Freethinker will take it seriously. In Italy “ the influence of religion has tended to keep the Italian woman in check in the com­ petition of the sexes,” says Signora Melegari. To-day, while the head of Catholic Christendom issues medieval decrees about the divinely - ordained character of the existing framework of society, the Italian Freethinkers and Socialists encourage woman to rebel. Thus we are bound to conclude that the righting of the most undoubted wrongs to which woman has been subjected has been started and has pro­ ceeded, not only without the aid of the Churches, but in face of their determined opposition. While non-Christian bodies (such as the International Union of Ethical Societies) have officially endorsed the cry of the women, no Christian body of even the thinnest dogmatic texture has ever officially entertained it, though they have often officially opposed it. While an enormous proportion of the heterodox writers and speakers of the nineteenth century have supported it, the clergy have proved its most bitter opponents. No Catholic priest has ever worked for it: few clergymen of the great Protestant bodies have even so much as assured their nervous followers, until these later days, that they were free to join it. Let us be perfectly clear as to what this means. There is an idea abroad, among women with the more moderate ambition for their sex, that atheists and heretics sought to propagate their own views by turning women into viragos, and that the clergy were bound to oppose such a manoeuvre. This is a gross calumny on men to whom the women of our day owe much. The men I have spoken of were moved by a plain and stirring resentment of a great injustice. The clergy opposed the reform on the plain and expressed ground that woman was divinely and scripturally commanded to remain in the home. Nor may it be supposed for a moment that the struggle between those early pioneers of the women’s cause and the clergy was similar to that which divides women to-day between two or more different ideals. There are those who feel that the grace of womanhood cannot be preserved except by a continued dependence on the strength of the man; who, while regretting any word about in­ feriority, and claiming a certain freedom for woman to win distinction in art or science or letters, would nevertheless keep her from the hardening fields of public service and professional or indus­ trial life. There is an aesthetic ground for this ideal which should command our respect, even if we think it erroneous. On the other hand, an increasing number of men and women are convinced that the dignity of woman will not suffer by engaging in the public service or in the work of earning her own livelihood; they claim that the restriction to home­ life is an insinuation of inferiority, and that all the doors of all professions, academies, crafts, and branches of public service should be thrown wide open, so that we may learn by the simple device of serious and sustained experiment what woman is or is not capable of doing �THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT without hurt. This is a familiar antithe­ sis of ideals, with every shade of inter­ vening opinion, and it does not fall within my plan to discuss it.1 But it would be a serious error to suppose that this was the controversy that divided women-workers and their friends from the clergy in the nineteenth century. Those very clergymen who sided with the reformers, such as Farrar and Kingsley, held the domestic ideal of womanhood. The fight was for the removal of a most serious and palpable injustice. The legal position of women, especially married women, was indefen­ sible ; the right to discuss their position in public was virtually denied; the power to take any constitutional step towards the alteration of the law was withheld; the education given to them was absurd and offensive; their economic dependence on men was so rigid as to be openly demoralising. The Church was largely responsible for the long sur­ vival of this system in Europe. The Church was—all our witnesses have stated it—the chief impediment in the way of moderating the injustice. In spite of the fact that for years now educated clergy­ men have known the far from super­ natural source of those Old Testament ideas and practices which occasioned the injustice, few of them have helped to remove it. The agitation for its removal, especially in the earlier years, was so purely secular and practically anti-clerical as to present a distinctly heterodox character. All honour to the memory of those clergymen who, like Kingsley and Farrar, protested against the injustice to the full extent of their ideal of woman­ 1 But I may take the occasion to express my entire acceptance of the latter ideal. However, I am writing now as a Rationalist, and must not linger to defend it. 57 hood. But their lives do not redeem the sin or the apathy of the Churches ; they do not heal the bruises or undo the suffering of those many religious women who were torn between allegiance to their beliefs and to their sex and humanity. The clergy never discovered any injustice to woman; and only one in a thousand could see it when it was pointed out. * * * * * The first part of my inquiry is at an end. I have investigated the ground for the contention that Christianity has laid on woman a burden of gratitude, and that we may find in this some explana­ tion of her peculiar clinging to its hier­ archy and its institutions. I have examined the position that woman occupied in Europe, and the prospect that lay before her at the time when Christianity began to influence legisla­ tion and the social order. I have studied closely the conception of woman’s nature and education and work which the most influential leaders of the Church pre­ sented. I have sought the immediate effect of this teaching on the position and ambition of the women of Europe, and I have traced the development of its influence as the centuries passed and the power of the Church rose to absolute despotism. Finally, I have described the tardy revolt against the long injustice, and determined the part which the Church played in relation to it. It seems fair to give this summary of the story. In what is called the “ pagan ” world the position of woman, which had fallen low, was steadily and solidly improving. The pagan moralists had come to recognise and proclaim that woman was unduly subordinated. Public opinion �58 THE CHURCHES AND THE MODERN WOMAN MOVEMENT at Rome was strongly against the old restrictions on her life. The juriscon­ sults and legislators were removing the old disabilities. The Empire had passed beyond the period of licence, and in its more sober mood still upheld the reform. But the old religion was quite dead as a moral force, and had clearly to be replaced. A half-dozen religions, all spiritual and elevating, were ready to take up the moral and social action it had ceased to exercise. All of these, except Christianity, seemed to be in sympathy with the new turn of woman’s fortunes. They had issued from Greece, or Persia, or Egypt, while Christianity came forth from a country where woman was despised. But Christianity contrived to win the power, and it used the military force of the converted emperors to crush the last pulse of life out of its rivals. Meantime its leaders had erected the inspiration of the Old Testament into a dogma, and the shadow of the Hebraic ideal fell upon Europe. The efforts of the pagan moralists were decried and rejected; the excellent ideal of the Teutonic tribes was allowed to perish. From the chaotic mixture of the dis­ rupted Empire and the invading peoples emerged at last the strange and semibarbaric structure of feudal and Christian Europe. From the new legal system the elements which had been more favourable to woman in the Germanic customs and the later Roman code were gradually expelled. Woman fell to a lower position in law than she had occupied in Greece, in Rome, or in the Germanic systems. Competent autho­ rities like Sir Henry Maine attribute this to the influence of Church law, which was grossly unjust to and biassed against woman. Monastic and priestly writers and the decrees of episcopal councils had the same influence on public opinion and social life. The increasing stress laid by the Church on asceticism and celibacy, with the widespread disorder which followed by a very natural reaction, still further prejudiced the position of woman. The theological theory of her inferiority became a fixed principle in the law and literature and life of Europe. Here and there her lot was relieved for a time by the gaiety of troubadours, or the devotion of knights-errant, or admis­ sion into the medieval guilds and crafts, or a share in the growing culture or the glamour of court-life. These were hours of sunshine in a long, gray day. They were always won in defiance of the ruling creeds, and generally associated with a relaxation of morals or a revival of pagan culture. The Reformation brought no material change in her con­ dition. Her insulting legal disabilities, her habitual exclusion from the means of self-support and of culture, and her utter exclusion from civic or political rights, lasted from the sixth to the nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth a determined attack was made on the unjust system of disabilities. In nearly every case the campaign was begun by radical heretics or Freethinkers. In no case was it begun by clergymen. In most cases the clergy gave no word of sympathy until the first odium and bitter­ ness of the struggle had been lived down. In all countries the opposition was largely placed on religious grounds, and was, to a painful extent, led by the clergy; though the question then was of little more than a vague and elementary claim on the part of women to draw public attention to their position and discuss the justice or injustice of it. To-day, �THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT although even Christian scholarship has denuded the Old Testament of all authority to rule us, there is an extra­ ordinary unwillingness among the clergy to undo what remains of the evil that their groundless dogmas have caused. I conclude that the suggestion that gratitude is due to the Church from women is little short of grotesque. Only a reckless perversion of their social 59 history could suffer it to be entertained for a moment. The clergy have been the worst enemies of women. Women are their best friends to-day. If women lent them no more support than men do, they would cease to be a serious influence in Europe. We must seek elsewhere the ground of their peculiar attachment to the Christian Church. Chapter VII. THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT If no class in the community has suffered so much as women by the errors of the Christian teaching, we shall expect to find a proportionately greater strength in the grounds for their peculiar attachment to it. Men have been unduly favoured by the introduction of Judaic ideas into Europe, yet men do not show to-day any excessive loyalty to the passing religion. It is their wives and sisters who lend the chief support to it. The familiar visitor from Mars would survey the condition of our Churches with some perplexity if he were acquainted with the social history of women. Let us put ourselves in the neutral position of our mythic visitor, and seek the roots of woman’s stricter reten­ tion of the ideas which have prolonged her subordination. The chief reason we encounter, after undoing the historical fallacy we have studied, seems to be a suggestion that the religious sense or religious instinct is stronger and more imperious in woman. This is not a new idea, nor one quite devoid of foundation. I have spoken of the great reverence with which our fore­ fathers regarded her. It was largely due to a belief that she was nearer to the gods than themselves, and more fitted to receive and interpret the vague messages that came from beyond. There have been religions in which the priests have had to make themselves as unman­ like as they could in preparation for their sacred functions. The fuller attention that men paid to the material interests of the family and the city or nation is one obvious explanation of what has been called their less spiritual texture. They have had to delegate the spiritual func­ tions to women and priests. But there is also a radical difference in nerve-structure between the sexes, and this inevitably means a difference in what is called “ soul,” or psychic functions. Mr. Have­ lock Ellis, who is not unfriendly to women, concludes, after careful inquiry, that woman is ineradicably more emotional than man. Throughout nature it is �6o THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT indispensable that the mother should have a finer and quicker sensibility than the father. But whether this greater emo­ tional power is ineradicable or no, it is an actual fact; and in it we have a positive ground to start from in studying the different religious tendencies of men and women. For a very slight examination will show that the religious sense is rightly associated with the emotions. There are those who would connect it with what is called—especially by novelists— a woman’s “intuition.” A superficial view of woman’s mind-life has given rise to the idea that she has this power of intuition more fully developed than man. It is a favourite device of the novelist to save a situation by a flash of his heroine’s “intuition.” Where the reasoning of a Sherlock Holmes fails to penetrate, she sees the solution which will rescue her lover or husband. It is pretty well agreed by modern psychologists that this is really only a quicker process of reason­ ing. Intuition means direct vision. One sees the fact or truth, without having to gather it from other facts or truths. Now, in these situations the solution must have been gathered from other indications, but the mind has stepped so rapidly from them to the conclusion that they have not remained in the memory. It was a swift process of reasoning; and, if the attempt is made afterwards, the steps or stages of it may generally be recovered. But the religious sense is not at all a process of reasoning, as every one who possesses it will say. It is a real, not a fictitious, intuition. It can­ not be resolved, by the most strained reflection, into an inference from some­ thing else. We must approach the analysis of it from another side. Why analyse it at all ? many will ask. Why may they not go through life with this treasured vision, though it be denied to so many about them ? For this very plain reason : the mind is beset on every side with error and illusion, and it is a matter of elemen­ tary prudence to examine our beliefs. There never were such searchers after truth as the old Greeks, yet they con­ cluded that truth hid at the bottom of a deep well, while error lay by every road­ side. People would seem at times anxious to persuade themselves — so heavy is the pressure of modern thought —that this question of the truth or un­ truth of their beliefs does not vitally matter. No? You are content to sit in church, hour by hour, while solemn worship is offered to an invisible Being; to teach your child to kneel and lisp a prayer of direct address to a Deity; to put yourself in an attitude of abject entreaty; to build altars and temples, and support a clergy, and all the rest— and say it does not matter whether there is a God or not, and that you do not care to inquire seriously if it be so ? The question has only to be put in this plain form to elicit an answer at once. Reli­ gious women do care—care deeply and anxiously—if their belief is true. But to care very seriously if one’s belief is true, and to refuse to make any inquiry into the grounds of it, is a strange procedure. Religious people are misled by this not unnatural confusion. All about them to-day there is question of “ evidences ” for Christianity and religion. In any magazine and journal, in the train or the drawing-room, on every bookstall, the restless inquiry is apt to break on them. And they say very often : We do not need to wander through these laby­ rinthine evidences, because we have a strong inner sense of the truth of our �THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT religion. They somehow fail to see that this inner sense itself should be looked at a little before they trust it to guide them on such momentous issues. I do not say it has to be proved. It may be a sense that sees things, and seeing is better than proving. We cannot prove the things we hold for most certain, such as our own existence. Nothing could be proved, if everything had to be proved. You must have a fixed point on which to hang your chain of reasoning. It is one of many foolish misrepresentations of the Rationalist to say that he wants everything proved. What he does want is that we face manfully the grounds of our convictions, whether they take the form of proof or not. Once upon a time people believed in dreams as intuitions of the future. We do not to-day. The ground of the conviction is unworthy of our trust. At other times they trusted the authority of theologians. Here, again, we have all come to think the ground insufficient. So, when people tell us they have an inner sense or vision, we suggest that it ought to be examined before being trusted. Otherwise a religious person practically says : My conviction is true because it is a strong one. I am anxious to believe, and to teach my children, only what is true; but I decline to look further into the ground on which I do believe these things. This would be neither intelligent nor religious—if it is true that religion implies a high moral standard. Now let us approach the subject from a rather distant standpoint. We Euro­ peans are the children of races which have held religious convictions for incal­ culable ages. I say Europeans, because the question of this religious sense would not apply in the same way to some other 61 races. In China or Japan educated people hardly know what it is. They have all been Agnostics for centuries. But in Europe widespead Agnosticism did not set in until comparatively recently. Through the very words for God and soul in our language we can learn that religious belief was universal long before history began. Humanity is more than 200,000 years old, though when it first framed religious conceptions is quite unknown. It is safe to think that our fathers have seen and worshipped God in the heavens, and dreamed dimly of a future life, for tens of thousands of years. There is no ground for thinking that ideas like these are transmitted from father to son. In fact, the whole question of heredity is very much unsettled just now, owing to a serious controversy as to whether acquired characteristics are transmitted or no. If, however, you take a long enough perspective, it is clear that the transmis­ sion takes place, and we need not go into the question of the medium of transmission. The duckling takes to the water, and the chicken pecks the corn, by an inherited disposition. The new-born infant sucks the breast owing to a similar inherited tendency. Thou­ sands of instincts are explained by psychologists in this way. If you look at a number of modern manuals of psychology on the subject of instinct, you will find that most of them explain it to be an inherited habit or disposition. One of the latest manuals, Professor Villa’s Contemporary Psychology, which purports to give the ruling opinion on each point, thus defines instinct; and most of the other manuals I have con­ sulted bear it out. This has clearly a curious connection �62 THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT with the point we are considering. Psychologists will require a great deal more evidence before they lay it down that ideas are transmitted from parents to children, as features are transmitted, for instance, or racial characteristics. But it is now quite admitted that every idea has a counterpart in the structure of the brain. Some cellule, or group of cellules, or even part of a cellule, is built in a certain way to correspond to a certain idea. And when an idea burns itself deep into the structure, as the image of God must have done in the long ages during which it absolutely dominated the mental life, and is passed on through unnumbered generations with perfect docility, we may very well believe there is a definite mark in the nerve­ tissue corresponding to it. Why this should not be transmitted, like those modifications of nerve-structure which make the infant suck or the duck swim, it is difficult to see. At all events, we come to this pass: the religious sense acts so similarly to these automatic movements that we have agreed to call it instinct, and instinct is, we are told, only an inherited disposition of the nervous or other structure. I am only putting this forward as a thought that naturally occurs to one in connection with the phrase “religious instinct.” Psychologists are still too un­ decided about the transmission to chil­ dren of ideas or memories to allow an honest thinker to put it absolutely. But the mere recalling of these principles must give serious ground for reflection on the religious sense. One may decide off-hand that it is not a natural pheno­ menon at all, and so eludes all explana­ tion. It is always easy to make asser­ tions. But the only possible ground for such an assertion as this would be that, after a searching inquiry, no natural interpretation of it could be discovered. I do not mean that even then we should be justified in saying that the religious sense was something supernatural—what we cannot explain to-day our children or grandchildren may easily explain to­ morrow, as the past has shown—but then there would be some shade of reason in the assertion. As it is, we find that the people who are most ready to invoke the supernatural are just those who have taken least pains to understand the natural working of forces. If we wish to hold our opinions intelligently and with a proper regard for the dignity of truth, we are bound to consider our feelings and views from every side. And it is clear that we have here a group of well-known facts with an important bear­ ing on the religious sense. Age after age this belief in Deity has eaten into the heart and brain of humanity. During periods far longer than the whole stretch of history this belief was the very centre of human life. Think of the dread worship of Moloch, when (as you read in the thrilling pages of Flaubert’s Salammbd) the mother cast her child into the fiery bosom of the brazen image; think of the ghastly worship of Tetzcatlipoca, when the father offered his fairest daughter for the sacrificial knife (you have probably read Haggard’s Montezuma's Daughter), and the mother gave her babe to supply blood for the sacrament; think of the human sacrifices of our Druid ancestors and the ancestors of nearly every civilised nation. Think, again, of the wild child­ like eyes that saw the finger of God in every stir of leaf or river, in every cloud and thunder-bolt, in every sickness and insanity, in every good gift and evil fortune of life. And when the change to Christianity came, and the image of �THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT God rose in some majesty above the idols of the past, did it burn into the more refined natures with less piercing force ? Shall all this have gone on for ages and left no impression on the very fabric of the mind ? Would it be strange if, when so many habits of life have left in the organism those hereditary traces which we call instincts, all this supreme concern about the supernatural (not an abstract idea, but an image of terrible concreteness, with a torrent of accom­ panying emotions) has worn a little niche in the mental structure that craves at times for its statue ? For it must be realised that this religious sense is nothing more than a bias or disposition, and it is rarer than religious people think. Newman speaks in his Grammar of Assent of the spon­ taneous appearance of this instinct in the child. It is absurd to suppose that any such instinct appears except in children who have been brought up in a religious atmosphere; and in such an environment the seed may have been at any moment planted from without. The children of Agnostic mothers—and they are numerous enough to-day—do not show a trace of this instinct. I know women who have been brought up with­ out any religious training, and the belief in God has always appeared to them, in face of the squalor and misery of life, an .incomprehensible superstition. So it is even with those of us who for years gave the chief place in our life to the thought of God. To say that any large propor­ tion of those who part with it still feel a craving for it, or an instinct feeling hungrily out for it, is merely a reckless fiction. If I may speak of my own experience, I was for years struggling to protect my belief from invading doubts, and building about it buttresses of 63 argument. But from the day when I was compelled in common honesty to acknowledge that my struggle was vain, and that I did not believe in God, the clouds rolled away. My mental peace has never since been broken by any doubt or fear or faintest craving in its regard. Speaking from a very wide experience of others who have abandoned religion, I say that St. Augustine’s famous phrase, “ Our heart is unquiet until it rests in Thee,” is only the expression of the personal experience of a very few. Moreover, we must make allowance for the power of external suggestion, and, when we do honestly attempt this, “religious instinct ” almost vanishes into thin air. Think of the mental environ­ ment in which a woman’s mind unfolds, and try to measure the force of the incessant raining of the thought of God upon it. As soon as the child begins to disentangle the confusion of images and words on its mental screen, it is made to set aside one image and one word as belonging to something unique and dominating. Then come the early prayers, the dramatic church-service, the story-books that are full of God and his white-winged angels, the uniquelytreated clergyman, the school with God as the chief element of its discipline, the confirmation and marriage-service, the church as the pleasantest centre of social life—the drip, drip, drip, year in year out, throughout the whole of life What is there in the “ religious sense ” that all this persistent suggestion (I am using the word in its strict psychological meaning) cannot account for ? How can we ever honestly say that we can set aside the cumulative and most complex action of all this education in the thought of God, and still find a native sense or instinct or intuition to be accounted for? �64 THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT It would tax the acuteness of the finest psychologist, or mind-student, to. achieve it. Certainly, when we put together the hereditary bias towards religion which seems quite likely to be felt at times, and the effect of education and environ­ ment, we have material enough for the making of a conviction that would seem to be innate and imperious and inde­ pendent of proofs. But why should these influences affect woman more deeply than man ? Because, as every authority on the psychology of woman says, she is more imaginative, more emotional, and more sensitive to suggestion than man; and because her education is still totally different from his. It is no part of my plan to discuss whether the differences between man and woman are natural or artificial, per­ manent or alterable. They are facts of actual experience, and they are too obviously connected with the matter of my inquiry to be neglected. I am not for a moment supposing that woman is inferior to man because she is more imaginative and emotional. It is another of the absurd misrepresentations of Rationalists which women are given, to say that we underrate the value of emotion. The four finest poets of England to-day—Meredith, Swinburne, Watson, and Hardy—are Rationalists. Meredith and Hardy have on occasions sent letters of sympathy to the Rationalist Press Association; and the work of Watson and Swinburne is well known. There is no antithesis whatever, or the slightest mutual hostility, between reason and emotion. George Eliot was hardly less poetic than Adelaide Proctor. A Rationalist may or may not be emotional, but he knows that emotion has its honoured place in life. He does not at all resemble that bloodless being whom Professor James calls “the Rationalist" in his Varieties of Religious Experience. He calls himself the champion of reason, because in the past reason has been too little consulted, and authority and emotion too much, in the formation of beliefs. Undoubtedly he admits that there are more things in life than reason, because there are more tasks in life than the formation of opinions.1 Let us see, then, how far we have got in our inquiry into the disposition which seems to make woman peculiarly conser­ vative and uncritical of religious beliefs. There is, in the first place, the hereditary bias which we may expect to find at times on account of the long ages through which the idea of God has worked its way unresisted into the very fabric of the mind. This would be, if we consult the general research of psychologists, so feeble that a direct and reasoned opposi­ tion, or the lack of educative stimuli, or a strong diversion of one’s concern, would easily neutralise it. But woman’s nature is so much more imaginative and sensitive and awake to mystic influences —woman’s education has ever been, and largely is to-day, so little adapted to strengthen the reason, and so much calculated to foster her imaginativeness and emotionalism, that we may look more confidently for traces of such instinctive bias in her than in man. Her environment from the earliest years of consciousness is more saturated with religious ideas than that of her brother, and she is more susceptible to the suggestive force of ideas. She is less 1 Women who think it more profitable to ask the Rationalist himself what he means than to consult people who resent the name with sus­ picious violence, will receive every attention from the Secretary of the Rationalist Press Association, 5 and 6, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. �THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT aggressive and daring than man, and so less apt to follow radical and critical views. Men, even men who have no religious belief themselves, have conspired to keep doubt and criticism away from her under a vague notion that it would under­ mine her obedience to them, or, less selfishly, that no alternative to a religious influence in the training of children had been provided. Woman, too, has always been brought into closer touch with the clergy, whose parochial visiting generally lies among women, and whose romantic position has always appealed to them with greater force. A dozen other circumstances which have tended to pro­ tect and strengthen woman’s religious convictions more than man’s will readily occur to any person who reflects. More­ over, it must be remembered that it is chiefly in the ritualist branches of Chris­ tianity and among educated people that the excess of women over men is most noticeable. In these the aesthetic char­ acter of the worship must be allowed to go a very long way towards explaining the disproportion. A careful observer will find that poetry appeals to the sexes in just the same disproportion as religion does. This is a fatal difficulty to any suggestion of a specific religious sense in woman. In a word, the differences of nature, education, and environment are so great in the two sexes, and especially in those social classes where the disproportion in Church-membership is greatest, that it is absurd to seek any further explanation. There is no room whatever for believing that some mystic faculty or other is granted to woman in more generous measure than to man. It will be noticed that I do not even entertain the notion that she has merited this, or that she more effectually protects her “religious 65 sense” by a higher standard of character. Criminologists like Lombroso do not find woman to be less criminal, when all is considered, than man. I do not think any woman will seriously make such a claim for her sex. I only refer to it on account of the very offensive and insult­ ing suggestion so often made by clerical writers that there is some connection between the two. I am dealing on its intellectual merits with the greater dis­ position of woman than man for religious beliefs; and I submit that all the influences I have indicated, the real action of which cannot be gainsaid, fully account for what is called woman’s “reli­ gious sense.” It seems preferable always to seek a clear, natural explanation rather than merely to label a phenomenon with a mystic and unilluminating phrase. But there is a more important point to these observations. We started with the idea of examining the ground of religious con­ viction in order to appreciate its force or validity. We are now in a position to see the frailty of what is called the reli­ gious sense as a basis for belief. The moment we analyse it, it dissolves into a score of influences which bear with them no guarantee whatever of the truth of the conviction they generate. The fact that men have for ages believed in God, and that a large proportion of our neighbours still hold that belief, is a peculiar ground for retaining it ourselves. Yet this is all the evidential value we can extract from all the elements which go to make up the religious sense, in so far as it is an un­ reasoning and seemingly innate impulse. In fact, even if one does not accept such an analysis of the religious sense, it remains a quite unreliable support until we have proof of its validity. There is nothing so hopelessly confused as the F �66 THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN claim .of religious people—men and women—that they know things by “ faith.” They cannot possibly mean, and do not mean, anything else than that they have a strong inner conviction of the truth of religious doctrine. As to the grounds or sources of that conviction they seem to be wholly indifferent; yet it is surely obvious that to retain a con­ viction because it is strong, or because one cannot trace its sources (while declining to look closely for them), is a complete reversal of all sane procedure. This is exactly the position of the person who relies on the religious sense or reli­ gious instinct. In fine, let me repeat that I am chiefly pleading for thoughtfulness and con­ sideration. The resolve to enwrap one­ self in a mystic and groundless belief in the authority of faith or the religious sense is self-condemned. Reason we know from experience to be a serviceable and generally reliable implement. Faith has not only no such empirical guarantee, but it is obviously capable of being dis­ solved into a score of familiar agencies. We know that these agencies do enter more deeply into the life of woman than that of man, and so need not be sur­ prised that she seems to have a greater share of this religious sense. It is only mystic as long as one refuses to examine it. Once the inquiry is patiently made —and it is difficult to see on what moral ground inquiry can be refused—it may, as I have suggested, turn out to be only the cumulative effect of hereditary and outer influences, which not only does not dispense from examination of the evidences for religion, but should make woman especially eager to guard herself against an irrational admission of its power. Chapter VIII. THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN If there is no ground for the notion of an especial indebtedness of woman to the Christian religion, and if we cannot discover, in what is called her “ religious instinct,” any justification whatever for her attachment to the Churches, we must pursue our inquiry along other lines. It will, of course, be understood that I am not denying the very real and quite honest share which the two preceding motives have in the religion of woman. I have from the first disclaimed the idea that she merely acquiesces, out of mental indolence, in religious tradition. Yet it must be said that women are less careful than they should be to examine the grounds on which they know their beliefs to rest. It is a duty to oneself, one’s children, and humanity to see that our convictions are well founded. The pro­ gress of the race turns very largely on the elimination of error and injustice from life. Women must contribute to this. They must realise that, as both history and psychology teach, they are essentially the conservatives of the race. �THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN This fact imposes on them a sterner duty to reflect on their beliefs and sift out error. Only thus can they fully expect that intellectual respect which men are increasingly anxious to pay them tO-day. Therefore I plead for inquiry and discussion. Religious teaching, remember, has no peculiar sanctity until it is known to be true. This sounds very commonplace and obvious ; but it is an undeniable fact that, in a confused and tortuous way, very many people make the sacredness of religion a plea for evading inquiry and discussion as to its truth, and so commit a most deplorable and foolish inversion. However, there is one further root of the attachment of women to the Churches that we have to examine before there can be profitable question of discussing evidences. Many women are convinced that it will be impossible to train children without the aid of Christian, or at least Theistic, teaching. Indeed, as I have already said, many men, even men with no religious belief, have sought to keep unsettling controversies away from women on this ground. The training of the character of children is a task of great difficulty and delicacy, and there can be no question that a sincere and lasting belief in God—as it is held by the more liberal and humane Christians of our day—can be effectively used in it. It is not surprising that mothers hesitate to enter the dangerous field of religious inquiry, when they know of no alterna­ tive to the religious incentives to right conduct. There is a genuine dismay at what they think to be a most serious loss of deterrent and educative thoughts. But here again I submit that women do not reflect enough, do not read enough, and do not inquire enough, on the problem. Let us see if there is any truth in the suggestion that the training of children is seriously endangered by the abandonment of its religious elements. However, I must first enter a protest against the modern attempt to erect what Emerson called “the cowardly doctrine of consequences ” into a prin­ ciple. I respect the anxiety of a mother who fears to lose the help of religion in the training of her child; but I think the attempt of certain recent writers to lay it down as a comfortable maxim that the question of the truth or untruth of Christianity must give way to the ques­ tion of its practical use is a most mischievous proceeding. When George Eliot was asked once why she attacked the belief in immortality, she replied, “ Because it is a lie.” Every one of her great Rationalist colleagues had a splendid ideal of the dignity and power of truth. While they were being calum­ niated by the clergy, while frenzied cries were being raised about the materialistic consequences of their teaching, they were urging upon England a lofty ideal of sincerity and truth, which the clergy were to a great extent practically out­ raging. I remember how Dr. Mivart, in his Catholic days, wrote a work in which on one page he gave the usual warnings about the evil consequences of Agnos­ ticism, and on another page actually railed at J. S. Mill for his excessive idealism ! So to-day, while Rationalists are fighting for the pure ideal of sincerity and truthfulness, their opponents are pleading for the “materialistic” doctrine of consequences, and the clergy are betraying on every side the insincerity into which they are driven. It is a just Nemesis. For consider how such a moral theory is bound to work out, and how it is �68 THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN actually working. It is suggested that we should retain the Christian system as a moral discipline, whether it be true or no. There is a certain plausibility about this as an abstract proposition, but picture it in actual life. Our ministers shall be told to continue their solemn addresses to the Deity with every gesture and sign of real belief: the Mass or the Communion service shall be gravely performed : our preachers shall continue to talk in accents of particular seriousness of a personal God and Heaven and Hell and the Incarnation and Atonement, and all the rest. And these men, doing this in theatrical insincerity, we shall continue to regard—nay, it will now be their one title to existence and respect—as the moral and spiritual element of the com­ munity. We shall teach our children to say prayers and tell them we believe in God and Heaven ; and we shall imagine that we are in this way sustaining our own moral dignity as parents and teachers, and laying the foundations of moral dignity in them ! Was there ever a more deplorable outrage on moral training than this last desperate shift of religious apologetics ? It is beyond the paradoxes of Gilbertian opera. It will be said that the idea is rather to arrest the progress of criticism, and leave, the Churches free to recover the lost ground. That is to say, we informed people, who know or suspect these things to be untrue, shall encourage a set of religious teachers to remain in deliberate igno­ rance, and bring up a fresh generation in the same ignorance; and we shall carefully fence about their ignorance lest some stray ray of truth ever penetrate and unsettle it; and we shall make believe to share it on occasion, and strictly keep to ourselves the truths we have learned. Certainly the twentieth century is hearing some strange gospels.1 To all this miserable shuffling Rational­ ism opposes the gospel of sincerity. It is too often forgotten, apparently, that there is a connection between truth and truthfulness. We seem to fancy, some­ times, that we may pride ourselves on our truthfulness, yet encourage falseness, or at least encourage that shrinking from inquiry which is suspiciously close to it. Or we seem to think that we can confine insincerity to one particular department of life, where it is thought to have a certain use, and be in all other respects honourable men. This is impossible for most of us. It is absurd to think that we can foster or connive at insincerity in one part of life and not find it extending to the others; and, when that one department of life in which we would suffer falseness is the very province of moral culture itself, we are perpetrating a folly and an outrage. Truth cannot thrive on lies. Men do not gather grapes from thistles : nor sincerity and honour from such fictitious culture as this. But all this modern philosophy is a fabrication of men, not women. I only allude to it because it is sought to include women as its chief victims. I proceed to deal with that sincere and honourable concern which so many mothers feel, with all respect to the dignity of truth, at the suggestion that they should part with the most forcible elements of the child’s training. And first let me draw attention to the fact that this anxiety is no new thing in the history of religion. An interesting light is thrown on it by the experience of preceding changes. 1 Those who doubt the reality of such teach­ ing will find it expressly urged in Mr. W. H. Mallock’s Religion as a Credible Doctrine, and quite plainly included in the philosophy of Professor James’s Varieties of Rebigiotis Experi­ ence and Professor Schiller’s Humanism. �THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN The cry was raised long ago, when the Reformers attacked the sacramental system of the dominant creed. They were told that they were endangering the moral culture of Europe. This sacra­ mental system, it was said, has become so entirely and organically a part of the moral life of the people that you cannot tear it away without causing grave moral disorder. How—we can fancy a mother of those troubled days asking herself— how can the child be influenced if you take away the strong curb of the confes­ sional, or the piercing ideal of the com­ munion ? But the Reformers swept the sacramental system out of one-half of Europe, and there was no moral deteriora­ tion. The Bible then became the chief ground of moral culture; and, when Deists and Unitarians set out to destroy the belief in the supernatural character of the Bible, the same anxiety was expressed. How can you remove this ground of our structure of moral dis­ cipline, and not bring it down in ruin ? But the idea of there being a super­ natural authority in the Bible has gone from the minds of most people, and there has been no moral deterioration. The same fear was expressed, and in louder tones than ever,, when the attack on the conventional idea of hell and heaven began. Surely this doctrine, so vitally in­ volved in the sanctions of conduct, could not be abandoned without harm ? And, again, the great majority of the people of England have discarded the belief, and have suffered no moral deterioration. It is, in fact, far too little to say that there was no moral deterioration. There was moral improvement. The average level of morality has not been higher in Europe for many ages than it is to-day.It was probably higher in the earlier stages of Greek or Roman or Egyptian 69 civilisation. But it has not been higher in any other century of the Christian era; and it was far lower in the period when the power of the Christian Church was greatest. In the course of the nine­ teenth century there has been a steady improvement. The picture of English life in the eighteenth century which Sir Leslie Stephen prefixes to his English Utilitarians fully shows this; and I have already quoted Sir Walter Besant’s opinion to the same effect. Our com­ mercial and imperialist age has brought its own difficulties; but the general standard of personal morality, among rich and poor, is higher than it was a hundred years ago. And in the space of that hundred years the influence of the clergy has steadily shrunk. It is quite clear that religious beliefs which seem to be the very foundations of moral life can be dispensed with; and it is clear that the humanist moral culture that comes to take their place is remark­ ably effective. Nor may we ignore the fact that the rise of this humanist culture brings with it a new extension of morality which had hitherto almost been neglected. Our age is characterised by the growth of a strong demand for justice and humanity in the whole of our social order. The mitigation, and if possible suppression, of the horrors of war, the improvement of the condition and homes and education of the workers, the cry of justice to woman, the prevention of cruelty to animals and children, the ces­ sation of the practice of persecuting men for their opinions, the wiser and more humane treatment of criminals and paupers—these are all peculiarly modern reforms. It is absurd to say that they are due to. the tardy appreciation of Christian principles. They have grown as Christianity shrunk. �70 THE TRAINING OE CHILDREN Therefore it seems strange to raise again to-day the cry that any particular religious belief is necessary for maintain­ ing good character. The plain truth is that the Christian faith has never had more than a very restricted moral action on the world. It has produced saints of heroic fibre and the most noble character. It has helped great numbers of people in every generation to realise a fair ideal of conduct. But it has never succeeded in deeply influencing more than a small minority of its people. I have said enough in the course of the preceding historical chapters to justify this, and am not eager to reopen the subject. Drunkenness, vice, cruelty, violence, and fraud have abounded in every age. The religious woman shrinks from such a study; she would cling to her belief in the efficacy of Christian teaching, yet refuse to examine if history supports her belief. I can only repeat that the plain testing of that belief by the facts of his­ tory and contemporary life yields a very different result. Take those sections of the community where Rationalist ideas have as yet little penetrated—our villages. Has anyone the slightest serious doubt as to the failure of their church-going to curb their vicious tendencies? I am writing this chapter in a large fishing and agricultural village, where three clergy­ men exercise a rare power over the people; yet I find its moral condition to be extraordinary. Take Spain, where the Church retains an almost medieval influ­ ence. It is a country of notorious cruelty and immorality. Further—because an ounce of fact is worth a ton of logic—let us take a land where the moral culture has been separated from religion for centuries—Japan. Neither the native religion of Japan, Shinto, nor the imported and widely-popular form of Buddhism, has attempted to influence the character of the people to any great extent. Their priests have confined their attention to ceremony and worship, and left conduct to the Confucian teachers and moralists. Now, these are strict Agnostics. For centuries every educated man in Japan has been Agnostic, and, as every writer on the subject says—whether we take missionaries such as Dr. Griffis and Munzinger, or writers like Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Diosy, or Japanese authori­ ties like Professor Nitobe or the Marquis Ito—the morality of Japan has been entirely trusted to them. What has been the result? Professor Hearn says that we must endorse the verdict of Kaempffer that “in the practice of virtue, in purity of life and outward devotion, they far surpass the Christians.” The American missionary, Dr. Griffis, says that their “ beautiful lives and noble characters ” helped to mould his own character. M. Lamairesse says that “ in sobriety, in personal dignity, in mutual respect and reciprocal benevolence, the mass of the people live above the moral level of the majority of westerners.” Sir Edwin Arnold says :— Where else in the world does there exist such a conspiracy to be agreeable: such a widespread compact to render the difficult affairs of life as smooth and graceful as circumstances permit: such fair decrees of fine behaviour fixed and accepted by all: such universal restraint of the coarser impulses of speech and act: such pretty picturesqueness of daily existence: such sincere delight in beautiful artistic things: such frank enjoyment of the enjoyable: such tenderness to little children: such reverence for parents and old persons: such widespread refinement of tastes and habits: such courtesy to strangers: such willingness to please and be pleased? I do not wish to press this high estimate of the Japanese character, �THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN though I have not found a single writer in English, French, or German, who has spent many years in the heart of Japan, that does not agree with it. The Japanese character has its shades ; but in sobriety, humanity, sympathy, generosity, cleanli­ ness, refinement, kindness, gentleness, self-respect, and self-restraint the Japanese are at least equal to any people in the world. This has been done by a purely humanist culture. “ Confucius alone has done all this,” says the German missionary, Munzinger; and the first principle laid down by Confucius was : “To give oneself earnestly to the duties owing to men, and while respecting spiritual beings, if there are any such, to keep aloof from them—this may be called wisdom.” It is a wisdom that has had a wonderful success in the Far East. Considering her long isolation from the general stream of history—from that inheriting of extinct civilisations and that constant comparing of national experiences which have made Europe what it is—Japan’s moral progress is remarkable. Thirty years ago the Japanese Government sent a commis­ sion to Europe and America to study the moral influence of Christianity. They were fully prepared to adopt it as the national religion of Japan if its spiritual efficacy were proved. Now, this commission of seventy educated Japanese was ideally impartial. Most of its members were Agnostics, who had no more interest in one religion than another, yet believed that it might be advisable to have a religion for the people at large. But they returned to Japan after a minute inquiry, and reported that Christianity (to quote the words in which Professor Hearn records their verdict) “ had proved itself less efficacious as an ethical influence in the 7i West than Buddhism had done in the East.” It only remains to add that this build­ ing of the character of the people has been effected through the elementary and secondary schools. So great a stress is laid on the formation of the character of the children that no preaching or further moral culture is necessary. No religion is taught in the schools. The duty of man to his brother-man is the one principle recognised. And the same moral culture is found in China. “Not to communicate knowledge or learning, but to mould character, to instil right principles of action and conduct, is evidently the object of the Chinese common school,” says Mr. Holcombe, a high American authority. In the higher schools this training of character is con­ tinued ; and there is the same absence of any further preaching. The result of it is hardly less successful than in Japan, though China, too, has been so long deprived of the stimulus of free inter­ course with other nations. The standard of personal character is high. Europeans who only know Chinamen out of their country or in the ports, and missionaries who have to furnish a pretext for “ con­ verting ” them, give very wrong impres­ sions of the Chinese. Aside from such authorities as Mr. Holcombe, who are in sympathy with their ethical system, even writers like Mrs. Little render a fine account of the average character. They are, she says, “ always hardworking, goodhumoured, kindly, thrifty, law-abiding, contented, and, in the performance of duties laid upon them, astonishingly conscientious ”; and she adds that “ the moral conscience of the people is so edu­ cated that an appeal to it never falls flat, as it often would in England.” Here, then, we have an object-lesson �72 THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN in the moral training of children without the aid of religion that must far out­ weigh all the anxieties of Christian mothers and all the logic of Christian apologists. While we are timidly dis­ cussing the feasibility of training our boys and girls on a purely human basis, we find that it has been done successfully in China for 2,500 years and in Japan for several centuries. While we are wondering how the world will live without belief in God as its moral ruler, we find that the greatest moralist of all time bade China, 2,500 years ago, “ keep aloof from spiritual beings, if there are any,” and the huge empire has, so far as its ethical culture is concerned, obeyed him to this day. A man like the Marquis Ito, deeply versed in the history of China and Japan, perfectly familiar with the moral condition of both countries, and also well acquainted with our religious development in the West, bids his countrymen look with unconcern on the decay of their popular religions to-day, because their moral culture (Bushido) will suffice. “ Religion,” he said to Mr. Stead, “ is a source of weakness.” This great achievement of a purely Agnostic moral culture is an eloquent answer to all our doubts. The higher Confucian ideal—than which, says Mr. Holcombe, “ no higher , type may be produced by any code or system of ethical training ” —the Chun Tz, or “gentleman,” is a practical standard, and has been realised by millions, not by a few ascetic saints. The literature of both Japan aud China is rich in models of moral heroism. And—where Christianity has most con­ spicuously failed—the average character is good. But, as I said, I do not wish to press the comparison. It is enough that we have a great example of humani­ tarian culture that is far older than the civilisation of Europe. It seemed to me advisable to reply at once to the timidity of religious people, and to the sophistry of those who en­ courage them, with the various series of solid facts which I have presented. There is obviously no foundation for the con­ cern felt about the moral result of our abandoning Christianity. The arguments by which it is sought to justify that con­ cern must yield before the array of facts I have marshalled. It is not a question for reasoning at all. If there are any who are so restricted in outlook and experience that they cannot find in the lives of the innumerable Agnostics about them a proof of the efficacy of purely humanist morality, let them study China and Japan, and compare the result with Europe ; and let them see how the stan­ dard of character has improved among us, while religion has decayed. It will then be a question, not whether we may train children without religious ideas, but how we are to train them.1 To this more practical question I must now devote a few paragraphs. In approaching such a subject one is immediately confronted with the difficulty that arises from the very different educa­ tional conditions in the various classes of society. I can only meet this by making a few general observations on training in the school and training in the 1 For instance, Miss Corelli’s Mighty Atom could never have been written if she had had the slightest acquaintance with moral education in the Far East. Nor would it have been written if she had had any large acquaintance with Agnostic gentlemen, or a more accurate know­ ledge of the statistics of suicide. On the former point it is interesting to compare the opinion of another religious novelist, Mr. Quiller Couch, who said, in an article in the Daily News, that there was no friend and counsellor so much sought in difficult and delicate trouble as the Agnostic. �THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN home, and informing the reader where to obtain detailed guidance. After what has been said, the solution of the school question is obvious. We need to adopt the principle, with more improved and more modern methods of application, of the schools of China and Japan. The actual training in morals and manners given in our elementary schools is pitiful in the extreme, and it is just this that throws so much responsibility on the parents and clergymen. Points of con­ duct and points of dogma are hopelessly confused. Sections of the Old Testament are used, out of which it is impossible for any but the most skilled teacher to extract useful moral instruction. Children are taught as literal truths episodes from the Old and New Testament which few scholarly clergymen take to be more than legends. Teachers are forced to give this instruction when they do not believe a word of it, and they have had no training whatever in the formation of character. The squabbles of the various sects rage around the children’s lives until they grow sceptical and disdainful out of very weariness. And when they leave school, and enter the warehouse or workshop, they hear at once a constant stream of denial and contempt for what they were taught to regard as the sole foundation of right conduct. How we can expect good results from such a pitiful scheme as this, and on what sober ground (apart from sectarian interests) we can insist on the retention of such a scheme, it is difficult to see. Our schools must be wholly relieved from what has been called religious in­ struction. This has been almost useless in itself, has very often been given by sceptical teachers, and has most gravely blinded us to the real absence of moral training. The time has come to relegate 73 religious instruction to the church or chapel, as long as people wish it to be given at all. Then the nation must set itself the serious task of making the formation of the character of the children its first educational aim. “ Self-respect is the first aim of our educational system,” said a Japanese Minister of Education to Mr. Henry Norman. It will be well for England when its Board of Education can say the same. The training of teachers must include, in the first place, a knowledge of the art of forming character. The curriculum must contain daily lessons in morals and manners—in gentleness, honesty, truth­ fulness, cleanliness, decency, respect, honour, and justice. Masters and mis­ tresses shall place their chief pride, not in the quantity of facts and figures they can pack into the children’s memories, but in the number of bright, happy, and sweet-tempered children they can show. Education (or the drawing out) of the child’s aptitudes, moral and intellectual, shall be the object rather than what an American writer has called “ Encephalisation,” or the scratching of facts on the brain-tissues. The vision of Ruskin must be realised:— In some far-away and yet undreamt-of hour I can even imagine that England may cast all thoughts of possessive wealth back to the bar­ baric nations among whom they first arose ; and that, while the sands of the Indus and adamant of Golconda may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash from the turban of the slave, she, as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a heathen one, and be able to lead forth her sons, saying— These are my jewels ! But let the reader not suppose that this is really, as Ruskin thinks, a dream of a remote and problematic future, a page from More’s Utopia, or Morris’s News from Nowhere, or Bellamy’s �74 THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN Looking Backward. The work is pro­ ceeding. In France a great number of influential men and women have banded themselves in a “ League of Sincerity,” to secure a perfectly honest and practical training for their children apart from all those disputed dogmas of the Churches. In the United States the Societies for Ethical Culture are showing the way. In Germany the Ethische Gesellschaften are attacking the problem. In England, I am glad to say, we are doing more than elsewhere. Besides the formation of many Ethical, Socialist, and Secularist Sunday-schools, which give moral lessons of this type with complete success, there is a Moral Instruction League that pur­ sues the aim on a much larger scale. It has framed a complete syllabus of moral lessons, and is gradually, with the help of trained educationists and experts, cloth­ ing this skeleton scheme with a full body of instructions to teachers and model lessons. At Leicester and several other places a scheme of moral lessons has already been adopted by the Education Committees. Several books of specimen lessons have been published, notably Mr. Quilter’s Onward and Upward (pub­ lished at 2S. 6d. by Swan Sonnenschein and Co.) and Mr. Gould’s Children's Book of Moral Lessons (three series1) and Stories from the Bible (published by Watts & Co.). I would also recommend the reading of Mr. Hayward’s Secret of Herbart. Thus a very considerable part of the work has already been done, and it has won the warm approval of educa­ tionists, and even of some influential clergymen, such as Dr. John Hunter.2 1 The first series may now be had for sixpence (paper edition). 2 For further details about the work and aims of the Moral Instruction League the reader may apply to the Secretary, Mr. Harrold Johnson, From the elementary school this scheme of direct lessons in morals and manners—not abstract morality, remem­ ber, but close and detailed allusion to life, with constant appeal to history and the lives of good men and women— would pass on to secondary schools and colleges. Every mother who sends, or may send, sons to these institutions knows how great is the need for more effective moral training. From Eton and Harrow down to the smallest endowed school they are infected by a vice which is the despair of teachers, and which often follows the boys, to their ruin, into mature life. As a teacher, and one who has compared notes with other masters, I know well the terrible prevalence of this, and I need not go on to other defects. Religious ideas fail, in most cases, to influence the character of boys (though this vice is by no means confined to boys’ schools). The most effective appeal has always been an appeal to their honour and manliness, and a rational and straightforward discussion of it. Read the beautiful pictures which Professor Hearn gives of Japanese colleges (in which he has taught for years) in his works, and the contrast will be helpful. We need to make a science and an art of this appeal to the dignity and honour of the boy or girl; to show 19, Buckingham Street, Charing Cross, London, W. C., who will gladly give information. I do not discuss the question of the use of the Bible for two reasons. The first is that the teacher under the new order will be instructed to use it freely, like other good books, where it is fitted for his purpose. The second is that the great bulk of the Bible is admittedly of interest only to scholars; many parts of it are certainly not suitable to be made accessible to children, and even the very best parts of it—the parts, such as the prophecies and some of the Psalms, which are among the best moral literature of the world —-can only be fully understood by men and women who know life. It would be a .tragedy if a child understood them. �THE. TRAINING OF CHILDREN 75 them, as they have never been shown believe most mothers will realise how before, the roots of vice or virtue in their effective all along has been the simple actual lives, the shadows cast by vicious human appeal to the child. In thousands habits and imperfect self-control, the of homes in England since the middle of brighter and happier world they create the nineteenth century the word “ God ” about them by kindness, generosity, has never been mentioned, and the honour, and decency. training has been completely successful. When every school in England has It is said of the children of Colonel Seriously set about this work, we shall Ingersoll that they had never once been find the burden of the parent grow struck, yet the result was exquisite. lighter and the need for supernatural Another Agnostic parent, who had reared motives disappear. Then we shall have his children with conspicuous success, no longer that terrible difficulty of the showed me the chief principle of their girl or youth between fifteen (or so) and training hanging on their bedroom walls : marriage. It has been largely created by “ To thine own self be true.” I have relying chiefly on supernatural motives never known a mother go back from for conduct in the younger days, and these humanist to theological ideas for greater have been questioned and weakened when effect, or envy the woman who could the age of reasoning and observation honestly talk of God and prayer. arrived. In many a thousand cases the I cannot go into further detail, but “ wicked ” child has only been honest would urge inquiring mothers to follow and truthful.1 In many millions more it the references I have given. There is has really lacked any foundation for right no need whatever to fear that the training conduct. This new training would instil of children will suffer by the disappear­ in the mind of the boy or girl principles ance of religion. Rather have we good of right action which would only be con­ ground for hope that, if we would briskly firmed when they became thoughtful and sweep away all this dallying with decaying observant, and saw the effects in life of creeds and all the insincerity it involves, viciousness. The parents would deal we shall set ourselves the more seriously with their children as the teacher does to the task of the formation of character in the school. Such books as those of as a work interesting and of unspeakable Mr. Gould and Mr. Quilter will give importance in itself. Then at last we hints to parents who need them; but I may discover the means to influence, not an elect few, but also, and more especially, 1 For a very interesting and useful example of the great majority which Christianity has this see Lady Florence Dixie’s autobiography, been content to look on as not elect. Ijain, and her Songs of a Child. �76 WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? Chapter IX. WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? I opened this essay with a glance at the decay of the Churches from the point of view of their numerical following. This has become so apparent to all of late that the clergy, whose obvious policy it is to deny it as long as possible, are making grave comments on it in every country. But there is another way of considering the decay of religion, and to this I would particularly draw the atten­ tion of women. I have now pointed out that they have no special ground for gratitude to Christianity, that they possess no peculiar “religious instinct” which can assure them of its truth without their troubling to examine its evidences, and that there is not the slightest reason to think Christianity indispensable for moral and spiritual culture. They have, therefore, as a duty to themselves, their children, and the world at large, to con­ sider in the ordinary way if the beliefs they do so much to retain among us are true or not. As a further incentive to do this, I propose to put before them a few facts relating to the stupendous changes which are taking place in the minds of modern thinkers, and even theologians, with regard to the doctrines of conventional religion. People with little leisure naturally form their estimate of religious teaching from the deliveries of the pulpit. It is not surprising that such people are un­ acquainted with the profound changes which are taking place within the shrunken area of the religious bodies. Christian scholarship is utterly transform­ ing the body of dogma which the Chris­ tian pulpit and Press are urging upon the people as if it were still agreed upon. It is safe to assume that the women of England would hesitate to give that unwavering credence they do to the Churches if they were aware of the sur­ prising extent to which the familiar reli­ gious ideas have already been surrendered. I will illustrate the point by a number of quotations from contemporary literature especially bearing upon the three central Christian ideas of the Bible, the future life, and a personal God. A recent incident in English clerical life will serve to introduce the question of modern theological views of the Bible. Some time ago the Rev. Mr. Beeby was virtually driven out of the service of the Church of England by his bishop, Dr. Gore, for questioning the Virgin-birth of Christ. Most people in the Church pro­ bably thought that the bishop had dis­ charged an obvious, if painful, duty in expelling a clergyman who called into question one of the most characteristic features of the Biblical narrative. But the truth is that Christian scholarship—I need make no reference whatever to non-Christian research—has cast so grave a doubt on the familiar story of the birth of Christ that it is scarcely honest to preach it any longer. I remember meet­ ing Dr. Mivart, then a professed Catholic, some five years ago. He literally laughed at the idea of the Virgin-birth; and gradually I have learned that this is almost the typical attitude of scholarly �»HS WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? Christians. The Dean of Westminster has recently written that “in the minds of thoughtful men there is a very serious disquietude in regard to the doctrine of the Virgin-birth.......a real unsettlement of minds in regard to a matter which hardly occurred to their fathers as a sub­ ject of inquiry.” I take the quotation from an article by the Rev. Dr. Rashdall in the Independent Review for May, 1903. Dr. Rashdall himself goes on to say that it “ constitutes the chief difficulty with able and educated men who might other­ wise be inclined to seek orders in the Church of England.” He lets us see his own estimate of the evidence for the legend when he asks: “ What credence should we give to some story about the birth or infancy of Napoleon Bonaparte which could not be traced back further than to a Bonapartist memoir writer who wrote about the year 1872, and did not mention his authority ? ” The clerical writers of the Encyclopaedia Biblica, edited by Canon Cheyne—almost the one English clergy­ man who would tell the people the plain truth in these matters—disdain­ fully set the legend aside as worthless. The writers of Cone’s Handbooks to the New Testament in America have little more respect for it. Professor Usener says that “for the whole birth and child­ hood story of Matthew, in its every detail, it is possible to find a pagan substratum.” Professor Loofs, one of the first Biblical ■ scholars of the German Church, says that “anyone who understands anything about historical criticism must concede that the Virgin-birth belongs to the least credible of New Testament traditions”; and that “ no well-informed, and at the same time honest and conscientious, theologian ” can teach it with the old confidence any longer. In a word, the 77 story of the miraculous conception and birth of Christ, in all its details, is now regarded by all the Biblical scholars in the German Church, by most of the leading Biblical scholars in the English and American Churches, and even by some of the chief Catholic scholars of the French Church (such as M. Loisy), as a late and worthless interpolation in the New Testament. Yet year by year, as Christmas returns, we find the ordinary clergy expatiating on the legend as if no change whatever had taken place ! Perhaps the next most characteristic feature of the Biblical narrative is (if we except the Crucifixion) the account of the Resurrection. This story is faring no better than that of the Nativity in the hands of modern Christian scholars. If the reader cares to look up the article on this subject in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, or in Dr. Cary’s Synoptic Gospels—both honest and commendable efforts to tell the truth about the Bible to ordinary Christian readers—he will find that the dogma of the Resurrection is practically given up by Christian scholars. Dr. Loofs puts it and the Ascension on just the same footing as the Nativity: they belong to “the latest and least reliable traditions of the Gospel narrative ”—in other words, are worthless interpolations. Dr. Schmiedel finds the Gospel accounts full of “glaring contradictions,” which “show only too clearly with what lack of concern for historical precision the evangelist wrote.” Dr. Cary finds “an utter absence of truly historical condi­ tions,” and says of the various features of the story that they tell “incredible things ” and “ must be looked on with suspicion.” Let me repeat that I am now quoting only representative Christian scholars— divines who give the current thought in �78 WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? legitimate subject for this inquiry, and the result is quite fatal to conventional pulpit oratory. Archdeacon Wilson, in his latest popular writings on the Bible, implores his colleagues to abandon their futile hostility to the new views. The Bible, these writers say, remains “ inspired ”—is still “ the word of God.” But that can only mean now that it is a source of moral and spiritual helpfulness —which Rationalists do not deny—not that it possesses any historical weight, until this has been won for it here and there by the ordinary methods of criti­ cism. I have confined myself to the New Testament partly because this is the sole source of our knowledge of Christ, and partly because it is now almost super­ fluous to discuss the inspiration of the Old Testament. One of the first Biblical scholars of the Catholic Church, Father David, once said to me: “ The Old Testament was not written for us, but for the Jews, and the sooner the Church can quietly drop it overboard the better.” One is not yet free to say these things quite openly in the Catholic Church, but they are said daily in the various branches of the Protestant Church. No educated clergyman now questions that the earlier books of the Old Testament, as we have them, were written in the fifth century before Christ; that the really earliest books in it, Amos and Hosea, were written about the ninth century; that the earliest documents we can trace as having been used in writing the Penta­ teuch (or Hexateuch) date from about the ninth century; that the stories of Genesis and Exodus have no historical value; that none of the Psalms can be 1 This is very ably argued, and with a great proved to have been written by David, weight of scholarship, by Mr. J. M. Robertson, and most of them come down to the fifth in his Christianity and Mythology and Pagan and fourth centuries; that Kings and Christs. the higher circles of the German Church and the growing thought of English Christian scholarship. It is clear from this that the teaching about Christ and the Bible, still rhetorically delivered from our pulpits, is little short of dis­ honest; yet this is all that religious women are able to acquaint themselves with, as a rule. The traditional figure of Christ is dissolving rapidly. Its most familiar and striking features are gone beyond recall. The Gospel story of his life is a latewritten biography, full of contradictions and interpolations, or “layers of tradi­ tion,” as these Christian authorities put it. The untrustworthiness of the Gospels has now been admitted in principle, and it is impossible to foresee where it will end, or how much of the figure of Christ will be left. If I were to step outside the range of strictly Christian writings, I should find that there is a growing ten­ dency to regard Christ as a pure myth.1 But it is enough for my purpose to rely on Christian works. In these the dis­ solution of the venerated historical figure is proceeding rapidly. The authority of the New Testament as a record of his life is daily diminishing. The critical principle, which has long ago destroyed the idea of there being any supernatural value in the Old Testament, is now applied freely to the New Testament. Even less scholarly popular writers are beginning at length to apprise people of the change. An article by Canon Henson in the Contemporary Review, on “ The Future of the Bible,” insists that it is useless to dream of putting any check on this process of critical dissolution. The New Testament, like the Old, is a �WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? Chronicles have a very precarious and limited historical value, and Daniel, Ruth, Jonah, Job, and Tobit none at all. However, more serious consequences follow from the analysis of the New Testament, and so it was taken up with more reluctance and has been more fiercely resisted. I have shown that the work has now proceeded far enough to revolutionise Christian teaching. Doubt is thrown on all the miracles, and we are urged to “ concentrate on the sayings of Jesus,” and to remember that it is his life rather than his death that matters. I say this is nothing short of a revolu­ tion ; and I believe it will be little short of a revelation to the great majority of the supporters of the Churches. It means a retreat to a conception of Christ and of the Bible which may be held by any Rationalist; while it will be news to most readers of the Christian Press that such a man as Professor Haeckel, on whom such bitterness has been poured, only differs by slight shades in his esti­ mate of the Bible and of Christ from the leading scholars of the German Church.1 And while the clergy are thus them­ selves dissolving the conventional figure of Christ and the authority of the Bible, philosophers are submitting the belief in 1 Readers who wish to verify or follow up what I have said in this section will do well to read the Encyclopedia Biblica (under almost any article), remembering that this is a work written by Christian scholars for ordinary Chris­ tian readers. In America Dr. Cone’s Handbooks will be more accessible. The article of Canon Henson in the Contemporary for February, 1904, and the recent sixpenny and threepenny books of Archdeacon Wilson and the Rev. Walter Welch, show in a popular form the resistless pressure of the critics. The works of Cheyne, Sayce, Bennett, Driver, etc., are all useful, and all orthodox. The Rationalist Press Association publishes (at one penny) an excellent summary of the conclusions of the Encyclopedia Biblica, and (at a shilling) Mr. Leonard’s New Story of the Bible. 79 God to a scarcely less drastic treatment. Here again I prefer to give an idea of contemporary thought rather than argue myself, and, as far as possible, to quote writers who are by no means Agnostic or Atheistic. I have earlier referred to the effort of Mr. W. H. Mallock to find a new base for religious belief, so that he will be understood to be a sympathetic writer; he is, in fact, one of the most persistent critics of Rationalism. Yet he says, in his Religion as a Credible Doctrine, of the conventional belief:— We must divest ourselves of all foregone conclusions, of all question-begging reverences, and look the facts of the universe steadily in the face. If theists will but do this, what they will see will astonish them. They will see that if there is anything at the back of this vast process with a consciousness and a purpose in any way resembling our own—a Being who knows what he wants, and is doing his best to get it—he is, instead of a holy and all-wise God, a scatter­ brained, semi-powerful, semi-impotent monster. This is hard language, but it is in substance consonant with what many definitely religious philosophers are say­ ing to-day. The late Mr. Fiske, for instanee, said in the same connection : “The fact stands inexorably before us that a Supreme Will, enlightened by perfect intelligence and possessed of infinite power, might differently have fashioned the universe, though in ways inconceivable by us, so that the suffering and the waste of life which characterise Nature’s process of evolution might have been avoided.” Mr. Fiske is compelled to retreat upon the belief that God is not an all-powerful Being distinct from Nature and man ; and this is, as a fact, the position in which religious thinkers are meeting to-day. Professor Le Conte, another of the chief religious thinkers of America, gives the same pantheistic and impersonal idea of God : “ The forces �8o WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? of Nature are naught else than different forms of one omnipresent Divine energy or will.” Professor Royce, a recent Gifford lecturer, writes : “ We need not conceive the eternal Ethical Individual [man] as in any sense less in the grade of complication of his activity or in the multitude of his acts of will than is the Absolute.” Professor Upton, a Hibbert lecturer, has the same pantheistic idea. Professor William James, another recent Gifford lecturer, tells us “ we must bid a definite good-bye to dogmatic theology,” and openly rejects monotheism altogether at the end of his Varieties of Religious Experience. These are among the most important recent pronouncements of religious thinkers on the conception of God. They completely destroy the idea of God current in the Churches, and sub­ stitute one which makes prayer and worship altogether irrational. If we and Nature and God are one, the idea on which the Churches build is wholly erroneous, and their system of worship must crumble away. They can only maintain that God is a Person by giving an entirely new meaning to the word. And these men, it must be remembered, are the highest authorities in this matter, as such men as Canon Cheyne and Pro­ fessor Schmiedel are on the Bible. It only remains for me to show how their conception is spreading among all classes of educated people — not to speak of professed Agnostics. The Rev. Mr. Ballard has lately said that he looks to science to restore this belief in God that philosophy seems to have under­ mined. But there was never so desperate a hope as this. The general silence of scientific men on religious questions is ominous—oppressive. All the energy and devotion of the clergy seems unable to induce them to use a' particle of their great authority over the mind of our generation in favour of reli­ gion. But, even when they do present their views, it is usually to betray how widely they are removed from current theology. Take four of the chief expres­ sions of opinion in recent years. Sir Henry Thompson not long ago published an essay on The Unknown God, in which he said that “ the religion of nature must eventually become the faith of the future,” and that in it “a priestly hierarchy has no place, nor are there any specified formularies of worship.” Lord Kelvin recently made a brief speech which was loudly acclaimed as favouring religion. But not only was his reference to a “creative Power” no nearer to the Church teaching than is that of Mr. Herbert Spencer, but he spoke in the name of a science (biology) which is not his own, and he was immediately con­ tradicted by all our most distinguished biologists. Dr. Russel Wallace, the spiritist, has recently written again in defence of religion, but he, too, based his argument on a science which is not his own, and he was immediately silenced by the proper authorities on the matter. Later still Professor Lloyd-Morgan wrote in the Contemporary Review. He told his Christian readers that they must for ever give up the idea of religion obtain* ing the support of science, and grounded his vague theism (somewhat similar to that of the philosophers I have quoted) on a precarious metaphysical argument. To these well-known pronouncements I can only add a profession of materialism (in Nature, June 5th, 1902) by Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, and a confession of heterodoxy by Dr. Jonathan Hutchin­ son (which I heard in a lecture by him at Haslemere). These are the only phrases �WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGIONS that have broken the silence of the scientific world of late years in England On religious questions — and they are significant.1 When we pass out to the larger world of generally educated people, we find indications innumerable that the current idea of God is failing. Mr. H. G. Wells, who has so closely observed contemporary life for the purpose of forecasting the future, says in his Anticipations that “the prevailing men of the future will presume to no knowledge whatever, will presume to no possibility of knowledge, of the teal being of God,” and that they “will content themselves with denying the self-contradictory absurdities of an obstinately anthropomorphic theology,” such as “ that God is an omniscient mind.” Thus one of the best-informed observers of our time believes that within the present century Agnosticism will be, as in Japan, the religion of all educated people. And when one glances into our literature one finds justification enough for the forecast. Not only philosophers and scientists, but even poets, reject the older conception of a personal God. The Unknown God and the Hope of the World of Mr. W. Watson are well known. He thrusts aside—“ A god whose ghost in arch and aisle Yet haunts his temple—and his tomb, But follows in a little while Odin and Zeus to equal doom ; A god of kindred seed and line, Man’s giant shadow, hailed divine.” And Watson’s poem is founded on the * Since this work was written Sir Oliver Lodge has spoken, apparently, in defence of religion. Here again, however, we only find an attenuated theism and a belief in a future life on spiritist grounds. Not only does Sir O. Lodge reject all the characteristic Christian dogmas (such as the miraculous birth of Christ),.but his conception of God and of the future life would have to be pronounce/! rank heresy by the official theologian. chief idea of Tennyson’s pantheistic In Memoriam. Meredith and Hardy and Swinburne are, as I said, equally Rationalistic. In fact, we find theology itself invaded by the new feeling. Sir Henry Thompson gives in his essay a curious observation of Dr. Jowett to Dr. Caird, two divines whose conception of God was very different from that of the liturgy. A Congregationalist minister of the North of England openly preaches Monism from his pulpit. On all sides, in every branch of literature, we find signs of the surrender of the old idea of a Personal God set over against man and Nature; and without such a conception the system of Church worship cannot honestly endure. An even greater change is visible when we come to examine current thought about a future life. Here the religious philosophers I have just quoted make a very feeble pretence of defending the old idea. Professor Royce “gives up the question, of immortality as insoluble by philosophy,” says Professor Le Conte; and Le Conte immediately adds that “perhaps it is.” Professor W. James sees no evidence for it. Professor Miinsterburg says: “Only to a cheap curiosity can it appear desirable that the inner life, viewed as a series of psychological facts, shall go on and on and “ Science opposes to any doctrine of individual immortality an unbroken and impregnable barrier.” Mr. Fiske finds man to be immortal only in the sense that he is a part of the whole, which is eternal. When some of the chief reli­ gious thinkers of our time are thus reduced almost to silence, we can find little beyond fantastic and desperate speculations in the ordinary apologist. Thoughtful men are avoiding the subject to-day. Among those who are, by their G �82 WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? profession, the best acquainted with the mind of man—our chief psychologists— there is not one who argues for personal immortality. Some turn in despair to spiritist phenomena, but, generally speak­ ing, the old confidential vision of the future has almost gone. The scientific evidence against the popular conception of life in heaven or hell forms, as Miinsterberg says, “an impenetrable barrier.” Only trust, or groundless faith, can over­ leap it. It is clear, then, that a profound change is taking place even among thoughtful men who are still counted religious. The clerical habit of giving people to under­ stand that the structure of belief is essen­ tially unchanged, and that only a few among the philosophers and scientists and literary men of our time sanction the popular revolt against it, is disin­ genuous. Outside the ranks of the professional defenders of the Christian belief, the clergy, hardly a single thinker now supports the old beliefs in the form in which they are still presented in the official teaching of the Churches and by ordinary preachers. The Bishop of London could not, if he cared to try, induce three first-class thinkers—philo­ sophers, scientists, or historians—in England, the United States, France, and Germany, to subscribe to-day to the Apostles’ Creed in the sense in which it is still given in the Churches. The whole structure of belief is crumbling. When the ablest religious philosophers tell us that a Personal God of the older type is impossible, and when the leading Biblical scholars in the Churches add that the accounts of the Creation and Fall are legends borrowed from paganism, and that the New Testament was written by men with a “ lack of concern for his­ torical precision,” the very foundations | of the faith are weakened, if not des­ troyed. These men may themselves think out a number of symbolic senses under cover of which they may still repeat the old formulae. The world at large is not sophisticated enough to do so. It is only because they do not know that the structure of religion is so shaken and riddled—because they are falsely told that it is only Rationalists who doubt the personality of God, and the personal immortality of man, and the miracles of Christ, and the miraculous birth and resurrection, and the reality of heaven and hell, and the Fall and the Atonement—that women cling to the Churches. It is time they knew that all these things are taught within the Churches to-day. Nor may women suppose that at least the clergy themselves retain an implicit faith in the old beliefs. Perhaps one of the saddest features of this age of transi­ tion in religious ideas is the scepticism which the clergy have to conceal behind a bold profession of faith. Far be it from me to join in the suggestion that the clergy are generally dishonest. I have moved among them as a colleague, and know that there are thousands, not only of simple-minded, but of intelligent, clergymen, in every denomination, who retain a literal belief in the old creeds. But I know just as well that there are numbers who have no such belief, and are at times radical sceptics. I know of ministers of several denominations who disbelieve the doctrines they serve. I know Catholic priests and Anglican clergymen who have made an honest attempt to earn their living as ordinary laymen, and who, when the attempt failed, have returned with their scepticism to the ministry. The impotence of a clergyman when he abandons his own �WHERE DO WE STAND IN RELIGION? profession is so pathetic that, for every one who leaves and suffers, scores remain behind. They are in many cases writh­ ing under the burden of creeds in which they do not believe. Not long ago a Mr. Ryder seceded from the Church of England. In a little work (entitled Chart and Voyage) which he then wrote and addressed to his late colleagues he fully bears out my own experience. In fact, the well-known traditions of the Broad Church in England (offering a score of reasons why one may honestly profess to believe what one does not believe), and the occasional outbreak and submission (as with the Dean of Ripon) of some clergyman or prelate, tell their own tale. Happily, greater freedom is now being won by the clergy; and women who care to follow the proceed­ ings of such bodies as the Churchmen’s Union will discover how far contempo­ rary liberalism has invaded the Churches. On one point, the analysis of the Bible, almost all the destructive critics are clergymen, so that here, at least, there can be no question of antipathy to Christianity. I see no sound moral reason why these things should be hidden from women. Mrs. C. Perkins Stetson, in her Women and Economics, makes a fine protest against the masculine notion of tying one half of the race to the starting-post while the other half runs. We are discarding that error to-day, and learning to welcome into the doing of the world’s work those women who desire to take their part in it. One of the first qualities for this— not that it is already too common among men—must be an alertness to new ideas, a promptness to discover and to tread new avenues of progress. Advance is made by cautious and well-considered change. The conservative instinct is 83 good; but to be entirely useful it must be found combined with a sober pro­ gressiveness. The world is only now at the beginning of the consciousness of its mighty powers and of the great ideal of universal happiness which is breaking in a hundred partial lights on the mind of our generation. “ We must seek in the past a pledge of the future, not the future itself,” as Mazzini said. “ Let us be great in our turn.” It is neither whole­ some nor just that we should seek to keep woman in comparative ignorance, even if she prefers to restrict her share in the world’s work to the domestic sphere. These principles seem to me to have as great, if not a greater, application to religious questions than to others. The Church has, in spite of all the terrible blunders I have referred to, played a great part in the history of Europe. Some day, when the din and heat of the present religious controversy have ceased, we shall appraise and appreciate its influence for good. At the present day it is almost a disservice to the cause of truth and progress to bestir oneself in this direction. No sooner does a sympa­ thetic Agnostic or Positivist writer evince a recognition of some benefit done by the Church, but his words are at once torn from their text, and forced into an admission of the case for the Church as it is perversely and untruly stated by the ecclesiastical historian. On the one hand, in fact, the Neo-Catholic is ready to spring upon every syllable of sympathy, and urge the retention of his beliefs in a “ symbolic ” sense; on the other, the “ Pragmatist,” that strange outcome of the confusion of modern philosophy, hovers by in order to prove that this recognition of service must outweigh all our criticisms of the falsity of doctrines. In such circumstances we can hardly be �84 THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORRO W expected to dwell impartially on whatever good Christianity has done. It is enough, for the moment, to say we recognise that it has had in some directions a good influence. But that influence becomes questionable the moment it rests on beliefs that are felt to be untrue, or that have to be shielded from criticism. To prolong the period of transition, to linger in a stage which is so conducive to insincerity, seems to me to be little short of a moral catas­ trophe. Let us have a “ League of Sincerity,” to use the pretty name adopted by a French association which has been founded on these principles. “Truth will prevail ” is a splendid act of faith in the ultimate soundness of human nature. But “ Truth shall prevail ” is a living and ennobling principle for women and men. To meet the moral dangers which the new world-problems and the new commerce and industry and the new freedom of discussion are bringing upon us, we need, above all, a strong sense of honour and sincerity. If we play fast and loose with that vital principle in the very province of spiritual culture, it is folly to expect it to triumph in other fields of life. Chapter X. THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORROW The reader will often have experienced the sensation of rising occasionally from the narrow, crowded streets of some great city to the summit of a hill or monument from which the whole may be surveyed. How the eye looks trium­ phantly over the huge blocks that had restricted it ! How the infinite and in­ tricate details fall into a plan that can be grasped in one sweep of vision ! How many features reveal themselves that were invisible from below ! One experiences some such sensation in moments of calm and comprehensive meditation on the world-movements of our time. While we live in our daily little grooves, in our little hives of domestic or civic activity, our experience gains in richness of detail, but loses, and often suggests wholly erroneous ideas, from its narrowness. The mere accident of our living near some active church or chapel, with an attractive preacher, colours our whole thought, and makes us feel that all the talk of a decay of religion must be un­ founded. The views of our own little social circle are vaguely felt to reflect the temper of the world at large. We all know so well the fallacy of generalising on a narrow experience. And as we extend our vision, as we look out on the literature of the world, as we rise from our groove and take a broad view of the situation, the narrow limits melt away, and we see things in something like true proportion. There is no intellectual interest of our time in which this is more true than in the matter of religion. For instance, let us imagine a Roman Catholic of this country, who fancies his “ bark of Peter ” is sailing serenely on the waves of �THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORRO W modern thought, transferred to a scene that was witnessed in Rome in the autumn of 1904. Thousands of Free­ thinkers of France, Spain, and Italy, with a group of the first scholars in Europe at their head, had gathered there for their annual Congress. France had sent more than a thousand delegates, bearing with them the official adhesion of the Municipal Council of Paris. Spain had sent hundreds of enthusiastic dele­ gates. Of Italians there were many thousand representatives, with the official adhesion of whole municipalities from various parts of Italy. The Pope had protested solemnly against the hold­ ing of such a Congress under the shadow of the Vatican. In reply, the Italian Government announced that it would extend to the Freethinking pilgrims all the privileges it had ever granted to Roman Catholic pilgrimages. What a mighty change since the day when a pope could keep an emperor on his knees for hours in the courtyard at Canossa! This Congress was a visible and tangible proof of the disintegration of Catholicism that is proceeding with extraordinary speed on the Continent. The vastest and most wealthy and most powerful Church in the world, with its magnificently-organised celibate ministry, its roots deep in the soil of Europe, its splendid monuments of medieval art, its alluring ritual, its wide economic and political influence, is tottering to its fall. In France it cannot now count more than one-fifth of the people as even nominal supporters. In Italy it is rapidly falling into the same position. In Spain more than a thousand centres of Freethought are undermining it. Only the conviction that an enormous and powerful section of their populations 85 were in sympathy with this anti-theo­ logical Congress could have moved the French and Italian Governments to extend to it the open and generous patronage they did. Within a year or two the Church will be disestablished in France. Within a few years more it will be equally excluded from the public life of Italy, and, within a few decades, of Spain. Then it will have to press heavily on the allegiance of its nominal supporters, and we shall see it shrink into a mere shadow of the great frame that once dominated the life of Europe. Not only in England, America, and Germany, where Protestantism had pre­ pared the way for free discussion, is reli­ gion melting away before the sun of modern knowledge; it is vanishing more rapidly still in the now thoroughly awakened Latin nations. The abandon­ ment of the old beliefs is a world-move­ ment. I have already given (pp. 13, 14) one of the chief indications that this movement is undermining religion in England no less than on the Continent. When we compare the results of the census of church-going taken by the British Weekly in 1886 with the results of the census taken in 1903 by the Daily News, we find that the Churches have lost nearly half a million worshippers in less than twenty years in London alone. One of the Anglican leaders who was asked to com­ ment on the result of the census said that it really only meant that, now the social pressure was removed, only those who had sincere religious convictions went to church. But there was no more social pressure in 1886 than there is to-day; Canon Scott-Holland was think­ ing of a century ago. Moreover, while the Churches have largely ceased to be in a position to exert social or economic �86 THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORROW pressure, they have, on the other hand, provided themselves with a new weapon —social attractiveness. Large numbers of Anglican Churches now have a ritual that draws numbers of even the indif­ ferent. Nonconformist Churches have gone out among the people in a most spirited endeavour to win their support. “ Pleasant Sunday Afternoons ” and all kinds of concessions have been made to the spirit of the age. The clergy have taken an active share in social and philanthropic work beyond all the dreams of their predecessors. The last twenty years represent an untiring, feverish effort on their part to extend their influence. Yet we have this irrefragable statistical proof that they have (when the Jews are omitted from the Daily News census) lost nearly half a million worshippers in the metropolis alone in that period.1 All their vast resources and all the devotion of their clergy have disastrously failed to stem the tide. An observant glance will discover almost daily other solid indications that the movement is a very real and very serious one. In the summer of 1904 the Daily News (the chief organ of the Nonconformists) published a leading article on the prospect of this country abandoning Christianity. The Daily Telegraph published a significant corres­ pondence on the subject, “ Do We Believe?” Dr. Jessopp declared at a 1 It is necessary to make this calculation clear, as the results of the census have been put by religious people in a most misleading form. In 1886, out of a population of 3,816,483, some 1,167,312 attended places of Christian worship. The population of this area has increased to four millions and a half, yet (excluding Jews, who are wrongly included in the census) only 950,000 now attend church or chapel or hall. With the increase of the population, the figure should be about 1,400,000, if the Churches had merely held their ground against indifference and active revolt. medical dinner: “Yours is a rising, mine a decaying, profession.” The Rev. F. Ballard, one of the active protagonists of Christianity, asserted in Great Thoughts: “ The outlook is a serious one........ The modern atmosphere is, in general, tend­ ing away from rather than towards all that is distinctive of Christianity.” Another protagonist (the Rev. R. Williams) wrote that “ already it is the fact that the cultured laity, on the one hand, and the great bulk of the demo­ cracy, on the other, are outside the Churches.” The Bishop of London has declared that in his old diocese only one working man in fifteen goes to church. A weekly journal (the Clarion) opened a drastic attack on religion, and the sole effect was an increase of its circulation by thirty per cent. The Rationalist Press Association has sold, without effort, nearly a million copies of anti-theological works in a little over two years; while the various theological publishing con­ cerns established to meet its work have, with all their huge resources and means of circulation, been unable to draw any­ where near the Rationalist circulations. I may take a further striking illustra­ tion of the real decay of religion that is concealed behind the fictitious optimism of the Churches from the position of the Church of Rome in this country. In this case, not only the actual members of the Church, but thousands of people outside it, believe that there is continuous growth. Yet never was there so empty and unfounded a claim. The number of Catholics in this country sixty years ago is given by a Jesuit writer (Month, July, 1885) as about 800,000. The population of England and Wales has nearly doubled since that time, so that, without any further accession, the Catholic population ought now to be more than �THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORRO W a million and a half. But since 1841 nearly a million Irish Catholics have immigrated to this country, and, as most * of these came between 1851 and 1861, their descendants should add another million and a half, at the least, to the Catholic population. Thus, without counting a single convert, from the Oxford Movement onwards, there should be three million Catholics in this country. There are actually less than a million and a quarter. The proportion of Catholic marriages, of clergy, and of school children agree in giving this result, as I showed in the National Review (August, 1901). The Catholic Church is crumbling away in this country as surely, though less rapidly, than in France and Italy. It is the dispersion of the Irish nation that has misled people in England and America as to the posi­ tion of Catholicism. There ought to be, on a normal growth of the popula­ tion, nearly 17,000,000 people in Ireland to-day, mostly Roman Catholics. There are actually less than four millions and a half. The missing twelve millions are in England, Australia, and the United States. Yet with this vast accession of Irish men and women, and all the converts that have seceded from the Church of England, the Catholic popu­ lation dwindles away. And this huge leakage increases in our time, and, in the main, represents an addition to the great multitude that now acknowledge no ecclesiastical allegiance. I have endeavoured in this essay to engage the attention of women in this vast transformation of the religious insti­ tutions of our time. They contribute far more than men do to the mainte­ nance of those institutions; yet they are far less ready than men to show a reasoned belief in religious doctrines. 87 I have assumed that this was largely due to three fallacies which the clergy dis­ seminate among them, and I have invited them to a patient analysis of those fallacies. It seems clear that they have no sounder reason than men to refrain from examining the grounds of their convictions. There—except that I have added a few observations that should tend to shake the fictitious firmness of their attitude—I must leave them. If they will write to the Secretary of the Rationalist Press Association for a list of the sixpenny works published by that body—of which more than 800,000 have been sold during the last two years—■ they will find an abundant and excellent literature with which to continue their study of religion. It only remains for me to meet the last and inevitable pre­ liminary inquiry : What will come next, when religion is destroyed ? I have said that I agree fully with Emerson in rejecting “the doctrine of consequences.” The human mind is not so poor that we should suppose it is less capable to-day of devising moral structures than it was two thousand, or ten thousand, years ago. Falsehood is not so beneficent an element in life that we should ever deem it indispensable. It would be, as Emerson says, mere cowardice to shrink from sacrificing a familiar and, perhaps, treasured untruth because of the dislocation that would follow. This could not be other than temporary. Yet a rational concern about the future is inevitable in the case of seriousminded men and women. None but a cynic or a fool could contemplate with complete indifference the destruction of beliefs or principles on which civilised life has even partly rested for many centuries. It is one more of those �88 THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORROW perverse calumnies of the Rationalist, of which we have seen so many, that he is a man with a morbid love of destruc­ tion, or a “hatred of Christianity,” as the clerical Press generally puts it. He is moved by two impulses; and both of them are noble and full of promise for the world. The first is a passion ’for truth, a restless impatience of untruth. That is one of the most imperative needs in the life of our age; and, if the Rationalist were eventually proved to be wrong in all his criticisms, he would, nevertheless, have contributed to the moral spirit of the world. The clergy, for reasons which are now clear, have ceased to lay that stress on truth and truthfulness which the unchanging cir­ cumstances of life demand of the moral teacher. The Rationalist has taken up that part of his gospel. What I have been able to quote about the part which Rationalists have played in rousing the conscience of the modern world on the woman question will sufficiently illustrate the general beneficence of this element of their motive. The second impulse is one that may be traced without difficulty in the earliest protests of Rationalism against dogma— in the martyr-creeds of Giordano Bruno or Arnaldo di Brescia—and that grows into clearer consciousness in the great critical movement of our time. It is a desire for the advance of humanity. “ Man has put himself in the place of God,” said the present Pope a few months ago. In a sense it is true. Humanity has at length taken over the control of its own destiny. It is not merely because the Church has in the past hindered the progress of humanity— fettered and opposed science, preached submission to disease and poverty, and diverted the devotion of the finest souls in Europe to an ideal that it now itself discards. The Churches of our day are not the Churches of a hundred years ago. Even Catholicism will transform * itself within fifty years, or perish. We could overlook the past; only taking care that it never return. But, quite apart from the past errors of Christianity, we have the most indisputable grounds for opposing it to-day. We see this : if man can be persuaded that he is the maker of this world (on its moral side) and there is no other world beside it, he will begin to work at its amelioration with an energy he never knew before. Test this principle, and the application of it which most nearly concerns women. If this social order, which oppresses them, is purely man-made, how straight and clear the way becomes for the task of re-making it; and how supremely impor­ tant do we find the acceptance or rejec­ tion of this idea to have been in the early stages of the present women movement. Extend that principle to all the evils of our social order, and you have the key to the much-calumniated effort of the Rationalist to remove Christianity. There is, to take the matter on a lower plane, a lack of intelligence in the idea that the individual or the society will tumble to ruin when belief in God or a future life decays. It is surely worth considering whether the Rationalist would not have this world better rather than worse, when he comes to think it is the only world he will ever know. When you look at it without prejudice, it seems an extraordinary notion to imagine that humanity should allow this life to take on the traditional features of hell because it discovers there is no heaven. It might occur to intelligent folk that we should be rather minded to build our Golden City here and now, when we find the �THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORROW long-cherished vision of one in the clouds to be a mirage. The truth is that the mind of Europe has been vitiated by the dogma of the Fall. All that is evil and brutal in life and history has been ascribed to “ human nature all that was elevated and refined and heroic has been denied to human nature, and attri­ buted to “ grace ” or miracle. This has begotten a dreary pessimism in the mind of Christian people. They find them­ selves incapable of thinking that man can be generous or just or temperate without the hope of a reward in heaven or the stimulus of pleasing God. The mind of the Rationalist is not warped by this illusion. He takes men as he finds them. There are natures so diseased, so per­ verted by the spiritual selfishness of Christian teaching as popularly conceived, so debased by an environment that has remained poisonous throughout the whole dominion of the Church, that they do, and will, act viciously and unintelligently when the violent and crude curbs have been removed. They never really did act spiritually. But the Rationalist sees that the natures which could respond to the finer appeals of modern Christianity are increasingly accessible to sentiments of humanity. This is not a theory, but a fact. The world grows more humane as it discards Christianity. That is the subtle grievance of the modern priest. The present high but narrow-minded Pope, in his perplexity, says it is the old practice of the devil imitating the angels of light. Reasonable people will avoid such fantastic notions, and recognise that humanity has at bottom a sound instinct. I have not said, of course, that the world grows more humane because it discards Christianity. I believe the fact is that it •discards the old dogmas because it is 89 growing more humane. But, in either case, it is one of the most undeniable facts of modern history that humanism in philosophy has been accompanied, step by step, with humanity in character. The Rationalist believes that, when our philosophy of life is wholly humanist, the humanity of men and women will be greater than ever. He would tear the veil from the heavens and reveal its emptiness, because he knows that then at least men will turn to the brightening and gladdening of earth. He is fully and splendidly justified by the results that have steadily followed his demolition of the structure of dogma. There never yet was an age of such deep and wide­ spread scepticism as this which witnesses a solemn Congress of the Freethinkers of Europe in the centre of Catholicism« And there was never yet an age so much adorned with humane and unselfish reforms, so full of promise of peace, justice, and gladness. Before passing to a more definite suggestion, let me repeat that I am pleading for a complete humanism. If, we take the women-writers of our time as a rough index to the mind of educated women, it seems clear that there is a growing tendency to relinquish ecclesiasticism and the more elaborate dogmas of the Church, but to concentrate almost intolerantly on the belief in God. A considerable number of the women* writers of to-day take up this position ; the novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward or ’ Miss Corelli will sufficiently illustrate it. This is only a prolonging of the process of the dissolution of beliefs. I have given a glimpse of the state of philo­ sophic thought in regard to the belief in God. The dogma of a Personal God is being just as certainly undermined as the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope or �90 THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORROW the Bible; and the new philosophic idea of Deity is one that cannot possibly sustain a superstructure of prayer or worship, or of any practical relation whatever between man and God. Now, it may be that the future will decide to believe in this impersonal and diffused Deity of these modern religious thinkers; and it may very well be that it will regard even this as no more than the vanishing ghost of the dead God. But, in either case, it is surely most ill advised to insist that the practical conduct of life shall still be based on a disputable and greatly disputed speculation. In the solid facts of life and history, in the plain teaching of experience as to what is needed to bring gladness into our lives, we have a broad and massive foundation to build upon. This is Humanism. And, if I am asked to stoop to the demand of plain common sense for details, it is not impossible to do so. There is much light mockery of Human­ ism for its faith in the saving power of Science. It must be understood that , this phrase chiefly means that we are going to substitute a most careful study of the conditions of happiness for the haphazard appeals and transcendental preaching of the past. Science is not a new goddess, nor a patent medicine for life’s disorders. It is knowledge, but knowledge gleaned with particular care. On the practical side it is opposed to quackery: it is effective or practical knowledge gained, not by chance experi­ ment, but by a most rigorous series of tests. We mean, then, that we are going to study this life, and extract from it the secret of happiness or unhappiness with a care and rigour that have not been applied to the task before. He who scorns this hardly commends his own philosophy of life. But, further, it is quite possible to catch a glimpse of the various ways -— for no sensible man expects to find some one panacea for all the ills of life—in which this work may be conducted. I have foreshadowed one of the most important of these already in dealing with the training of children. The education of the future will have to regard the whole child—body, mind, and character—as its province. Our educa­ tionists are only too willing to embrace and achieve this ideal of their work. It is easy to see, too, how the educational scheme will grow on another side; how the little systems of scholarships that are spreading out from every great school and education authority will grow on until they form a complete provision for the higher education of those for whom the higher training is fitted. A score of other tendencies in our actual social life will readily occur to any observer. Within this century war will be abolished, and twenty million men withdrawn from its bloody business to the arts of peace. Institutes of Social Service and Socio­ logical Societies are being founded, which will correlate all the efforts for social reform that are being made throughout the world, and provide scientific guidance to reformers. Garden Cities and other experiments in betterment are being multiplied. We are only just realising that the social malady which Christianity has quite failed to cure—that spreading evil whose symptoms are drunkenness, prostitution, gambling, fraud, cruelty, and poverty—is a complex and deep-rooted disease that has never yet been under­ stood, and so could not possibly have been cured. The elimination of this disease is now seen to be possible. It is the work of Science—of knowledge acquired with infinite skill and applied with sympathy �THE HUMANISM OF TO-MORROW and humanity. Ignorance or prejudice alone can scoff at this ennobling task that our godless generation has set itself. In every one of the reforms I have mentioned we have a new centre of light. Already the rays spread and meet over the intervening darkness. Before long we shall have this Knowledge, or Science, of the roots of our social malady; and we have already a great fund of humane and generous effort to apply it. What part the Churches will play in this depends solely on themselves. Because they at present insist on complicating our life with their speculations about a life beyond, because they tend to produce insincerity, which is poison to our social organism, humanitarians are ignoring them more and more. And until they have utterly ceased to lead the world astray from the task of its own advance­ ment, until they have ceased to divert our resources and energies from the solid work of life to the futile tasks of worship and prayer, we shall oppose them relent­ lessly. In a spirit of sacred and healthy impatience — that spirit in which the great French nation is now casting off its Church — mankind will tolerate a clergy no longer. The sphere of their influence will go on shrinking until it becomes a mere fraction of life. But if they will abandon their dogmas, they may have an important share in the noble work that lies before humanity. A distinguished Catholic prelate told me that he and a few other liberal eccle­ siastics were discussing at Paris the future of the Church. “It is like this,” said one of the most influential among them. “ The Church actually presents the appearance of a venerable ivy-clad abbey. There are those who, shocked at its too obvious antiquity, would bring it down altogether. There are others, the ordi­ 9i nary faithful, who would leave it as it is. But the better ideal is, as we propose, reverently to remove the ivy (the dogmas), and let the solid structure face the sun­ light once more.” There are many who would see an important truth in this theory of the modern Church and its needs. They believe the religious in­ stinct to be an essential part of life, and the Churches to be, in some form or other, eternal. They would remove the creeds from them and make a religion of devotion to a moral ideal, to humanity, or to labour, or even of the sense of the mystery of life. A great number of modern writers take religion in this broader sense — Sir J. Seeley, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Lowes Dickenson, Sir Henry Thompson, Mr. Watson, and many others. To meet this attitude a number of the actual Churches will very clearly continue to exist in the form of Positivist and Ethical Churches, and it will be possible to adapt to their purposes all the finest music and some of the ritual of the Catholic Church. There need be no fear whatever that secession from the Churches means emotional starvation. Already a number of such institutions exist, many of them being churches or chapels that have shed their ancient creeds. In these every kind of service will be found, from elaborate ritualism to simple lectures on questions of ethics, politics, and literature. These congregations, in their various ways, foreshadow the evolution of the great Christian bodies. For my part, I dream of a great federa­ tion of humanist agencies for rational culture. It seems to me that this new “ religious ” feeling, which is consulted by the bodies I have named, is only the lingering impression of the profound and world-old illusion which found its last �92 AN APPEAL and highest form in Christianity. Care­ ful observation of the working of Posi­ tivist and of the more ritualist Ethical Societies, of the general attitude of those who leave the Churches, and of the history of religion in the Far East, convinces me that religion is unnecessary in any shape or form. I believe there will be a very fair growth of congrega­ tions with a humanist religious service, but it seems impossible to think that the bulk of humanity will ever return to any discipline that calls itself religion, or anything with the remotest resemblance to a priesthood. The experience of Japan and China proves conclusively that it is possible to solve the problem of character through the educational system. Their schools, it must be remembered, though admirable in aim, are narrow and conservative in method. The same aim carried out by the more elastic and subtle methods of the finest Western education should give a superb result. No further system of moral training or appeal should be necessary. Literature and public opinion would, as in China and Japan, do what remains to be done. Yet there will probably be an enormous growth among us, as the Churches decay, of Sunday Lecture Societies, Rationalist, Secular, Ethical, Humanitarian, and other Societies. If all these could be gathered into one national federation in each country, offering mutual help and comparing experiences, but having no shadow of priestly influence and no dogma but the free and rational guidance of humanity, we should have a. successor to Chris­ tianity that would retain all its advantages and avoid all its defects. As the need for attacking theology and dogma dis­ appeared, it would become a vast con­ structive, educative, and deliberative movement, watching over the progress of our ideas and institutions. Chapter XI. AN APPEAL At the close of his interesting and shrewd Anticipations, Mr. H. G. Wells, our modern prophet, predicts that by the end of the twentieth century all educated men will have discarded Chris­ tianity, but women will be as much attached to it as ever. This is an appalling estimate of their intelligence. For my part, I do not share it for a moment, but there is no doubt that it is very widely held. In a vague way it is felt that the growing disproportion of the sexes in attendance at public worship supports the prediction. Woman is more religious than man, more emotional, less intellectual. This is handed about as a truism to-day. Men raise their eye-brows when you venture to suggest the prophecy may prove abortive. I invite the women who may read this essay to consider seriously what underlies this current estimate of them. At the bottom it is an insinuation that they either cannot discriminate between �AN APPEAL truth and untruth as easily as men can, or that they are singularly indifferent about the truth or untruth of the ideas they hold most dear. The one alterna­ tive is an imputation of inferior intel­ ligence ; the other is not a compliment to their moral nature. How long are women going, not merely to tolerate, but to repeat with a laugh, these sugges­ tions of mental inferiority, so long as men gild them with flattery of their persons or their charming ways? Just as I write this chapter the journals announce that a brilliant woman-writer, Mrs. Craigie, has been helping a group of conservative lawyers to prove that woman is unfit to serve on the jury. No doubt she would promptly reject any personal application of the stigma, but she fastens it on her sex generally with pitiful rhetoric. The figure of Justice, she points out, has always been regarded as a female, but blind-folded, figure. That is to indicate, she approvinglyadds, that woman “ cannot see straight.” Mrs. Craigie is a Roman Catholic. She probably accepts entirely the prediction that the Catholic Church is going to survive the storms of the twentieth , century, and that it will be composed, mainly, of a male pastorate and a vast female following—with a few artists. This is a matter which women must face courageously. When men predict that they themselves will, as a body, desert the Churches, they do not mean that they shrink from their moral restraints. They mean that the culture of the modern world has reached a point at which we can foresee the total collapse of the teaching of the Churches from the intellectual point of view. In other words, they believe or suspect that the ideas still preached from the pulpit are untrue; and that they themselves 93 are sufficiently alert in mind and suffi­ ciently informed in thought to see this untruth, and act on the discovery. Can any woman hesitate to recognise what the prediction really means as regards herself? It means, in plain English, that these men believe she has either not mind enough to perceive, or know­ ledge enough to appreciate, the change, or else she is so wedded to emotional gratification (vaguely called “ spiritual ”) that she deliberately ignores the suspicion cast on her beliefs. Can any woman contemplate without a stir the irony of such a spectacle as these prophets are calling up from the mists of the future ? If there ever were such a division of humanity as regards religion—if all the more active, more trained, more informed minds were to be ranged against Chris­ tianity, and all the less active minds, and less educated people, and more con­ fusedly emotional natures were gathered about the clergy—there would be no need for Rationalistic criticism. As I have said, I think the estimate is hopelessly false, and I believe that Mr. Wells has since greatly moderated his forecast. Women are being profoundly stirred over this great question of the truth or untruth of traditional religious views. The Rationalist lecturer, who but a few years ago addressed almost exclu­ sively masculine audiences, now often finds thirty, and even fifty, per cent, of his audience to consist of ladies. Gradu­ ally it is breaking on their minds that the old discarded ideal of “woman’s sphere” was the ideal of the clergy ; that there is some significance in the fact that the attack on it was led by Rationalist women; that there is still a painful absence of clerical support from their most cherished causes. When a Women’s Suffrage Society has to publish a special �94 AN APPEAL proof that clerical leaders to-day do not oppose their aim, one begins to think. Gradually it is becoming clear to women that a great controversy rages in the world about them as to the truth of the ideas they have too tamely received, too dogmatically imposed on their children. Let women rise and shake from their sex once for all this stigma of indiffer­ ence to intellectual movements, this honied insinuation of mental inferiority, this suspicion that they care not whether the basic ideas of their spiritual life are true or untrue. There are men about them on all sides to-day who welcome their determination to lift themselves from the groove in which their life has run, and claim their share in the world’s work. It is not their fault that hitherto their sphere of interest, of education, and of action has been so narrow. It is the work of men, especially of priests; and, in the mighty task of breaking the inertia of their sex generally, they very justly call for the aid of men. But it is none the less true that to-day the fields of culture are open to all who will walk into them. Light is cheaper to-day than it ever was in the history of the world. No masculine selfishness (except in rare cases) now fences off the thoughts of the world from woman’s life. There is here, perhaps, a double com­ plaint and the need for a double appeal. Active women, trying almost in despair to quicken the lethargy of their sex, com­ plain that men will not help to undo the evil they have so largely wrought. The complaint is a just one. The Rationalist who would rouse woman from her un­ questioning acquiescence in superstition must be content—nay, should long—to see her roused and active on every great issue of life. Many women are to-day looking with a new yearning over the narrow enclosures we have built about them. They are demanding—and it is a noble demand—that we admit them to work at our side in the building of the Golden City that is to be. They have the fullest right to ask the aid of men in the work of spreading that feeling among their sisters, and of casting down the fences by which we have so long kept them out of public life. Rationalism must be comprehensive, if it claim to be based on a principle, and not on mere feeling. On the other hand, we men have an equal right to ask women to be compre­ hensive. Not very long ago I heard a conversation between two women-workers in a London club, in the course of which one of them spoke of a man who offered help in their cause as “an Agnostic.” “ Oh ! I draw the line there,” said the second lady, with a shudder. She was probably completely ignorant that Agnostics and Atheists were among the first friends of her cause when to espouse it meant the ridicule of one’s fellow-men. In any case, it is time that women ceased to draw lines such as this that are wholly without justification. It is time that they saw the fallacy of asking men to examine their cause rationally and dis­ passionately, while they themselves fence off one set of their opinions or preju­ dices as immune from criticism. What, after all, does the Rationalist ask of them ? Merely a candid inquiry into the grounds of their convictions. The ideas that shirk inquiry are half con­ demned from that fact alone. Truth never grew paler and thinner the more you looked into it. “ A fine jewel,” to use the words of a religious thinker, Sir Oliver Lodge, “ only flashes the brighter when turned about so as to expose every facet to the light.” How many women �AN APPEAL have distinguished themselves in the religious controversy of our time? They now write able works on astronomy, law, history, art, economics, sociology, fiction. Yet, with all their preponderant attach­ ment to religion, not one of them has put forward a serious defence of her theology. Finally, I would point out to the thoughtful women of our time that men are taking their attitude towards religion as a measure of what their influence would be in other provinces of life. As yet they are excluded from exerting any direct influence on political, civic, or economic life. What use would they make of it when they have obtained it ? If you would know, many men reply, study their action in the only matter on which they have influence—religion. The women, co-operating with the clergy, make the religion of each succeeding generation. Do they do this with eyes wide open, with a full sense of responsi­ bility, from deliberate and rational con­ viction ? They do not, as a rule. Com­ paratively few of them read much of the literature that is poured out annually on the subject of religious evidence. Women’s journals dare not mention the current impeachment of conventional theology. They take the authority of ■priests or of tradition almost without question. They suffer, and cause, end­ less pain by their unreasoning denuncia­ tion of every friend or relative that “ loses the faith.” How, in the face of all this, can they expect men to welcome their influence in other matters ? They say, in effect: We do not wish to reason about religion. We will not examine 95 the bases of our convictions. We will not even ask ourselves whether they are only based on authority or tradition, and if the authority or tradition is sound. We will go on acting on these convictions I in the matter of religion without using our judgment on them. But we will do precisely the reverse in political and civic affairs if you will grant us a partici­ pation therein. In those matters we will lightly accept no authority, will brush our minds clear of all prejudice or con­ ventional bias, will weigh our convic­ tions and act with a full sense of respon­ sibility. It is time that women saw the incongruity and unwisdom of this posi­ tion. I do not need to be reminded that almost all I have said applies to very many men, and, on the other hand, by no means applies to all women. I am trying for the moment to reach that large class of women who shrink from the dis­ cussion or examination of their religious ideas. I plead that they at least ask themselves seriously why they shrink from such inquiry. As mothers of the race, they have a profound and far-reach­ ing influence on its progress in ideas, and they have a corresponding responsi­ bility. The days are gone for ever when ascetic priests could exclude them from the “sacrament” as unclean, and Puritan divines could bid them keep their lips sealed on all public questions. Let them rise to the height of their opportunity, and prove that they are not too docile to priestly dictation, too indifferent to truth or untruth, too confused in mind to dis­ criminate between them, to be admitted into the work of the world. ��Worlds by Lady Florence Dixie. COMPANION VOLUMES. >. | ®tt <Storg nf ïjain. PRICE ¿S. NEW EDITION. NEW EDITION. PRICE z}S. These books have been very widely reviewed throughout the world. In the Coming Day the Rev. J. Page Hopps writes of them: “The writings of this child suggest the presence and inspiration of a master spirit, fierce for. freedom, daring in criticism, and splendid in spiritual adventure. The poems are full of dash and fire, whether treating of Nature and her wild delights, or the mind-world with all its possibilities of rapture and depression, joy and anguish, trust and horror. But the wonder of it! The strenuous ‘ dramatic tragedy,’ ‘ Abel Avenged,’ was written at fourteen years and a half, and the militant ‘ Sceptic’s Defence ’ at sixteen —both crammed with the rankest imaginable heresies. Throughout this whole book there is hardly a line—perhaps not a line—which is mere composition. It is all powder and shot and morning and evening stars....... Ijain is written with singular vivacity and grace, and is as brilliant as it is thoughtful, with an undertone of pathos that wins sympathy and attention.” “The Story of Ijain.” i r The British aristocracy has produced some strong and independent souls. Literature and science bear the imprint of their touch. Social reform has also given some of them an opportunity to make a reputation for something which is generally alien to their class—useful work. But it remains for Lady Florence Dixie to redeem the name of the Douglases by literary work which is truly revolutionary in character. Revolution has been in her blood since she could think. Neither the aristocratic environment and traditions nor the efforts of clerical and monarchical influences have succeeded in blunting the keen perception of her mind. And her indomitable spirit has always clung close to the love of truth. Only a truly brave and sincere soul could walk upward without any assistance on the steep and stony path of religious evolution as she has done. She met the dogma of the ruling class with open eyes, and dissected it mercilessly, until she had satisfied herself that it was cold and hollow, and without any redeeming power. No one can read The Story of Ijain without a deep compassion for the lonely child that fought its mental battles so determinedly, au the way through the tangled maze of creed to a purer and more human conception of what religion should be and ought to accomplish. This story should be read by all who wish to answer the questions that arise in the minds of little children on religious subjects, and who wish to take part in the mental evolution of the souls that grow up under their care.—E. Untermann, in Appeal to Reason. ” A fedla; ur, TLhc REVOLT FOR WOMAN AND ALL THE DISINHERITED. With Coloured Frontispiece Portrait of Fortunatus on the Heights of Avenamore, entitled “The Last Watch.” PRICE 3s. 6d. . j jis characteristics of the drama Mr. G. J. Holyoake writes : “ Her conception of womanly independence is original in literature........ The moral interest of the drama has great charm.........As the tragic death of a woman capable of both heroism and reflection, the last hours of Fortunatus are memorable.. The reader will see in The Last Watch on the Heights of Avenamore the beauty, o? d'Snity> lJ?e determination, without defiance, of Isola. Intellectual intrepidity in defence of the Right is the Soul of the drama The Disinherited.” (BilabeUe ; ut, 11« gleiReinei). I A Romance conceived during the Boer War of 1880—i. With Portrait of Author as War Correspondent of the Morning Post. price 3s. 6d. Publishers:The; Leadenhall Press, 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C.; Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, U.S.A ; or may be ordered through W. H. Smith & Sons, 186, Strand, or any bookseller or library. �R.P.A. PUBLICATIONS The Evolution of Man. Haeckel. McCabe. Z2 2s. By Ernst Translated by Joseph Two vols., xlviii.~9o5 pp., The Wonders of Life. By Ernst Haeckel. Supplementary volume to The Riddle of the Universe. 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To foreign parts 3d. extra each book. WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E#C._ PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. K � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The religion of woman: an historical study Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McCabe, Joseph [1867-1955] Dixie, Florence [1857-1905] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 95, [1] p. ; 22 cm. Series title: R.P.A. Extra Series Series number: No. 7 Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published London: Watts, 1905. Portrait of McCabe on front cover. Publisher's advertisements inside front cover, and on unnumbered page at end. Printed in double columns. Some marginal markings in pencil. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1905 (1912) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N449 N450 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Women's rights Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The religion of woman: an historical study), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Women and religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e2e3845cc8f8edc76b87f539fda36ac8.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=vUlqRu0MDGpifPPPNHwUATi%7E7lIjPZk4ybFnUwb-MEqeY3afsrSLVVNECKiEd0EehyhLfQmsY%7EQ1jv%7EreNEERbMUXftsMUKcCW0xIg58u369Wejpu6XSmSDvN50w3Pab4EGgC1ubpMaijuxdfkdDbtJmVKcPtOy55tGwjvUBxRUX-mASlXIFt0KvYm34qyNV7-4Y5HJna-2P4ybsrZM8uE2DAyh5moFIWe28aiWjM3EV9XLx-CzuIovZyAgMMQawu5AoCIw0Fz0XJCiMjWZT8ISSvMU3hOnkvVuDmVQ7p7HO7FsiG4F76mItKsxCLdkabpgpERGZg8vSrPFC7oKKiQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 919b1590b2fe8e1b854efa47618da941 PDF Text Text nationalsecularsociety , J i THE LESSONS OF A LIFE; HARRIET MARTINEAU. 51 tnta DELIVERED BEFORE THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY, ST, GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM ELACE, ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, lltft MARCH, 1877. FLORENCE FENWICK MILLER. ■ ------------------ - ------ _ \ LONDON: PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY. Price Threepence. �LONDON: PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET HAYMARKET, W, �SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY, To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind. THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES ARE DELIVERED AT ST GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE, On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely. (Annually—from November to May). ' Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending April, 1877, will be given. Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket (transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture. Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,— To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d. To the Sixpenny Seats—2sej being at the rate of Threepence: each lecture. For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter, enclos­ ing postage-stamps, order, or cheque), to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W. Payment at the door:—One Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and (Reserved Seats) One Shilling. �tYTef H 3<UT9M YA<1W3 SYLLAB US. The lessons to be drawn from this Life are partly direct partly indirect. A lesson for the Lecturer. Indirect lessons from the moulding influences of Harriet Martineau’s career: a. Her relationships—of birth and affection. Z>. Her religious growth. c. Her work, and the criticism it received. Some of the direct lessons taught by her writings. political work, and its lesson for men. and its lesson for women. Posthumous fame and influence. Her Her work for her sex, �THE LESSONS OF A LIFE: HARRIET MARTINEAU. N a summery evening in the month of June, in last year, there was quenched one of the shining lights of our time. After such a lifetime as falls to the lot of but few human beings—still more of but few women ; after a long life of physical suffering, and of such torture as could be inflicted on such a mind by misrepresentation, slander, and abuse of her convictions ; but withal a life full of work, full of thought, full of purpose, and crowned with result—on that day Harriet Martineau ended her labours, and entered into eternal rest. All England felt that one of the most remarkable women that ever lived had departed from amidst us. Perhaps she has had really no predecessor in history, if we except Deborah, who dispensed judgment from her seat under the palm-tree to all Israel. Other women have had an equal and a greater influence upon the course of events in their own time, but not under anything like analogous circumstances. Aspasia ruled by the impress of her great mind upon the great men who sat at her feet, and Madame de Pompadour and not a few others have ruled by the power which passion lent them over men who swayed the destinies of states; while Elizabeth of England and Catherine of Russia were placed by birth in a position which gave scope for the exercise of their natural powers of govern­ ment. But Harriet Martineau was born to no high station; her influence was not the backstairs influence of the beautiful and intriguing favourite ; she was not even hidden from view, while the credit of her thoughts and deeds was usurped, by any man whatever. She was a political power in our land; our highest statesmen asked and followed her wise counsel; O �6 The Lessons of a Life : thinking for herself, and uttering her thoughts fearlessly, she gained respect for her opinions when she gave them her name, and wrote words winged with power to find their way straight to men’s hearts even when they were not known as her utter­ ances. Taking into account the effect of her acknowledged writings (such as her 1 Tales in Political Economy/ and her ‘ Illustrations of Taxation’), the direct influence which she had with various leaders of politics, and the unknown extent to which she educated men as a leader-writer and reviewer, it will be seen how much she has impressed herself upon her time, and what political power she has exercised. The story of such a life cannot fail to be fraught with both the keenest interest and the highest and most important lessons, over and above those which may be gained from every good biography. Probably no life, even the most insignificant, could be truthfully delineated without conveying some new thought, some fresh lesson, to the wise and careful student of human nature. But if this is so with even the careers which are as commonplace as the story of any one blade of grass, or any one grain of sand upon the sea-shore, how much more must it not be so when the subject of study is a life so full of variety and of individuality as that of Harriet Martineau ? The lessons which we may learn here, and carry away with us to our daily task, are of a twofold character. First, there are the lessons which are given indirectly by the moulding influences of her life. There is a keen interest in watching the growth of a flower, of a fish, or any other mere physical development; but there is far more in tracing the processes by which a mind has increased to its full strength and beauty. We cannot but eagerly strive to see how this one particular mind became greater than its fellows ; what are the conditions which seem to have aided and what those which have trammelled its progress ? Secondly, there are the direct lessons which this teacher of men spent her life in enforcing; the lessons taught in her written words, and living in the printed page upon which the eyes of so many have rested, and have yet to rest. And foremost among these lessons is one for me in my present position—one which Harriet Martineau taught both by precept and example—that of complete candour in speaking �Harriet Martineau. 7 ■of the impressions produced upon me by her works and the record of her life. In the preface to her ‘Biographical Sketches/ reprinted from the Daily News, she says: “ The true principle of biographical delineation . . . is to tell, in the spirit of justice, the whole truth about the characters of persons im­ portant enough to have their lives publicly treated at all. . . In old age, and on the borders of the grave, what do distinguished persons desire for themselves ? How do they like the prospect of sickly praise, of the magnifying of the trifles of their days, of any playing fast and loose with right and wrong for the sake of their repute, of any cheating of society of its rights in their experience of mistake and failure, as well as of gain and achievement ? Do they not claim to be measured with the same measure with which they mete their fellows,—to leave the world, not under any sort of disguise, but delivering over their lives, if at all, in their genuine aspect and condition,—to be known hereafter, if at all, for what they are ? ” After these words of precept for those who, in any way, shall speak of her life after she has ceased to be, there comes the example of her own biographical sketches. These short essays, which treat of a large proportion of the eminent statesmen, philosophers, and scientific and literary men and women who have died within the last fifteen years, are truly noteworthy for their candour, and a lesson in that respect to all future memoir writers. They are candid not only in blaming—candour which is all verjuice is only spite called by another name; but praise and appreciation are given to the worthy works and the noble qualities of even those who had proved incapable of reaching a high standard of moral and mental excellence in every respect. Two of these short memoirs are those of Lockhart and John Wilson Croker. A reference to the autobiography will show how bitterly Harriet Martineau felt the treatment which she received at the hands of these men (of which I must speak again farther on). But no reader of the notices of their lives would guess that the writer who gives them all the credit which was their due for wit and ability was a woman whom they had joined them­ selves together to pursue for years with insult, slander, and misrepresentation. On the other hand, her dearest friends, as Lord Durham, are treated with a calm, dispassionate con­ sideration, answering that requirement of honesty laid down in the words which I have quoted. The first lesson, therefore, which meets me is one for �8 The Lessons of a Life : myself—one given by my illustrious subject both in words and in deeds; to say honestly the truth which I see, not to yield to the natural inclination to speak only of that which we must all reverence—her greatness of mind and. life, but if there be spots upon the sun which has lightened so much darkness, to recognise their presence, though it be half­ concealed by the glory, and account for them as best we may. First, then, let me say that I am somewhat disappointed in the autobiography. In parts, it wins the reader completely; one rejoices with her in her successes, and sympathises in her disappointments and annoyances. Then there will come some arrogant expression about the people around her, some glori­ fying of others simply because they were her friends, some scorn, or some other unpleasant egotistical feature, which breaks the spell for pages. The pleasantest parts of the book are those in which she treats of hei’ own inner experiences—where the interest is so strong that she forgets that she is revealing herself, and talks naturally, openly, boldly, without self-consciousness. The least pleasant parts are those in which she speaks of the inci­ dents of her life, and the people who were connected, with her in them. It must not be imagined that there is in the book any undue laudation of her own works—any of what would be commonly called “ conceit.” The reverse is even unpleasantly the case. It is not agreeable to hear that Miss Martineau thought Margaret Fuller a “ gorgeous pedant,” that she never had any respect for Lord Brougham, and that she believed Macaulay to have “ no heart,” “ honesty,” or “ capacity for philosophy;” it is not agreeable to contrast with this and very much more of the same kind, her opinion of Mr. Atkinson, and of some of her servants; it is even less pleasant to read of the petty per­ sonal insults offered her by Mrs. A. and Lady Dash, which she might well have ignored, or at all events forgotten; but least pleasant of all is it to read her depreciation of her own works, her declaration about first one and then another, that she “dares not read it over now”—she “knows she should des­ pise it now,” and so on. All these drawbacks to the reader’s satisfaction seem to me to arise from (certainly not “ conceit,” but) the self-conscious- �Harriet Martineau. 9 ness which is almost inevitable during the writing of a memoir of one’s self. Could any one of you, my hearers, write out your whole heart and life unmoved by the knowledge that thousands of ears are open to receive the story, and that friends and enemies will sit in judgment upon it, coldly canvassing your tenderest emotions ? It is impossible; and the very effort which has to be made to be candid under such circumstances is in itself the destruction of naturalness and subjective individuality. For this reason it is that I never read the autobiography of any person of whom I had already formed an opinion, from published writings or public works, without some feeling of disappointment, except in the single case of Leigh Hunt. This exception I imagine to arise from the fact that Leigh Hunt wrote always—poems and essays alike—with his individuality in his own mind, and brought before the mind of his reader. Probably Thomas Carlyle would write an autobiography equally true to the idea of him gained from a perusal of his Writings, and for the same reason—that all his works are written with the desire that his readers shall think about the writer as they read. In almost every other case, however, the aim of the author is to keep his personality out of sight, and remembrance of himself merges in his subject. The result is that he writes with a freedom and unconsciousness of self which make him reveal the true inner man far more honestly and unaffectedly than he can possibly do when he sits down for the express purpose of telling the world all about his own life. For this reason, I shall consider Harriet Martineau’s works as throwing light upon her life to as full an extent as the autobiography itself, and even more satisfactorily. Passing on to consider the indirect lessons which may be gathered from the moulding influences of her career, I come first to those which acted upon her through the affections—her relationships of birth or of emotion. Let us see the con­ ditions which surrounded this great mind in its early years. Harriet Martineau might almost be considered as a proof of the correctness of the doctrine that suffering is necessary to mental excellence. Born in 1802, the sixth child of a wellto-do Norwich manufacturer, she passed a childhood and youth of wretchedness both of body and mind; and her misfortunes, to B �io The Lessons of a Life: all appearance, culminated in early womanhood in the total loss of fortune. Her deafness was known before her death by almost every one acquainted with her name, as adding to the marvel of her accomplishments; but she was not deprived of this sense during her earliest years. She did not begin to become deaf until she was twelve years old. She now records, however, that she never had the sense of smell ; and as this and taste are most intimately joined together, neither could she taste. The senses are our only methods of communication with the outer world; they are the gates by which pleasure as well as pain enter into the citadel where consciousness resides. Of all the senses, those which most frequently give entrance to pleasure and seldomest to pain, were those which she had lost. Here, then, were two, and soon three, of the avenues of enjoyment shut. To this physical deprivation was .added the misery of want of tenderness in family life. Her mother was a woman of, apparently, much intellect, but deficient in the gentler qualities, and wanting in the wisdom of the heart. Miss Martineau speaks of this parent always with the utmost respect, and indeed affection ; but she does not attempt to dis­ guise the melancholy truth that, throughout her childhood, she was as desolate a little soul as ever felt the burden of life with­ out love in workhouse or orphan asylum. She had but small natural talent for housewifely work, and what she had was turned into awkwardness by her fear of displeasing her mother. She remembers once upsetting a basin of sugar into a gibletpie from sheer nervousness ; and she was always so anxious when sent to look for anything that she never could find it, and “ her heart sank” when she received an order to fetch a thing. “ I had,” she says, “ a devouring passion for justice,—justice first to my own precious self, and then to other oppressed people. Justice was precisely what was least understood in our house in regard to servants and children. . . . Toward one person I was habitually untruthful, from fear. To my mother I would in childhood assert or deny anything that would bring me through most easily. I remember denying various harmless things, and often without any apparent reason : and this was so exclusively to one person that, though there was remonstrance and punishment, I was never regarded as a liar in the family. When I left home all temptation to untruth ceased.” �Harriet Martineau. ii And this was the “mothering ” of a singularly affectionate xjhild—‘of one who treasured up in her memory every kind word, and was so grateful for a little loving gentleness as to prove how cruel was the deprivation of it! “The least word of tenderness,” she says, melted me instantly, in spite of the strongest predeterminations to be hard and offensive. I really think if I had once conceived that anybody cared for me, nearly all the sins and sorrows of my anxious childhood would have been spared me.” She was devotedly attached to the children who were younger than herself—a sister, and the brother who has grown up to be known to so wide a public as Dr. James Martineau. When, at the age of fifteen, she was sent away to stay with an aunt at Bristol—the first person of whom she was never afraid—she says, “ My home affections seem to have been all the stronger for having been repressed and baulked. Certainly, I passionately loved my family, each and all, from the very hour that parted us ; and I was physic­ ally ill with expectation when their letters were due,—letters which I could hardly read when they came, between my dread •of something wrong and the beating heart and swimming eyes with which I received letters in those days.” Can one hope that the lesson for parents taught in this por­ tion of the story will have effect upon those who are erring in their treatment of their children in the same way; who are feeding and caring for the body while neglecting the affections, and leaving them to pine and grow savage under starvation ; who are ignoring and neglecting one child of their family, and filling it with a bitter sense of injustice and desolation ? Ah, the lesSon has been preached many a time—never more impressively than in Hans Andersen’s fable of the ugly duck­ ling—and with yet little effect. Would that parents would remember that “ Parents, provoke not your children to wrath,” ■is as urgent a moral command as “ Children, obey your parents.” One good, however, this hard discipline doubtless worked in Harriet Martineau’s character. It gave her endurance under coldness from those whom she loved. Out of the fear of her mother’s wrath she grew to that fearlessness which distin­ guished her whole after life—she learnt how to suffer and be still when the cause of right demanded her sacrifice. I have dwelt thus upon her passionately emotional childhood, �12 The Lessons of a Life: however, as being necessary for the due appreciation of the fact that she lived solitary, and died unfettered and unhelped by marriage. The suffering which want of love caused her in her childhood is a token of how capable she was of affection. The commonplace supposition that the emotions are crowded out of a mind by the development of the intellect is an utterly false one, founded upon ignorance of both physiology and facts. Before there came the great awakening of the heart in Harriet Martineau, came her first appearance in print. In 1821, when she was 19 years of age, she wrote a paper upon “Female Writers of Divinity,” which appeared in a Unitarian paper conducted by Mr. Moncure Conway’s predecessor at South-place. She wrote this essay at her brother James’s suggestion, to console herself upon his departure for College. * When she was two years older than this, she saw for the first time the man who drew forth her love. Their union was prevented at the time “ by one who had much to answer for in what he did.” Then came a failure in her father’s busi­ ness, and his heart-broken sinking into the grave ; and when she was in trouble and difficulties, her lover returned to her. The cloud which had kept him away was dispelled by this storm, and he went back and asked her to marry him. She was in a state of great uncertainty of mind, between her fears that she would not make him happy, and her love for him; between her duty to others and to the one to whom her affec­ tion was given. “ Many a time,” she says, “ did I wish, in my fear that I should fail, that I had never seen him. But just when I was growing happy, surmounting my fears and doubts, and enjoying his attachment, the consequences of his long struggle and suspense overtook him. He became sud­ denly insane; and after months of illness of body and mind, he died.” If we had to rely upon the autobiography for information as to how this affected Miss Martineau’s character, we should learn but little about it. It is a proof of what I before said about the almost impossibility of any person consciously baring his inner self to the careless gaze of the whole world. One or two essays published at the time tell us far more both what love and its loss were to her than she has consented to deli- �Harriet Martineau. ij berately inform the world. These essays bear the general title of 1 Sabbath. Musings.’ In the preface to the volume in which they were published, in 1836, she said that the majority of the pieces therein contained were purely impersonal, de­ scriptive of states of thought as she imagined them; but that a few (which she would not be expected to indicate) were truly drawn from her own experience. Read with her autobiography, there is no difficulty in discovering these latter. As works of literary art alone, the quotations which I pur­ pose giving would be worth listening to; for these are poems. Her Daily News leaders long after had that term applied to them ; but here it is more justly used. If, as Mr. Mill said, “Whoeverwrites out truly any human feeling,writes poetry,” then these are poems for that reason; but when added to this there is a wealth of language and of imagery, no one will venture to deny their right to the title. But I quote them for a far more important reason than their poetic beauty. I quote them to show that Harriet Martineau had a heart—and that she knew she had a heart. I am not sure but that the most fatal mistake made by the party who would free mankind from superstition and priestcraft is not the very fact that they neglect and skim over such subjects. Priestcraft has its most unassailable stronghold in the inter­ mixing of its rites and ceremonies with human interests. The birth of the child, the union of the life, the burial of the dead, are the events which appeal to every sympathy—which touch the coldest hearts, and make them impressible for the moment. All systems of religion, accordingly, and the Christian (espe­ cially the Roman Catholic) religion before all others, have bound up these moments with sacred observances, so that the mind may be impressed as the priest desires at its most ductile moments. Human nature remains and must remain the same in all ages and climes. If there is any reason to suppose that development of the intellect means crushing of the affections; if there is an impression abroad that the Reli­ gion of Humanity is the blasphemy of individual emotion; if it is believed by the masses that only priestcraft recognises and hallows the most solemn occasions of life ; then, indeed, Will priestcraft flourish. For human affections will assert their sway. Every man or woman who loves knows' that his �14 The Lessons of a Life : emotion makes him higher and better; every parent who leans1 over the couch of his first child feels that the existence of that little creature is almost as a new birth to his own spirit; every human being who lays in the grave the object of his dearest love, gone for ever from his sight, knows that sorrow is not to be reasoned away, and if lightened at all is to be lightened only by the sympathy of the great heart of the race and the universe with his bleeding soul. Therefore, I feel that I am doing good service in showing: that the development of reason means the simultaneous increase of the power of loving; that to be possessed of mental power and capacity for breaking away from early-implanted super­ stitions does not mean to be incapable for affection and sharing in the highest and deepest of human emotions. It was much that John Stuart Mill showed for men the compatibility of the highest order of intellect and the deepest and most pro­ found studies, with a singularly devoted, earnest, and faithful attachment. Now, let Harriet Martineau show the same for women; let her show how a woman with an intellect of the highest order, and occupying it upon the most abstruse sub­ jects within the range of human comprehension, could appre­ ciate love, and could suffer for the very strength of her affections. The first passage which I quote seems to have been written before her bereavement. The marriage to which she refers is, doubtless, that of her elder sister. The .essay is entitled^ “ In a Hermit’s Cave.” “ . . . The altar of the human heart, on which alone a fire is kindled from above to shine in the faces of all true worshippers for ever. Where this flame, the glow of human love, is burning, there is the temple of worship, be it only beside the humblest village hearth: where it has not been kindled there is no sanctuary; and the loftiest amphitheatre of mountains, lighted up by the ever-burning stars, is no more the dwelling place of Jehovah than the Temple of Solomon before it was filled with, the glory of the Presence. “ Yes, Love is worship, authorised and approved........................... Many are the gradations through which this service rises until it has reached that on which God has bestowed His most manifest benediction, on which Jesus smiled at Cana, but which the devotee presumed to decline. Not more express were the ordinances of Sinai than the Divine provisions for wedded love ; never was it more certain that Jehovah benignantly regarded the festivals of His people than it is daily that He appointed those mutual rejoicings of the affec­ tions, which need but to be referred to Him to become a holy homage. ....................Would that all could know how from the first flow of �Harriet Martineau^ T5 the affections, until they are shed abroad in their plenitude, the purposes of creation become fulfilled. Would that all could know how, by this mighty impulse, new strength is given to every power; how the intellect is vivified and enlarged; how the spirit .becomes bold to explore the path of life, and clear-sighted to discern its issues. .... For that piety which has humanity for its object—must not that heart feel most of which tenderness has become the element? must not the spirit which is most exercised in hope and fear be most familiar with hope and fear wherever found ? “ How distinctly I saw all this in those who are .now sanctifying their first, Sabbath of wedded love....................... To those who know them as I know them, they appear already possessed of an experience in com­ parison with which it would appear little fo have looked abroad from, the Andes, or explored the treasure-caves of the deep, or to have con­ versed with every nation under the sun. If they could see all that the eyes of the firmament look upon, and hear all the whispered secrets that the roving winds bear in their bosoms, they could learn but little new I for the deepest mysteries are those of human love, and the vastest knowledge is that of the human heart.” The next quotation is a very small portion of an essay entitled, “ A Death Chamber.” This was obviously written immediately after the death of her lover. The piece is, to a certain extent, spoiled by being mutilated; but I have no option but to give only the following few lines from it:— “All is dull, cold, and dreary before me, until I also can escape to the region where there is no bereavement, no blasting root and branch, no rending of the heart-strings. What is aught to me, in the midst of this all-pervading thrilling torture, when all I want is to be dead? The future is loathsome, and I will not look upon it—the past, too, which it breaks my heart to think about—what has it been? It might have been happy, if there is such a thing as happiness ; but I myself embittered it at the time, and for ever. What a folly has mine been! Multitudes of sins now rise up in the shape of besetting griefs. Looks of rebuke from those now in the grave: thoughts which they would have rebuked if. they had known them: moments of anger, of coldness; sympathy withheld when looked for; repression of its signs through selfish pride ; and worse, far worse even than this .... all comes over me now. O 1 if there be pity, if there be pardon, let it come in the form of insensibility; for these long echoes of condemnation will make me desperate. “But was there ever human love unwithered by crime—by crime of which no human law takes cognisance, but the unwritten, everlasting laws of the affections? Many will call me thus innocent. The departed breathed out thanks and blessing, and I felt them not then as reproaches. If, indeed, I am only as others, shame, shame on the impurity of human affections ; or rather, alas! for the infirmity of the human heart! Fori know not that I could love more than I have loved. �16 The Lessons of a Life : “ Since the love itself is wrecked, let me gather up its relics, and guard them more tenderly, more steadily, more gratefully. 0 grant me power to retain them—the light and music of emotion, the flow of domestic wisdom and chastened mirth, the life-long watchfulness of benevolence, the thousand thoughts—are these gone in their reality ? Must I forget them as others forget ?” And for this Harriet Martineau lived her life alone—a happy life, one full of all human interests; doing good to her ser­ vants, her animals, and her poorer neighbours, for her domestic pleasures, and for relief from cares of state and thoughts sub­ lime. Thus she saved herself from that degenerating into selfishness which is the special danger of an independent single life for either men or women. Whether she might not have been better and happier in marriage, had her lover been spared to her, it is impossible to imagine. “ When I see,” she writes, “what conjugal love is, in the extremely rare cases in which it is seen in its perfection, I feel that there is a power of attachment in me that has never been touched. When I am among little children, it frightens me to think what my idolatry of my own children would have been. But . . the older I have grown, the more serious and irremediable have seemed to me the evils and disadvantages of married life as it exists among us at this time.” And here, no doubt, she is right. The vicious state of the marriage laws and social arrangements, the consequence of the imperfect system by which regulations have been made for both sexes and their mutual interests by the partial knowledge and wisdom of one sex alone, does make marriage a terribly dangerous step for a woman. And she was probably wise when she added, “ Thus, I am not only entirely satisfied with my lot, but think it the very best for me.” As regards the cultivation which Harriet Martineau’s intel­ lect received in her childhood, there is a very significant fact to be noted: that she adds one more to the long list of illustrious women who have, through some happy accident, '1been educated “ like boys.” When one remembers that this phrase means nothing more than that the education has been thorough in its method, and has included careful mathematical and classical teaching, no surprise can be felt at the frequency with which eminent women are found to have shared in the tutorial advantages of their brothers. The moral is obvious. Now for her religious growth. Miss Martineau was born �Harriet Martineau. 17 <of Unitarian parents, and educated theologically in the tenets of that sect. When she was twenty-eight years old, she dis­ tinguished herself among the members of the Unitarian body fey gaining three prizes, which had been offered for public competition, for essays designed to convert Jews, Mahommedans, and Roman Catholics respectively, to the more advanced faith. Although she was still, at that period, sufficiently an orthodox Unitarian to perform this argumenta­ tive exploit to the satisfaction and admiration of the leaders of the sect, yet she had long before emancipated her mind, to some extent, from even the comparatively light chains of that faith. So early as when she was but eleven years old, she remembers asking her elder brother Thomas that question which has been the first stumbling-block in the path of faith to so many. She asked—If God foreknew from eternity all the evil deeds that every one of us should do in our lives, how can He justly punish us for those actions, when the time comes that we are born, and in due course commit them ? And her brother replied that she was not yet old enough to understand the point. Whether she ever did become old enough to understand, the course of her mental history will show. By-and-by, under the guidance of Dr. Carpenter, of Bristol, she became a student of the philosophy of Locke and Hartley; and in time she raised herself to the reception of the philosophical doctrine of Necessity. But she had a terrible season of doubt and struggle with early-implanted impressions to encounter, before she could permit herself to let go one fraction of her theology. C’est le premier pas qui coute; and she probably suffered more in this first step onward than in all her future progress. Her description of her agonies of doubt is most forcible; but it is only the experience which all who have equally cut themselves loose from their early belief have felt, and I quote it for the benefit of the persons who are so constituted as to be incapable of ever knowing it in their own lives, and who are apt to believe that the rejection of belief is a pleasant process, wilfully entered on by those who are guilty of it, and affording to them great present delights. “What can be the retribution of guilt if the horrors of doubt are what I have felt them? What can be the penalties of vice if those of mere ignorance are so agonising? While in my childhood I ignorantly �I& The Lessons of a Life : believed what men had told me of God, much that was true, mixed with much that I now see to be puerile, or absurd, or superstitious, or impious I was at peace with men, and, as I then believed, with God. But when an experience over which I had no control shook my confidence in that which I held; when I had discovered and rejected some of the falsehoods, of my creed, and when I was really wiser than before the torment began which was destined to well nigh wrench life from my bosom or reason from my brain ... I could not divest myself of the conviction that my doubts were so many sins. Men told me, and I could not but believe, that to want faith was a crime ; that misery like mine was but a qualification for punishment, and that every evil of which I now complained would be aggravated hereafter. Alas! what was to become of me if I could find no rest even in my grave ?—if the death I longed for was to be only apparent—if the brightness which I found so oppressive here should prove only like the day-spring in com­ parison with the glow of the eternal fires, amidst which my spirit must stand hereafter ? In such moments, feeling that there was no return to the ignorance of the child or the apathy of common men, I prayed, to whom I know not, for madness! “Yet I would not that the cup had passed from me. Far nobler is the most humiliating depression of doubt than the false security of acquiescence in human delusion. Far safer are the wanderings of a mind which by original vigour has freed itself from the shackles of human authority, than the apathy of weak minds which makes them content to be led blindfold wheresoever their priestly guides shall choose. The happiest lot of all is to be born into the way of truth . . . but where, as in my case, it is not so ordained, the next best privilege is to be roused to a conflict with human opinions (provided there is strength to carry it through), though it be fought in darkness, in horror, in despair.” At length, as the final words of this passage convey, she made her way to her first definite standpoint, and settled by her reason the question which her faith had never been able to solve satisfactorily. She fully accepted the Necessitarian doc­ trine that we are what we are, we do what we do, because of the impulses given by our previous training and circum­ stances ; and that the way to improve any human beings or all humanity is to improve their education, and to give them good surroundings and influences, and mental associations: in short, that . physical and psychological phenomena alike depend upon antecedent phenomena, called causes. She writes:— “I fairly laid hold of the conception of general laws, while still far from being. prepared to let go the notion of a special Providence. Though at times almost overwhelmed by the vastness of the view opened to me, and by the prodigious change requisite in my moral views and self-management, the revolution was safely gone through. My labouring �Harriet Martineau. 19 brain and beating heart grew quiet, and something more like peace than I had ever yet known settled down upon my anxious mind. .... I am bound to add that the moral effect of this process was most salu­ tary and cheering. From the time when I became convinced of the certainty of the action of laws, of the importance of good influences and good habits—of the firmness, in short, of the ground I was treading, and. of the security of the results which I should take the right means to attain, a new vigour pervaded my whole life, a new light spread through my mind, and I began to experience a steady growth in self-command,, courage, and consequent integrity and disinterestedness. I was feeble and selfish enough at best; but yet I was like a new creature in the strength of a sound conviction. Life also was something fresh and won­ derfully interesting now that I held in my hand this key whereby toi interpret some of the most conspicuous of its mysteries. “ . . . For above thirty years I have seen more and more clearly how awful, and how irremediable except by the spread of a true philo­ sophy, are the evils which arise from that monstrous remnant of old superstition—the supposition of a self-determining power, independent of laws, in the human will; and I can truly say that if I have had the blessing of any available strength under sorrow, perplexity, sickness and toil, during a life which has been anything but easy, it is owing to my. repose upon eternal and irreversible laws, working in every department of the universe, without any interference from any random will, humanor Divine.” When her mind became fairly settled in the doctrine of necessity, she could not but perceive the uselessness of prayer ; since to petition the Supreme Power for any given thing is to imply a belief that It can or will set aside the action of fixed laws. First, therefore, she ceased supplicating for benefits; and, in time, she came to feel that even the expression of desires for spiritual goods was “ demoralising.” “ I found myself,” she says, “ best, according to all trustworthy tests of goodness, when I thought least about the matter.” As to praise, she soon “ drew back in shame from offering to a Divine Being a homage which would be offensive to an earthly one.” And at last, when “prayer” in the ordinary sense had become quite impossible to her— “My devotions consisted of aspiration—very frequent and heartfelt— under all circumstances and influences, and much as I meditate now,, almost hourly, on the mysteries of life and the universe, and the great science and art of human duty. In proportion as the taint of fear and desire and self-regard fell off, and the meditation had fact instead of passion for its subject, the aspiration became freer and sweeter, till at length, when the selfish superstition had wholly gone out of it, it spread its charm through every change of every waking hour—and does now, when life itself is expiring.” • ask 4-- -’ �20 The Lessons of a Life : Gradation by gradation she went on : not willing altogether to give up belief in Christianity, in the Divine authorisation of the mission of Jesus, she “ lingered long in the regions of speculation and taste.” At last came the illness to which I have already referred; and in it, with leisure for contempla­ tion, she rose by degrees to the highest religious state of all— rejecting theological figments, refusing to believe in a God of love and mercy who yet made a world with evil in it, and con­ demned the creatures whom he exposed to its irresistible temptations, to eternal torment—an infinite punishment for finite sins. She saw that all conception of the mode of origin, or the scheme or nature of the universe, is above and beyond the comprehension of man ; she saw that our work here is to * ‘do our best for the improvement of ourselves and those who shall come after us; that all our “ looking before and after,” all our attempts to pierce the veil which is around us, all our foolish vain imaginings, based upon the ridiculous assumption that this world is the centre of the universe, and man its highest product—all are but vanity and vexation of spirit, and must be discarded at the dictates of reason and scientific fact. This state of conviction was farther strengthened and con­ firmed by a visit which she paid in 1846 to the East—the birthplace of the Christian religion, and its progenitors, the Hebrew and Egyptian. In connection with the book which she wrote upon her return home, she seriously considered whether she should avow her dissent, which by this time was ■complete, from all theologies. Finally, she decided that this book was not the proper place for it. In 1850 appeared ‘ Letters between H. Martineau and H. G. Atkinson, on Man’s Nature and Development.’ I am not criticising Mr. Henry G. Atkinson, or I should find it neces­ * “ I began to see that we, with our mere human faculty, are nnt in the least likely to understand it, anymore than the minnow in the creek, as Carlyle has it, can comprehend the perturbations caused in his world of existence by the tides. I saw that no revelation can by possibility set men right on these matters, for want of faculty in man to understand anything beyond human ken ; as all instruction whatever offered to the minnow mnst fail to make it comprehend the actions of the moon on the. oceans of the earth, or receive the barest conception of any such action.”—‘ Autobiography,' vol. ii., p. 185. �Harriet Martineau. 21 sary to say a great deal about this book. Fortunately, I am not called upon to say anything about it more than this—that, as both Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau avow several times over, the book is really his work. She did the literary arrange­ ment and supervision; and she wrote short letters to serve as a groundwork for Mr. Atkinson’s disquisitions. The only important connection which Miss Martineau had with this book was giving it her name, and thus announcing to the world her total disbelief in all theologies. It is hardly necessary to say that she never stepped back from this advanced position. It is one of the special excel­ lences which persuasions grounded upon reason have over beliefs resting upon unreasoning faith, that any alterations in them (provided the logical apparatus remains sound), must of necessity be changes in the direction of still farther throwing off shackles upon thought. Intellectual fearlessness is one of the great lessons taught by this branch of Harriet Martineau’s life history. She carried the powerful reason which she possessed into every question; and having found that which satisfied her mind of its truth, she never hesitated to avow it. Stand­ ing, as she believed, on the very brink of the grave when she wrote her autobiography, she contemplated death with happy calmness, content with having done her share for the advancement of her age, and fully convinced that others would rise to take up the work which she laid down. Satis­ fied to hope for rest in the grave instead of a personal immor­ tality, rejoicing in the belief that the human race is slowly but surely progressing toward higher things, and that the greatest privilege that any man or woman can have had is to have aided that progress if but one fraction of a step, she was ready to spend the remainder of her life in workingfor her fellows, and in enjoying the sympathy and love of her associates. Singularly enough, twenty years of life remained to her after she wrote the closing words of her autobiography. The heart disease which then threatened to kill her every day did not do so for twenty years longer. And so well did she employ that time, that those who could not see with her clearness were constrained to believe that God helped her against her own will to be happy and holy; that some of hei’ friends rejoiced �22 The Lessons of a Life : ■when she died that heaven itself was now her habitation; and that her Christian relatives could not omit the bad taste -of having a Christian religious service, full of that hope of immortality which she had not, read over the grave where they laid her. It were to be wished that the lesson hereby taught of the -complete compatibility of a most truly moral and holy life with a total disbelief in any future and eternal punishments would be laid to heart by the persons who need it most. There is small hope that it will be ; for the same fact has been shown by many a noble life before, as well as by a priori reasoning upon the small practical effect which far-distant punishments, rendered likewise uncertain by a scheme of redemption through faith, not works, can ever have on the mind; but still its possibility is denied ! “ Dogmatic faith compels the best minds and hearts to narrowness and insolence. Even such as these cannot conceive lof being happy in any way but theirs, or that there may be views whose operation they do not under­ stand.”* There the lesson is, however, be it received or rejected. It is an interesting inquiry whether Miss Martineau herself would have sanctioned the use in this connection of the word ^‘religious.” In a chapter in which Mrs. Chapman gives recollections of conversations with her (and in which there are several things that might better have been omitted, since no authorisation for their publicity can have been given by Miss Martineau), her biographer says that she objected to such a use of the term “ religion.” My own judgment is the reverse. I cannot see how we are to avoid the word so long as we wish to express the idea. By the word religion, we mean always all those impulses to good and right, all that seeking for holi­ ness, all that desire for the best in living, all that longing for truth, purity, and strength in righteousness as we see these things, which are our highest and sweetest emotions. What other word can we use to express all this, except the one which always has been used ? It is therefore a satisfaction to me to be able to place against Mrs. Chapman’s report from memory Harriet Martineau’s own words in the Daily News autobio­ graphical memoir. ■“ Her latest opinions were, in her own * ‘ Autobiography,’ vol. ii., p. 442. �Harriet Martineau. 23 view, the most religious, the most congenial with the emotional as well as the rational department of human ■nature.”* I have purposely given the story of her religious growth in her own words, without unnecessary interpolation of my own expressions, and without criticising any of her opinions from ■an individual point of view. Harriet Martineau never shrank from giving any work to the world for fear of the criticism it might receive. In 1829, she, with her mother and sister, was reduced to utter destitu­ tion by the failure of the concern in which all their property was invested. Two years later appeared the first of the works which made her fame, but in relation to one of which she was most bitterly attacked—her ‘ Tales in Political Economy.’ During this two years she supported herself by her needle ; and when she first made known that she intended to exchange that little implement for the pen, there were not wanting several persons to tell her that such a course would be both unwise and improper, that needle-work was her proper sphere as a woman, and that she should confine her efforts to doing what it was certain she could do. Had she taken this orthodox counsel she would have bent over her stitches from morning to night for a miserable pittance, and the world would have lost all she has given it. Unknown outside the despised and small sect to which she then belonged, she had great difficulty in getting a •publisher to undertake her books; and they were at last issued upon terms which gave her all the risk, and her publisher about seventy per cent, of the profits. When this arrangement was settled, she was in such poverty that she could not afford to ride even part of the way from the publisher’s office to the * And again. . . . . “ The best state of mind was to be found, however it might be accounted for, in those who were called philoso­ phical atheists....................I told her that I knew several of that class —some avowed, and some not; and that I had for several years felt that they were among my most honoured acquaintances and friends; and that now I knew them more deeply and thoroughly, I must say that, for conscientiousness, sincerity, integrity, seriousness, effective intellect, and the. true religious spirit I knew nothing like them.”—‘ Autobio­ graphy,’ yo\. ii., p. 188. �24 The Lessons of a Life: house of the relative with whom she was staying in London ; and she relates that she became so weary and faint as she walked, that she leant to rest upon a railing somewhere near Shoreditch, apparently contemplating a cabbage-bed, but really saying to herself, with shut eyes, “ My books will do yet 1 ” And they did “ do.” No sooner had the first volume ap­ peared than the poor little deaf Unitarian was famous, and hailed as a new light among men. As she went on, illus­ trating with scientific precision and clearness first one and then another of the principal doctrines of Political Economy, the attention of the great men of her day was drawn to her work. She went through a course of flattery and attempts at “ lionising ” which would have ruined a weaker character ; and the chief political men of her time, from the Ministry downwards, made overtures for her valuable co-operation in preparing the public mind for their schemes. But popularity could not spoil her. She knew the dangers she would have to encounter in treating some subjects ; but, she said, what was influence worth except to be used in propa­ gating truth Accordingly, when she came to the proper point for illustrating the population doctrine, she unhesitat­ ingly treated it, as she had done all preceding parts of her subject. Her book was called 1 Weal and Woe in Garveloch.’ The story showed how the inhabitants of a small island had gone on recklessly increasing their numbers, and how a temporary failure in some of their sources of food­ supply reduced them immediately to the utmost destitution. The scientific moral was taught that it is dangerous and wrong to multiply the population even up to the extreme limit of its food-supply, and that sickness and famine will eventually step in, in such a case, to do that which prudence should have done before—equalise the food and its consumers. Mr. Malthus’s name has become so associated among us with a doctrine, has been so much used to express a scientific principle, that he is to us quite an impersonal being; and it is interesting to read Miss Martineau’s account of him as an individual. She describes him as one of the mildest and most benignant of men, full of domestic affections. Upon the issue of this number she was attacked by Lock­ hart and John Wilson Croker, in the Quarterly Review, in the �Harriet Martineau, i. >25 most violent and scandalous manner. One cannot but wonder that such expressions and insinuations should have been tole­ rated by the readers of such a periodical. Seldom has so malicious and cruel a personal attack disfigured the pages of a respectable review. Croker openly said that he expected to lose his pension very shortly, and being wishful to make himself a literary position before that event happened he had begun by “ tomahawking Miss Martineau.” All that could be painful to her as a woman, and injurious to her as a writer, was said, or attempted to be conveyed, in this article. It pained her intensely, but it eventually did her good. She had one of those temperaments which belong to all leaders of men, whether in physical or moral warfare ; danger was to her a stimulus, and her courage rose the higher the greater the demand upon it. The lesson which we are to learn from it is the one already impressed upon us by this life of fearless speaking the truth, as we may see it, irrespective of its consequences to ourselves. Our eyes are weak, and cannot pierce the veil which covers the future. The only safe course for any one of us to pursue is to do that which we see and know to be right at the moment, leaving our future to take care of itself; to act up to our principles, assured that a policy of unprincipled tem­ porary expediency must end at last in failure and dismay. Encouragement, too, for speaking our truth, whatever it be, we may get from this history; though it must be acknow­ ledged that those who require such encouragement will seldom be the ones to utter dangerous truths. Five times in her literary history did Harriet Martineau, print that which she had cause to believe might ruin her prospects, close her career, and silence her voice for ever; yet she died honoured and respected by all classes and conditions of people, and having had her words listened to always with the fullest respect and readiness. Another of the subjects upon which she wrote, and fer which she was severely criticised, was Mesmerism. From 1839 to 1844, Miss Martineau was a confirmed invalid, con­ fined to her couch, unable to stand upright, constantly sick, and full of pain. She was pronounced incurable by Sir Charles Clarke in 1841. For three years she took iodide of �o6 The Lessons of a Life ; iron, and was continually under the influence of opiates. There was no improvement in her condition in the summer of 1844, when she consented to be mesmerised, first by Mr. Spencer Hall, and later by Mrs. Wynyard, the widow of a clergyman. In five months she was well enough to start off to the English lakes, and visiting among her relatives, and presently even to go away upon her fatiguing tour in the East. I have neither time this afternoon, nor inclination at present, to offer any comment upon this case. There were the remarkable facts, whatever their explanation; and Harriet Martineau was not one to shrink from the public avowal of what she knew, for fear of the abuse or pain it might bring to her. As a swimmer grows stronger with breasting the waves, so did her mind gain in strength every time it was necessary for her to come into direct collision with popular opinion. Her writings contain many direct lessons, some of which have been already referred to, that the world either has learnt or yet must learn. Prominent among the latter are the lessons which her works ever taught to men as to the estimation in which they have to hold the sex to which the writer belonged. There has been far too much heard in past time of men’s opinions both of women and of themselves; now we must begin to hear the reverse—both what women think of men, and what women know and think about women. Miss Martineau, in common with every other woman of intellect and courage in this age, of necessity most earnestly desired the success of what is known as “ the woman move­ ment,” and did her best for its advancement. Long before the claim for suffrage for women became a “ movement before the women who desire its concession had banded them­ selves together to obtain it, she had lifted up her voice as one crying in the wilderness. In her early years, she wrote, in an essay upon Walter Scott, a noble protest against the crushing of women’s capacities, the condemning them to waste their energies upon petty trifles and ignoble ends, the frittering away of their existence, and then the presumptuous reproach of them for not doing great things, of which men have dared to be guilty. In the book which she published about * Society in America,’ in 1837, she wrote:— “ The Emperor of Russia discovers when a eoat-of-arms and title do �Harriet Martineau. 27 not agree with a subject prince: the King of France early discovers that the air of Paris does not agree with a free-thinking foreigner. The English Tories feel the hardship that it would be to impose the franchise ■on every artisan, busy as he is in getting bread. The Georgian Planter perceives the hardship that freedom would be to his slaves. And the best friends of half the human race peremptorily decide for them as to their rights, their duties, their feelings, and their powers. In all these cases, the persons thus cared for feel that the abstract decision rests with themselves, that though they may be compelled to submit they need not acquiesce. It is pleaded that half the human race does acquiesce in the decision of the other half as to their rights and duties. . . . Such acquies­ cence proves nothing but the degradation of the injured party. It inspires the same emotions of pity as the supplication of the freed slave \to his master to restore him to slavery that he may have his animal wants supplied, without being troubled with human rights and duties. Acquiescence like this is an argument which cuts the wrong way for those who use it. “ But this acquiescence is only partial; and to give any semblance of strength to the plea, the acquiescence must be complete. I for one do not acquiesce. I declare that whatever obedience I yield to the laws of society is a matter between, not the community and myself, but my judgment and my will: any punishment inflicted upon me for the breach of thbse laws I should regard as so much gratuitous injury : for to those laws I have never, actually or virtually, assented. I know that there are women in England, I know that there are women in America, who agree with me in this. The plea of acquiescence is invalidated by us.” But this same lesson of the right and the duty of women to participate in the public work for the public weal, Harriet Martineau taught to men far more emphatically by what she did than by what she said. No words, however eloquent, no pleadings, however forcible, could have the effect which the story of her life’s work must have. Bor this member of a sex “ which loves personal government,” was the author of some of the most emphatic warnings against meddling legislation that ever were penned. * This member of a sex “ by nature slaves to superstition,” did as much as any one living in this century to clear away the dust from men’s eyes, and encourage freedom of thought. This member of a sex “ opposed to all liberal movements,” was a shining light of the most Radical of Radical parties. This member of a sex “ incapable of un­ derstanding politics,” was secretly provided by the Ministry with facts in the hope that she would use them to instruct the ‘ The Factory Controversy,’ 1855.—‘ Autobiography,’ vol. ii., p. 449. �28 The Lessons of a Life : people upon the forthcoming budget; was implored by the Excise Commissioners to use their facts for the same end : was entreated by Oscar of Sweden to make the world ac­ quainted with the politics and position of his country—by Daniel O’Connell to plead the cause of Ireland as none other had done or could do, calmly, truthfully, understanding^, and without fear or favour—and by Count Porro to lend the strength of her exposition to Lombardy against Austria : nay, was even the source of a great part of the political education and opinions of the very men who presume to make such asser­ tions, through her one thousand six hundred and forty-two leading articles in the principal Liberal newspaper, the Daily News. Yes, Harriet Martineau’s life teaches a most valuable lesson to men—both to those who oppose and to those who support the giving a political existence to women. To those who oppose it, she has shown the fallacy of their confidentlyexpressed belief about women; she has shown them that it is impossible to predict the action of others in a position in which they never yet have been seen; she has shown them that their audacious certainties about the necessary influence of sex upon thought are so many ignorant and contemptible assumptions; she has shown them—what general history might have shown them, had they been capable of reading its lessons—that to give liberty is the only way to procure the virtues of freedom, and that the course of human beings in emancipation must in the nature of things be other than their course in subjection. And to the men who have already determined that right and justice must be done, irrespective of any minor considerations, this life’s work gives encouragement: it gives them faith in the principle of justice ; it helps them to see the good which their efforts will at last produce—the improvement in women and the aid to progress; it assists them to despise the fore­ bodings of the politically ignorant who now echo those fears which have always preceded reforms, and always been falsified ; it makes them believe more firmly that all women will dis­ prove the prophets’ declamations when the thing comes which must come, as Harriet Martineau has disproved them already. To women she teaches a similar lesson, both directly and indirectly. She teaches us to do something. Her purse and �Harriet Martineau. 29 her pea alike were ever ready to aid women’s causes ; but far more than these could do she has done by her whole life’s work. And every woman who does any one thing well, humble though it may appear; every woman who dares to think, to speak, and to act for herself, has learnt the great lesson, and does more for her sex than the most eloquent words or the most untiring effort of the greatest of men can do for us. We must help ourselves ; and we must do it by proving our capacity in our varied spheres, from housekeeping up to leader-writing, and by our mental vigour and independence. Posthumous fame was as nought to Harriet Martineau. She knew that, as the poet of our era, Tennyson, has it: “The fame that follows death is nothing to us.” And as the whole of her life shows, she never did anything so unworthy, and so sure to result in disgrace, as following any •course for the sake of the reputation and influence it would bring her. Nevertheless, she must ever stand prominent in the history of this wonderful century. For it is a wonderful century, though we may be too close to it to recognise its greatness, and though it must be left for the children of our children’s children to compare it with other epochs, and mark its wondrousness. In an earlier age, a Harriet Martineau would have been impossible. Her existence, and the work she did, are at once tokens and results of civilisation and progress. The development of mind has brought the moment for the exer­ cise of the power which resides in the physically weak. The age which has the telescope wherewith to explore the distant universe; the age which has the microscope, to reveal undreamt­ of life and hidden mysteries; which has the electric telegraph and the steam-engine to carry thought around the globe; which has the printing-press to multiply the words of the thinker until they can reach all who are ready to hear them; is an age such as the world never knew before, and for which new provisions and social arrangements must be made. This century has either discovered or applied to practical use all these marvels ; this century has repealed the Corn Laws, recognising in free trade the brotherhood of all mankind,—has freed the slave in civilised lands,—has emancipated other slaves from the serfdom in which wealth had so long held them,—and now only needs to cast aside for ever the slavery of sex to give it immortal pre- �30 The Lessons of a Life : Harriet Martineau. eminence. Yes, although we are too close to the achievements of onr time to see all its glories, as “King Arthur’s self to Lady Guinevere was flat,” yet it is a glorious age, one worth the living in, worth the working in. And she who has shared in so many of its great­ nesses, who has wrought in so many of its nobly-successful struggles, must live with it, so that future ages shall honour the name of Harriet Martineau. FEINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET. �The Society’s Lectures now Printed are— Miss MARY E. BEE DY. On “Joint Education of Young Men and Women in the American Schools and Colleges.” Mr. G. BROWNING. “ The Edda Songs and Sagas of Iceland.” Dr. W. B. CARPENTER. On “ The Doctrine of Human Au­ tomatism.” Professor CLIFFORD. On “ Body and Mind.” On “ The first and the last Catastrophe : A criticism on some recent speculations about the duration of the Universe.” On “ Right and Wrong ; the scientific ground of their distinction.” Mr. EDWARD CLODD. On “The birth and growth of Myth, and its survival in Folk Lore, Legend and Dogma.” Mr. WM. HENRY DOMVILLE. On “The Rights and Duties of Parents in regard to their children’s religious education and beliefs.” With notes. Mr. A. ELLEY FINCH. On “ Erasmus, his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of the Reformation.” On “Civilization; its modern safeguardsand future prospects.”On “ The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the Develop­ ment of the Human Mind.” With Woodcut Illustrations. Miss F. FENWICK MILLER. On “ The Lessons of a Life : Harriet Martineau.” Dr. G. G. ZERFFI. “ A Dissertation on the Origin and the abstract and concrete Nature of the Devil.” On “ The spontaneous Dissolution of Ancient Creeds.” On “ Ethics and ^Esthetics; or, Art in its influence on our Social Progress.” On “ Dogma and Science.” The price of each of the above Lectures is 3d., or post-free 3|d. Professor CLIFFORD. On “ Atoms ; being an Explanation of what is Definitely Known about them.” Price Id. Two, post-free, 2|d. Mr. A. ELLEY FIN CH. On “ The Pursuit of Truth ; as exemplified in the Principles of Evidence—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With copious Notes and Authori­ ties. Price 5s., oi' post-free 5s. 3d., cloth 8vo., pp. 106. On “ The Inductive Philosophy: with a parallel between Lord Bacon and A. Comte.” With Notes and Authorities. Same price. Cloth 8vo., pp. 100. Mr. EDWARD MAITLAND. On “ Jewish Literature and Modern Education ; or, the use and misuse of the Bible in the Schoolroom,” Price Is. 6d., or post-free Is. 8d. Dr. PATRICK BLACK. On “ Respiration; or, Why do we breathe ? ” Price Is. 6d. or Is. 8d. post-free. Can be obtained (on remittance of postage stamps) of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Cres­ cent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of Lecture; or of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158 Oxford Street, W. �$ . * .idSTL .’- 7 7,-JZ Mk . 1 btl.T SiOOd.'.T:’! t-1 i : "’-Tn 1 Iv ^Ai’K>-c£ Ml'" ... ' 7TZl«in •'' ? -jM .a .w -.ri' dte.-n-ti "'' r k vb'jS? a/n< - ■'.;. . ’ } ■ r;.^r,<T ■ ;F'.. '>.' 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'WXpT oocisafi ill l . - . :."’x-riq tirrftd foucsbi.i^s-l.-t- a t;.'?.' s. ; tsotj utHivf.)“• aO £ .all 9<i; at tewo^ £ Iroh-toaodsA 3o ■' "enftii. oHT 11 r.O • foitr/rfaaill d-tiVF w.%uiM afttiiuH od; io iauti /[« laa^,:J .FTIJI.1 <7 al .7 <7 7.711 .r£ asM * '•.-.v.jfu real teirrnll ? 7 Tii^rtO M; k'> in'lc+lBwiflr .© .0 .-rj . f’Z >».L ??It it) t '<■>?;:'>.•. . j :<■ .’ : ’MfeeO tu-aiaaA io noitiit<wr</r; : sdij:i aC ■ o <- ? ?it xiHjA /to :?-£7Z7''r_ Ru ®:J;a !> r'? • 7 <W ” u,iMnh -»<T Ll’^oP ,7'y oyd-i-.acf ia rbC & asrmlse.X V/rf- .? ia oaiiq o lo fwbrrrl-xSC «£ gais i ’ aaptA. ■ s > * & • .,•' .awT J»I gol'i^E '’,.ar?aM:<,'> I'. it v-crr'l Yll'lTl ai 77.-' ■' 1 ' ' ' ■ ■c FdimrT xo dI-'.-/x z-dT * ‘■flO .W) 1'IYIVZ latcni-ll o.r'- di bo?.'.’' ..: •' ■ -i ' .7 • 7 I iris toloJf e;j7 1460 ;7.7 ZL.;\iluX W jy>I .c(c('t.c78 il)ol i> vbG . '7 as';?^. ■■■/■ no .',7; : •.’rfc-I F /.■■''•'■ - a <71 '.’S-jfr. -1 HT o * ' iFti»A bttft afioZt 77s; ’ .(X; •vof&l AiwV 11 aO 17-jisfp.'f t f c.c .7 Xi'ft-Face *fa ?A 7V F .1 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The lessons of a life : Harriet Martineau. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 11th March, 1877 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Miller, Florence Fenwick Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 30 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publisher's list inside back cover. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Harriet Martineau was a British social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist. Florence Fenwick Miller (sometimes Fenwick-Miller, 1854–1935) was an English journalist, author and social reformer of the late 19th and early 20th century. She was for four years the editor and proprietor of The Woman's Signal, an early and influential feminist journal. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sunday Lecture Society Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1877 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N488 Subject The topic of the resource Harriet Martineau Women's rights Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The lessons of a life : Harriet Martineau. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 11th March, 1877), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Harriet Martineau NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/3c56fc70fd8ac14b59855418a176ba0d.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=ooNhN3MOXAXFz959z2mgoUbP6Aa2u2z5zynDX8v7avSz2U7IfLBNJZji7JMZau68i9%7Ey6P24hBAZVO47KLvPfHpdhz6ZEnJwlOFmVlU5Im4mOIi5pGadmnDny2Qm88jynjZ0uLKZ1%7E1gmcrdi68OzboT-DBMB5ZElbod11ixg6x2MNjGbRN5jeXk5nIUwZRVqgwHtRiZT1eZis1ocCDIwq2gYWgHP4nEoHOJp8Eycmz9P1KSZsp2-dZpwRfOFsel8KrpB6HM7GkqBf9C9afbtObqa9YeuayobYwFW5jVSAbCPnAGDYaHx6U7vNWkN14oZsc9GaRKndtsRX4XZh5UZg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM be492c371e2fa2bc39236dc4a1a14006 PDF Text Text PSYCHE TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. A CHANT OF LOVE AND FREEDOM. BY FRANCES ROSE MACKINLEY. Arise ! my soul, thou breath of God ! Awake, to a full sense of thine all-coinprising consciousness To hymn the praise of Love-Creative— And Freedom-Regenerative of Humanity. Disrupt the tyrannic bonds ; That have held captive thy sex for ages ! Recklessly speak thy thought; Mindful only of allegiance to Truth ! O for a voice ! That could resound throughout the universe. A voice ! Not pitifully plaintive, like wailing Philomel’s ; “'Tor calling aloud for relief, Ake Israel in bondage; Nor yet a voice, shrill and sharp, Jenetrating the spheres Like that of the soaring skylark— 3ut a voice, new made, Louder, clearer, sweeter, fuller, than any voice yet heard— An archangelic breath ! a voice divine ! Wherewith I could arouse Humanity from its lethargy, And make lovers and freed of all women and men. A voice to chant a Pean of Freedom, boundless as space ; And love infinite and all embracing. A voice, to stir in woman Some inspiration of her coming destiny, �2 That she may know that, in the future, She is to lead the van of the Army of Progress, Now advancing with victorious strides. This age asks for new women— Women, untrammeled by the temporary and stationary, .Not stunted or warped by prejudgment or bias : No more bigotries! no more prejudices' For the woman who is to come— The true woman, the pure woman. I would sing the glory of the sexual act; The most ecstatic bliss of the body ! I would sing the praise of creative copulation ! The act generative of an immortal soul; Wherein, God as man, and Nature as woman, Blend their essences. 1 would sing, of the coming woman— Moulder of a new race; Made perfect by her recognition Of the goodness and purity of nature’s laws; Of the woman who prides herself On every particle of her delicious and sublime body, The habitation and sanctuary of the Eternal Spirit. The woman—slave of the Time Being— Who is ashamed of herself—ashamed of Nature— Will be ashamed of me. Let the good and perfect woman Have compassion on the woman Who is ashamed of herself! Who invented this trick electric, of nature—this Eroto mania— Whereby immortal consciousness is forced into entity ? Was it invented ? No ! it is coeval with existence ! Invention and conception are forms of the same process; And this material feat of concentrated sensuousness Symbolizes the creation of intuitive and inventive thought. �3 Eternal Coition is, then, the will automatic of the universe; O ¡Nature's cunning method of causation; Tnat.inct working itself up, forever, into reason; By the principle of ceaseless and inexorable evolution. The idea of one supreme is but a thought-limit; Or the swell of presumptuous vanity, in the mere male mind. The Elohim, that spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, Proclaimed his Godhood bi-sexual: So, God and Nature—male and female—are perpetually be­ getting ; And the lustful Jove is but Jehovah in another character. Into this instantial moment of transcendent felicity, Nature concentrates every possibility of pleasure. Science has exhausted the study Of the outward, unconscious universe. In this causal deed of the energy of nature, Science must find the true origin of all things. To study, know and apply its highest laws, Will be to people the planet with gods, And bring about the Millennium. In the antique time, * They consecrated temples to the Gods of Love: To Venus, lascivious and free— To Eros, hot and ardent— To Lamps icus of the garden, fierce and lusty— To the goatish Pan, chasing wood nymphs. These deities are spiritual symbols Of qualities of the soul. Build anew to-day These Fanes embalmed in poesy! Science now knows these ancient'cults To have been the worship of truth, not myths. Build them! Tokens of our return to the ecstacies of nature; From the cold mathematics of Mammon, Into which we have fallen. �4 Crown with a wreath of lilies, emblems of purity, The men and women—angels of love and freedom— Who will offer, at the shrine of these attributes of Divinity, Incense of honor and adoration ! Confess the sanctity of your natures ! Declare How sweet, to man'or woman, Is the tremulous and tingling titillation of nature’s battery. Evolving a conscious soul-spark out of chaos ! Earth holds, for me, no more beautiful picture, Tuan the nude bodies of a man and woman, Clean, fresh and white (or be it brown or black), United in amorous fondness, As before they were severed by Jupiter. The quivering lips, red cheek, bright eyes and palpitating form, Aie but the shadows of the convulsive throes of nature. O for Venus-loving women ! for Sapphic souls ! And Lesbian natures ! I had a dream, Aphrodite, the Celestial Goddess, appeared to me, More radiant, more glowing, more interfused with love, Than when first she sprang from the foamy sea.' “ Daughter,” she said, “ Repair to Cyprus ! Thence to all corners of the globe, send bidding, Announcing that my worship is to be renewed. Grecians loved me in lascivious wiles; And in licentious rites. This was a true tribute to my power. Too much of love, too much of freedom, Too much of delight, thou canst not have. But I am to be worshiped, in the future, As I have never been in the history of the earth : With all the voluptuous imagination of the past, And all the light of the science of to-day. �5 In Olympus, The fulfillment of an olden prophecy is expected : Astrea returns to earth Whence she fled, ages agone, from the cruelty of men, The Goddesses sit in council and co-operate, Hoping that the gentle and feminine virtues Are about to replace the cruel reign of male force. Minerva, Psyche and myself clasp hands in heaven, As knowledge, soul, and love, must conjoin on earth. And thus am I Venus ! To be venerated in reason and principle, As well as adored in love. Because my name has been mentioned with blushes ; Because the arts I taught humanity Have been practiced in secret and in shame, Men have been converted into monsters of absurdity, Instead of monuments of grace; And penury and misery reign Where art and plenty should.” So spake the Goddess. Join with me, O women, In this song of love and freedom ! And, by the truth and beauty of your lives, Inaugurate the reign of Psyche, Minerva and Venus '. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Psyche to the nineteenth century: a chant of love and freedom Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Macinley, Frances Rose Description An account of the resource Place of publication: {s.l.] Collation: 5 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A poem. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [187-?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5309 Subject The topic of the resource Poetry Women's rights Sexuality Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Psyche to the nineteenth century: a chant of love and freedom), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Free Love Poetry Poetry in English Sexual Relationships Women's Rights Women's Rights-United States https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/00af03e2d6a18c53a98277a9f1260196.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=bbsrWp2kCPzDomFptiX0IaO4osSTjCdvACTqC1KtUTjeaoi5YGdLWgehewVXKAkO-Cu2b5jlehG4mhpGveJt6gSgeeV47E5vyt2Z7tc2xFrfJjwAIv-0lmmYqLRdmIZAAGpi2BtFumfQP0RJZ1aTddlr4ly1KK8G-VWO1A7eoRdDSMloSIw%7ELo480gi39I8ThWOv7IT2d5229eJp1OqY7sdIaibi8nbX%7EzH-9QkbpIKflpp1NDsRZxBcO990JaPoEgQuWAbllErOMfeCEFdwLoo4b5agCcqwusQbgqWSiv4ZITm4uPAHLGGY63BWJXOanNockg5osCL2KsHLJ%7E%7ELgA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 847e3df87cada77830fe9fd47c8c0d53 PDF Text Text FRIEND OF PROGRESS. Vol. 1.] New York, July, 1865. Frances Power Gobbe. BY T. W. HIGGINSON. [No. 9. and one often observes it while traveling, in the hands of young gentlemen of serious aspect, and young ladies of no particular aspect at all. It sometimes suggests curiosity as to the precise shape in which these scat­ tered rays are transmitted through these vari­ ous private prisms. The new volume on “Religious Duty”* appears to be an earlier work than ‘ ‘ Broken Lights,” and in some respects more extended. Her subject she defines as “comprehending the actions and sentiments due by man imme­ diately to his Maker.” She treats of Reli­ gious Offenses, which comprise Blasphemy, Apostacy, Hypocrisy, Perjury, Sacrilege, Per­ secution, Atheism, Pantheism, Polytheism, Idolatry, and Demonolatry. Then of Religious Faults, including Thanklessness, Irreverence, Prayerlessness, Impenitence, Skepticism, and Worldliness. Then of Religious Obligations, classed as Thankgiving, Adoration, Prayer, Repentance, Faith, and Self-consecration. The mere list of these subdivisions implies a good deal of thoroughness, and, perhaps, a lit­ tle over-minuteness of systematization. There is no want of courage in the book, and the writer adheres most faithfully to her position of “Absolute Religion.” On the appearance of a new edition of Longfellow’s and Johnson’s “Book of Hymns,” now called “Hymns of the Spirit,” an enthusiastic admi­ rer wrote: “The book is theologically pure. The name of Christ does not appear in it;” meaning that the hymns recognized Jesus only in a human character, and by a human appel­ lation. Tried by this rather novel test of If Miss Cobbe had the good fortune to write in an attractive style, she would achieve for herself a leading position in the most ad­ vanced Beligious literature. No one else shows so strong a desire to develop Theism into a system, without reference to Jewish and Christian traditions, and to fit it out with the requisite ethical adaptations. She is also very sincere and single-minded, free from cant and rant, and shows much reading in the most desirable directions. But her style is apt to be bare and tame, without having the sort of crisp dry clearness which sometimes lends attraction to theological books else un­ readable; as is the case, for instance, with Beecher’s “Conflict of Ages,” and Norton’s ‘ ‘ Genuineness of the Gospels. ” Hers is rather the style of average Unitarian discourses; a style unexceptionable, but without freshness, saliency, or relief, and hence rather unat­ tractive. She has been heretofore known in this coun­ try as the author of “ Intuitive Morals,” and the English editor of Theodore Parker’s works. This is good ground for reputation. The first part of her first book was certainly remarka­ ble, though the second part by no means equaled it; and her edition of Theodore Par­ ker puts his American literary executors to shame. But she is rapidly becoming still better known through her own contributions to theology. “Broken Lights” has already been frankly criticised in these pages. It is *“ Religious Duty, by Frances Power Cobbe.’> apparently obtaining quite a wide circulation, Boston: 5V. V. Spencer. 12mo. pp. viii, 326. $1.75. Entered according to Act of Congress by C. M. Plumb & Co., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. �258 The inend of Progress. orthodox}', Miss Cobbe’s last work is theologi­ out of the true church invisible those wbo< cally pure also. It is not professedly a trea­ found themselves in this position.—In aU tise on Christian Duty, but on Religious Duty. these respects the canons laid down by Miss And though the writer suggests a latent con­ Cobbe are a step downward from his position, fusion in her title by admitting that all duty is and are directly in the spirit of sectarianism. religious; still this objection would not have This can be readily shown by quoting her been averted, and many others would have own language; the italics not being, however, been introduced, by using the word “Chris­ her own. tian.” That is a word which no disciple of “Nevertheless, the unspeakable blessing Miss Cobbe’s can use without embarrassment, and honor of communion offered to us by because, by the whole theory of Theism, the God in prayer renders our rejection of them a world is destined to outgrow all personal religious fault, tantamount to a general delin­ quency in all religious duty. He who cares names. If by “Christian” one means to des­ not to obtain the aid of God’s grace, or feel ignate simply what is pure, right, noble, man­ the joy of His presence, is manifestly in a ly,—then these last are the clearer and better condition wherein the religious part of his words. If it means anything more or less nature must be dormant. Such sentiments as remain to him can scarcely possess eth­ than these, it is not desirable at all. Chris­ ical merit, inasmuch as they must be tian virtue is simply virtue, Christian morals merely the residue of those natural instincts, simply morals. Why complicate the phrases which, if duly cherished, must have led him to by the addition of an adjective, which only prayer. The occasional God-ward impulses which show themselves in all men, so far from confuses their meaning, because it must itself constituting the fulfillment of this obligation, be interpreted,—and however interpreted, is no form the very ground of their guilt when left barren. Without such religious sentiments, improvement on the simpler word ? man could have no religious duty at all. It is saying much for Miss Cobbe, to say that Possessed of them, he is bound to cultivate she has kept resolutely clear of all this. In and display them in all the forms of direct this respect her position is more unequivocal and indirect worship. ” (p. 94.) than that of Theodore Parker, who clung to the She afterwards, in a vague way, limits these word “Christian”—as, indeed, he was rath­ remarks to those who believe that “prayer for er attached to the word “ Unitarian.” spiritual good receives a real answer from When it came to a definition of Absolute God.” “It is possible for religious minds at Religion, however, his was certainly the more an early stage to make mistakes for a time comprehensive. His definition was simply, on this matter,” &c. (p. 95.) But the fact “Faith in God, and love to man.” Hers seems never to have dawned upon her mind, appears to be: “ Good morals, plus the habit that there are multitudes of earnest persons of conscious personal prayer.” in all stages of culture, and of all grades of It is at this point that she and her immediate moral excellence, to whom conscious praye r teacher diverge; not at belief in prayer, but has been for years a rare and occasional im­ at its recognition as the ground of spiritual de­ pulse only, and perhaps not even that;—to marcation and classification. Theodore Parker whom, at any rate, it is no part of their regu­ believed in prayer intensely, and loved it lar plan of life. intensely. He would have liked every public Can any observing person doubt that the lecture to be preceded or followed by it. His external practices of prayer are rapidly di­ volume of prayers is, on the whole, the most minishing in our community, like all other characteristic work he has left behind, and may external religious forms,—like baptism, and live the longest. While reproached—even by the communion service, and church-member­ men so liberal as Beecher,—with a deficiency ship ? It is impossible to deny that this tend­ of religious sentiment, he was yet the only ency often coexists with increased moral minister to whom it had occurred to address earnestness, and with higher and higher ideas the Deity as both Father and Mother. Yet, of the Universe. It is not now needful to for all this, he never once suggested that maintain or defend this position; only to conscious personal prayer was essential to state it. But Miss Cobbe finds nothing to do the highest spiritual attitude. He recognized with any such tendency, except to exclude it with charity the scruples which prevented from her imaginary synagogue. some, and the instinctive disinclination which Yet after all, it is to be noticed, that, withheld others, from taking part in it. He when this author comes to her highest state­ never proposed, directly or indirectly, to read ment of possible prayer, she comes round to. �Frances Power Coble. an assertion which many of these excluded ones might claim to make for themselves. “I shall speak of that indirect worship wherein it is to be hoped all life at last may merge for us—wherein not only we shall know that ‘laborare est orare,'1 but all feel­ ing shall be holy feeling, all thought shall be pure, loving, resigned, adoring thought; so that at every moment of existence we shall 1 gloriiy God in our bodies, and in our spirits, which are God’s.’” Then she quotes the fa­ mous passage from Coleridge, which has been the comfort of so many: “ Ere on my bed my limbs I lay It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees ; But silently, by slow degrees, My . pirit I to love compose, In. humble trust mine eyelids close, With reverential resignation; No wish conceived, no thought expressed. Only a. sense of supplication— A sense o’er all my soul impressed, That I am weak, yet not unblest, Since in me, round me, everywhere, Eternal strength and wisdom are.” Yet will Miss Cobbe venture to say, that those whose conceptions of Deity are so inef­ fable and sublime, and their recognition of his laws so complete, that specific or uttered prayer seems to them an impertinence, may not be as far advanced toward this higher state as herself, or as any representative of that type of moral progress which she de­ scribes ? Theodore Parker, her especial teacher, never seemed so noble, because never so humble, as when he acknowledged his own obligations, and admitted his own inferiority, to his especial teacher, Emerson. Yet how far is Emerson, who can calmly speak of the progress of humanity as tending to ‘ ‘ sweep out of men’s minds all vestige of theisms”— how far is he from Miss Cobbe’s type of reli­ gion, or even of morality;—how near to her type of “guilt!” Something of the same narrowness is shown in her, hearty denunciations of that “cold pseudo philosophy ” which substitutes for the endearing word “God,” the more distant phrases of “the Deity,” “the Supreme Be­ ing,” “the Almighty.” She seems utterly unable to conceive of that mood of intense reverence, when one instinctively seeks the loftiest words, though they be the remotest, and where any word at all seems almost a profanation. Saadi says, ’ ‘ Who knows God, is silent.” When, in that grand passage of Faust, the philosopher utterly refuses to give 259 a name to the Unknown— Name 1st Schall und Rauch, umnebelndHimmelsglutli)—even the innocent little Margaret answers that it is all very fine and good, and that the priest says nearly the same, only with words a little dif­ ferent; but to Miss Cobbe it seems all very improper. Although she elsewhere admits that Pantheism and Anthropomorphism are only the two opposing tendencies of that ever-swinging pendulum, the human soul, yet she seems unconscious how closely her own temperament holds her to the latter side. She has never discovered that, in all ages, man’s sublimest reveries are most Pantheistic, while it is his daily needs and instincts that bring him back to a personal God. Apart from these limitations of tempera­ ment, her discussion of the subject of Prayer is interesting and valuable, whatever one may think of her conclusions. More than a third of the volume is given, under different titles, to this theme. She even believes in prayer for our departed friends, and enters on a long argument to show its propriety. (Pp. 200-5.) She demands more family prayers, and more stated private prayers. “ Suppose that in­ stead of confining our grace to one meal in the day, we were each to say, in our own hearts, a little grace after every successive occupation.” (p. 134.) Though she here says, “in our liearts,” she yet implies something more explicit, in this multiplication of observances. She insists upon the form, and does not shrink from put­ ting her demand in the most matter-oi-fact way. For she says, on the same page: “ We should show gratitude by actually expressing our thanks in the words which would sponta­ neously issue from our lips were our hearts truly kindled." Yet this seems very incon­ sistent with the position taken by her in re­ gard to attendance on public worship. “As for the attendance at worship, &c., ‘for ex­ ample’s sake,’ it is marvelous how any hu­ man creatures have ever had the presumption to entertain such an idea. Let any sane man consider what he does when he enters a church, and ask himself how his “exemplary” behavior therein must appear to God, and I cannot but suppose he will be sufficiently shocked to abandon such attempts for the future. For either he must intend really to worship, to thank, adore and pray to the great Lord of all, or he must intend to make an outward show of so doing without any uplift­ ing of soul. The latter conduct is grossly in- �260 The Friend of Progress. suiting to the God who watches him,” &c. &c. When she comes to points involving sim(pp. 33-4.) ply moral courage, however, how fine and But if the author herself advises her readers discriminating are her statements! The fol­ to show gratitude by formally employing lowing, for instance, is admirable, and much words which ought to come spontaneously, needed just at present. but do not, —it is certainly a venial step farther “Few of us have not much to repent in the to employ the same words, for the benefit way of unworthy silences on our true faith; of others, under similar circumstances. The silences, which, if caused by tenderness, were truth is, that great danger waits, for most weak,—if by any fear, cowardly and base. Vast numbers of free-thinkers, especially, and temperaments, upon any merely ritual observ­ above all the elder Deists, seem actually to ance. Jean Paul goes so far as to declare, have accepted their antagonists’ view of their in his Levana, that “a grace before meat own creed, and to consider that the next best thing to not knowing a truth was the not must make every child deceitful.” spreading it. Others, like Sterling, say that This may be too strongly stated; and the as they are not professional teachers of Reli­ whole theme requires the greatest delicacy of gion, they may teach (even their own treatment, not so much for the sake of public children!) the opposite errors! It is marvel­ ous that men do not see the turpitude, reli­ opinion, as for the sake of truth and the affec­ gious, personal and social, involved in such tions. But I am firm in the belief that the conduct. For ourselves, a life in which the t endency of the age is to the disuse of all family inward and the outward are in harmony is devotions, and that this disuse proceeds from absolutely needful to all moral health and progress; and that the stunted religious the correct conviction, that such observances growth of many free-thinkers may be attrib­ very soon become formal and unprofitable, to utable to this inward rottenness, no one who knows his own nature can doubt.” (pp. 28-9.) nine persons out of ten. These various defects are pointed out, be­ As frankly and clearly does she deal with a cause they constitute the only drawbacks form of hypocrisy seldom noticed, and so upon a strong and noble book;—a book which abundant that it penetrates almost all public will be read with deep interest by all who agree religious services—the hypocrisy of represent­ with the author’s general attitude. No one ing ourselves as worse than we really are. has given abler and clearer statements of the ‘ ‘ If we desire to grow better than we are, we sufficiency of Natural Religion, or stated must, in the first place, be openly what we more forcibly its independence of all tra­ are. We must live out our own life of duty dition or historic narrative. She believes faithfully, uprightly, humbly, never trying to in it too thoroughly to need the aid of any conceal our faults and making no prudery buttresses so unsubstantial. He whose most about such poor withered charms as our vir­ vital opinions have for their corner-stone a Mir­ tues ever possess. The life of virtue is before all aculous Conception or a Resurrection, holds things a life of simplicity. The man who pro­ his faith and hope at the mercy of the latest fesses selfish, worldly motives, when he is con­ critic or translator. He who rests his convic­ scious of better ones, who jests about lax and tions on eternal principles can let the waves vicious habits when his own are pure, runs of criticism ebb and flow, he remaining un­ most imminent risk of very shortly adoptingtouched. Not bound to the petty details of those motives in earnest, and falling actually any single form of creed or worship, he is in into those evil habits.” (p. 35.) sympathy with the pure and noble of all ages. In using one disparaging phrase above, It is thus that the writer of Religious Duty is she perhaps crosses the border of the very strong; and she is only weak where she shrinks offense she censures, of undue self-disparage­ from the consequences of her own principles, ment. But it is an offense she seldom and thinks it necessary to disavow the fellow­ commits; she is a strong, sincere, and noble ship of those who only vary from her in tem­ woman; she is free from almost all the em­ perament or training,—not in sincerity, nor barrassments of the sects; and every one whoeven in the essential points of belief. There is aiming at such freedom should read every is certainly a distinguishable difference be­ word she writes. tween the spiritual attitude of Parker and Emerson: but after all there is something —He that giveth love receiveth love, which rather strange in the position of a woman who is his return and reward for giving. He must edits the one writer, and utterly repudiates the ever receive more than he giveth, for his ca­ other I pability progresses. �Womanhood. OB, Madelon’s Soliloquy. BY LIZZIE DOTEN. 0 wondrous gift of womanhood ! how frail, And yet how strong ! How simple, yet how wise! How full of subtle mysteries thou art! The heights of glory and the depths of shame, Transcendent bliss and agonies of pain, Beauty and terror, Life and Death through love, Are all combined and manifest in thee. Through thy divinest gift of motherhood, Immortal souls are debtors unto thee; For all the elements of mortal mold, By which the soul becomes incorporate, And finds admission to this natural world, Take form and shape, through subtlest chem­ istry And brooding life, in thee. Lo, here I stand, A woman! Would to God that I could know The scope and meaning of that potent word, With its divine intent; that I might say To men and manners, habits, customs, laws— Stand back ! I am a woman! and I claim Freedom from everything that doth impose Restraint upon my proper womanhood. I do appeal from comm n usage: dare The venom and vitupei us speech of tongues That only know to slan! er. I conform No longer to the false ilea which makes Me but the adjunct of man’s social life— His puppet, plaything, servile tool, or worse Than these—the slave of his base pleasure. The bonds I rive—the silken, tinsel gyves, Which Fashion round her votaries weaves. I walk With fearless freedom in my quest for truth, And quips of caitiffs—scorn of meddling shrews, Or prudent warnings from the worldly wise, Shall not restrain me from my high intent. Manis not woman—woman is not man; Yet is.it for his weal and mine, that I, And all who bear the sacred name of woman, Should strive to reach that social altitude, Where, with the difference of our gifts con­ fessed, We stand as equals, side by side with man. Why do I stay to question ? even now The die is cast. Already on my heart The world’s harsh judgment, like a vulture sits, With beak and talons dripping blood. The Truth Leaps up like fire to my unwilling lips. Impelled by mine own sacred womanhood, I speak what timorous souls refuse to hear. Already have I met the social ban— Have dared to think, and speak as I have thought; Have shocked false delicacy—wounded pride— Called things by their right names, and much disturbed Those souls who have the world’s morality In charge, and whose extravagant pretense To virtue is their greatest vice. 261 Alas! God pity me ! for every word I speak, Though sanctioned by eternal Truth, is born Of untold anguish in my woman’s heart. And well I know that each unwelcome truth That issues from my lips, serves as a cloud, To shut love’s sunshine from my shivering heart. A woman, walking unaccustomed ways, And using most unusual forms of speech, And seeing what the world would least have seen, And telling what the wo id would least have known, Performs a thankless service, and doth gain But little vantage. By the common rule, A woman should have pulp instead of brains— Should have no thew or sinew to her thought, Or weight and meaning in her speech, lest she Offend the sensibilities of love. Yet have I not the freedom of a choice; The Fates, which consummate Eternal Will, Constrain me. I am made a sacrifice To powers unseen, like sad Polyxena, Who fell a victim to Achilles’ ghost; Or like Cassandra—favored of the gods, Though filled with the celestial fire, I breathe My prophecies to unbelieving ears. Men say I have a devil! Pious men ! Who measure others’ morals by their own; And saying thus, they stop their jealous ears, Like those, who, with Ulysses, thus escaped The soft enchantments of the syren isle. Oh strange infirmity of faith ! Hath Truth, Then, lost the pith and marrow of its life, That I, a feeble woman, can prevail In aught against it ? If so, let it fall! For it is dead. The living Truth must stand. God help me ! I must speak ! not for myself, But for the sorrowing sisterhood of woman— The doves by vultures torn—the bleeding lambs— The timorous deer pursued by cruel hounds; And with all these, a painted, reckless throng, Full of rude jests and wanton flouts and flings, Tricked out in flaunting silks and tinsel gauds, From whom the high estate and potent charm Of womanhood hath long since lapsed away. Yet, as a woman, I am bound to such, And they, in turn, have part and lot in me. Oh fallen sisterhood! your woes and wrongs Knock with a piteous pleading at my heart, And in the sacred name of womanhood, The hand of sympathy I will extend, And greet each as a sister and a friend. Woman weak ! in virtue frail! On whose cheek the rose is pale, From whose eye the light hath fled, In whose heart all hope is dead— What have I to boast o’er thee ? Come ! and find a friend in me. While we share the name of woman, We have sympathies in common. Do you shrink and turn away— Warning me what man will say ? I have known the world too long, Not to hold my purpose strong; �262 The Triend of Progress. Pious knave and dainty dame, Loud may cry, “ For sliarne ! for shame!” But I’ve learned that great professions, Often hide most foul transgressions. All my nerves, like tempered steel, Life’s magnetic changes feel; All the streams of human woe Through myVbeing’s channels flow; Every sorrow, every smart, Is repeated in my heart; Therefore, let us walk together— Friends in fair and foulest weather. Though a woman, yet will I Scorn, and shame, and wrong defy; I will dare the world’s disgrace, Till I find my proper place, And will lend a hand to all Who may by the wayside fall. Souls that act with brave decision Need not fear the world’s derision. / Be I lioness or lamb, God hath made me what I am. Whatsoe’er my gift may be, It is all in all to me; And in doing what I cun, I shall serve both God and man. Therefore, with my best endeavor, I shall struggle upward ever. “Woman and her Era” versus “A PLEA FOR THE MASCULINE.” BY J. V. V. R. The first article of the second number of the Friend of Progress, “A Plea for the Mascu­ line”—so courteous in its tone, so candid in its statement of principles, and so logical in its method—would doubtless have been an­ swered.by the author of “Woman and her Era,” had she been spared to the world and restored to health. As it is, a thorough believer in the doctrine of the superiority of woman may be excused for taking her place here, though it would be impossible even in this to fill the hiatus left by her untimely departure. It is fortunate for the present discussion that the parties are agreed, or nearly so, as to the premises. The “Plea” not only ac­ knowledges, but takes as the basis of its ‘ ‘ argument demonstrating the equality of the sexes,’’the positions from which Mrs. Farnham deduces the inequality of the sexes, and the superior excellence on woman’s side. Its grand truth, the general of all its particulars, on which it hangs its entire argument, is, “that Quantity is masculine—Quality femi­ nine.” Now, it is an instinctive feeling, and a first thought of the unsophisticated mind, that quality, other things being equal, is the standard of value, and that quantity, in itself, is of no value whatever, but positive trash and incumbrance. According to this, the more there is of a mere man the worse it is for him, as in the case of several famous scourges of mankind who had the epithet “Great” at­ tached to their names. But the more there is of a pure woman, the better it is for her, be­ cause she has the qualities of mind and heart that make her valuable, a ‘ recious treasure p to her family and the world. The question is, which excels, quality or quantity? and the answer is, that quality is synonymous with excellence, and that quan­ tity in itself has no excellence at all. We estimate the value of metals, stones, fruits, animals, and human beings, by their quality, the source of their qualifications for any use whatever—and the lack of this makes dross, dirt, trash, garbage, nuisance, all in the degree of the quantity, growth, and accre­ tion, which Mr. Dickerson states to be mascu­ line. By “quality,” of course he means “good quality,” fineness and exquisiteness of organization, and purity and delicacy of soul, and by “quantity,” of course he means a “good deal,” which does not mean good at all, but simply very much. Now, which is superior, that to which we can attach a moral attribute, some sort of merit, qualifications of some sort, or that to which we can attach none? Mr. Dickerson says that the two are equal. He says, “ Woman is better than man. She stands a mediator between him and the positively pure, spiritual, lovely, of the universe.” On the other side he says merely, “Man is more than woman. He stands a mediator between her and the abso­ lutely grand, magnificent, sublime, of the universe.” And yet he asserts the equality of the sexes, as if better were not superior to more—a diamond to a boulder, a strawberry to a pumpkin, a man to an elephant, and a woman to a man 1 The value of quantity depends entirely on quality, but the value of quality does not depend on quantity; it is only increased by it. So the value of the masculine depends entirely on the feminine; but the value of the feminine does not depend on the masculine—it is only increased by it. Woman inspires man, is the motive of his action, and man is subservient to woman, is the instrument of her action. �“ Woman and her Era ” versus “A Plea for the Masculine? Quality is primarily spiritual, pertaining to the soul, and to the essence, nature, or prin­ ciple of things. Quantity is primarily a prop­ erty of matter, of that which is formed of particles and is capable of accretion and growth. To maintain that quality is not su­ perior to quantity, is to maintain that the soul is not superior to the body, and that God is not superior to the material universe. Infinity, as we view it, is not an attribute of quantity, either great or small, as Mr. D. sup­ poses : it is an attribute of Quality, to which no limitation can be assigned. Infinite Per­ fection, Infinite Goodness, not infinite size or quantity! The source, the Fountain of all things, is the 1 ‘ center, ” not the ‘1 circumfer­ ence:” it is with the “feminine,” not with the “masculine,” which are respectively “cen­ ter” and “circumference,” according to both Mrs. F. and her critic. The center is superior to the circumference, the cause is superior to the effect, the angelic heaven is superior to the stellar heaven, the soul is superior to the body, the jewel is superior to the casket, the internal is superior to the external, woman is superior to man. All these exterior things are for the sake of these interior things, and their subserviency marks their inferiority, and at the same time the honor bestowed upon them. Take the advocate of equality at his word, that “woman is better than man,” and that “man is more than woman is not the moral and spiritual nature, of which better is predicable, superior to the carnal nature and to knowledge, of which more is predicable? Who does not place goodness above great­ ness, “Aristides the Just’’above “Alexander the Great ” ? Goodness includes all true great­ ness, but greatness does not include all true goodness. The cause includes the effect, which is but its unfolding; the Divine is the Being whose name is “Love,” “Life,” “ Goodness,” all attributes of the feminine, ‘ ‘ in whom we live and move and have our being.” The aspiration fortrue greatness, is for goodness first, as its essential—its lan­ guage is, “Great, not like Caasar, stained with blood, but only great as I am good.” The “widow’s mite" was “more" than all the “rich men, of their abundance, threw into the treasury ”—greater in the purity, the genuineness of the charity, and greater in its results. The sex that is better, is also greater, in the sense of multum in parvo and of “that life being long which answers life’s great 263 end,” than the sex whose characteristic is quantity. The writer of the “Plea for the Masculine,” assigns “development” to woman, and “growth” to man, defining development to be “the unfolding of that which is,” and growth to be “ the adding to that which is,” and he says they are equal. Let us see. Development, “the unfolding of that which is,” is predicable of the Divine operation in the work of creation, because the soul of all things is a unit, and all things are the un­ folding and manifestation of Itself'. Growth, “addition to that which is,” is predicable of matter, of material particles; but it is so only in subserviency to development, to the action of the unfolding life in the growth of the or­ ganisms of plants and animals. Growth has been the grand idea during man’s reign, ex­ tending itself to education and the mind. Woman’s era is ushered in with the idea of Development, as the true method and sum of education, and of everything natural and artistic. Development belongs to woman as a teacher and a pupil, and it will produce in the world a predominance of Quality over Quantity, of the Feminine over the Masculine; and for all that none the less, but all the more, of quantity, though in numbers rather than in bulk. It is often and well said of woman, that “the most precious things are done up in small packages,” and these are greater in their developments than the largest growths. There is one point in the argument for “equality,” to which the view of its author claims special attention, viz. : an asserted necessity to the indissoluble marriage rela­ tion. It says, “Prove the inequality of the sexes, and you have proven the impossibility of true eternal marriages.” Now, “even the gods will not fight against necessity;” and if “equality of the sexes” is absolutely indis­ pensable to the conjugal—which itself is a moral necessity beyond the ability of the free will to resist—any attempt at a counter argu­ ment might as well be resigned at once. But there is an “if" in the case that “alters the case”—that makes it questionable. The mas­ culine has somehow got along in the marriage relation, and in the happiest manner, accord­ ing to its way of thinking, under the reign of the idea of its own superiority. It has not seen anything incompatible with a conjunc­ tion performed by God and indissoluble by man in the obligation of woman to “love, �264 , ! I The Friend of Progress. honor, and obey, and of man to merely hardly be said to equal his spiritual mother “love and cherish.” Suppose the conjugal re- and the artist whose work he is. lation should express itself in the instinct of Here we might drop the argument, only the woman to love, and of the man to love and that the article we have undertaken to an­ honor? it is precisely what exists in the lover­ swer, pledges the author not to be con­ relation before and during betrothal, and to vinced “until the following questions are the extent of the period called the “honey­ settled in the negative: (1.) Is not the in­ moon,” ere the theory of the opposite has finitude of Deity—his perfect amount—as made the man tyrannical and the woman ser­ godlike as the unfathomableness of his nature vile. And this lover-relation is the foretaste —his perfect state?” We have already seen on earth of the “eternal marriage,” to which, that infinitude is not an attribute of quantity, Mr. Dickerson asserts, the equality of the or of the measurable—it is rather an attribute sexes is absolutely necessary. The language of the immeasurable, the “unfathomable,” of the point in question is, “Prove the ine­ the character, the infinite perfection of Deity. quality of the sexes, * * and you have As to a “perfect state,” we can form some shattered the very foundation upon which conception of it; but a “perfect amount,” such [eternal] marriages can rest, viz.: mu­ what is it? Perfection pertains to quality— tual conscioitsness of mutual worth. Mutual not to quantity. Both Infinity and Per­ worth demands equal (not similar) attain­ fection, therefore, are archetypes of the femi­ ments; therefore an equal grade of pro­ nine—not of the masculine. gression.” By “mutual worth,” I suppose is (2.) “Is not the aspiration toward this meant mutual love, for it is the quality of the perfect magnitude as godlike as is the aspira­ love that makes the worth of each to the tion toward the perfect state?” No ; better other, and that is at the same time mutual. be good than great. “Be ye holy, for I am But I do not see why there cannot be ‘ ‘ mu­ holy.” We aspire toward the “Divine liketual consciousness of mutual worth, ” in this ness”—not toward the Divine magnitude. or in any other sense, without equal worth. This is an object of ambition, and makes men The logical sequence does not appear. It tyrants, as the other makes them philanthro­ seems to me a mere assumption to say that pists. the worths must be equal in the conjugal rela­ (3.) “Is not the acquisitiveness—the out­ tion any more than in the relation between ward tendency and action of the masculine— the Divine and the human, which is eternal as as noble, as truly in harmony with the Divine well as that, and conjugal as well as that. design, as is the spiritualization—the inward “Christ and his Bride” are the incarnate Di­ tendency, the concentrated action of the vine Wisdom and Love. “ Heaven on earth” feminine?” “Acquisitiveness” as noble as is Earth and Heaven united in wedlock. The “spiritualizationI” does any one need be told parental and filial relation, too, is eternal, that it is not? It is “as truly in harmony7 and it is not that of equals. The relation of with the Divine design,” and so an oyster is the Divine to the human is both parental and as truly in harmony with the Divine design conjugal, and that of woman to man is so. as a man; but that does not make them Woman’s pure love regenerates man’s sensual equal. love—makes it pure, by making it subservient (4. “ Is comprehension—the power to em­ to her own. In comparing the sexes, Mrs. F. brace and contain—of less importance than has compared the natural woman with the insight, the power to pierce and penetrate?” natural man—not with the regenerate man. The embraced and contained is the precious The failure to recognize this has caused the treasure; the pierced and penetrated is the Atlantic Monthly to say that Mrs. F.’s men, mere receptacle, the husk, the shell, the out­ with whom she compares her ideal woman, are side of things. Give me “ insight ” into the all “scoundrels,” and it has led the author of penetralia of Nature, entrance to the interior the “Plea for the Masculine ” to say that Mrs. of her temple, rather than comprehension of F.’s book exposes masculine perversions, the outside, if I am to have but one. The and well nigh ignores masculine excellence.” “holy of holies” is of more “importance,” of The natural man, against the natural wo- diviner import and significance, than the ■ man, she has “weighed in the balance, and “outer court ” and the “profane place.” found wanting.” And the regenerate man, (5.) “ Does not the far-reaching, abundant influenced, inspired, purified by her, can affection of the masculine, balance the con­ �^Monopoly in Religion. centrated devotedness of the feminine ?” For example, the diluted, diffused, wAe-spread, thin, shallow, superficial, surface love that is natural to man—“wandering like the fool’s eyes to the end of the earth, ” and tending ever to licentiousness and adulteration—compared with the concentrated, faithful, devoted, pure love that is natural to woman ? No, it does not balance. We value love according to its quality, its purity, its genuineness, its refine­ ment, its tenderness, its devotion, its unself­ ishness, its spirituality, its blessedness: not according to its quantity, which, if that is the object, is increased by dilution and adultera­ tion. The difference between woman’s and man’s love is as the difference between the choice and genuine article that is offered as a free gift and token of affection, and the spuri­ ous article, the shoddy, that is manufactured by the wholesale for money. (6.) “ Has the masculine aspiration to be­ come and do more, a lesser claim upon our reverence than has the aspiration of the femi­ nine to become and do better ?” The good are the revered—not the great. The “better” the more revered, and the “ more ” the more despised, if the person be not good. I would rather be called “the best, littlest,” than “the greatest, meanest of mankind.” (7.) “And finally, is not the Divine Pres­ ence of the Infinite as perfectly expressed in the grand, stately, majestic appearance of the true man, as is the Divine Presence of the All-Pure expressed in the lovely, exquisite, symmetrical appearance of the true woman?” Well, suppose it were—which is the highest attribute of the Divine—Purity or Infinity? Holiness or Omnipresence ? But the only in­ finity belonging to extension is that of infinite space, which is nothing. The Infinity of Deity is that implied in Infinite Perfec­ tion, the object of love rather than of won­ der. The difference between the objects of love and wonder is precisely the difference between the modest loveliness of woman and the proud stateliness of man. Our exaltation of woman to her true position does not de­ grade, but elevates ourselves. “He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” This places the “true man” in a higher posi­ tion, and the “true woman” in the highest. 265 Monopoly in Religion. BY O. B. FROTHINGHAM. John, the disciple, said one day: “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followed not with us.” Jesus replied: “Forbid him not; for he that is not against us is for us.” Wnat sort of man this was who was casting out devils in the charmed name of Jesus, we can only guess. He was probably some Jew who thought that name a good one to conjure by, and who used it without thinking it neces­ sary to call himself a disciple. Or he might have been a pagan; worse still, a Samaritan, who, observing what wonders were wrought by the name, ventured to use jt in his exor­ cism. Some unbeliever it was, at all events, who only cared for Christ’s name because it gave him good help in his calling as physician for the more mysterious diseases which, as they were attributed to demonic possession, were supposed to be curable by magical or superhuman aid. Whoever the man was, and whatever his motive may have been, so much is clear: he did cast out spirits. That the disciples confessed. They did not say the man was trying to cast out spirits, or pre­ tending to cast out spirits; but he was actual­ ly casting them out; he was doing it success­ fully. Nay, more than this: he was doing it by the same holy agency which they used themselves. He was confessing the very Master whom they followed. Had they been reasonable men they would have been greatly delighted that men outside of their own little persecuted body were doing their work, re­ lieving them of part of their responsibility, and proving that more agencies than they could employ were on foot in the same cause. They would be glad that the immense labor of casting out demons was not committed solely to them, but was intrusted to such a variety of people, that its accomplishment was made far more certain. But these early disciples were not above claiming a monopoly of this divine business, though the stock was then exceedingly low, and the dividends very uncertain and remote. Nobody should cast out devils unless he held to them, and belonged to their company. They were the exclusive holders of that privi­ lege, and were ready to prosecute any who —Judgment dwelleth in man, and Respon­ infringed their patent. The thing must be sibility sitteth by its side. done by their allowance, in their way, and �266 The Friend of Progress. under their patronage. There might be fewer devils cast out—that was not the point. The business was a private one of theirs, and they were jealous of it. Though all the devils remained in possession, opposition in casting them out must be stopped. The Master’s reply to this petty jealousy was, as usual, magnanimous. No matter whether he is of our party or not. If he does our work he is our friend. The main thing is to get the devils cast out. If they do that, I am satisfied. They may be Jews, Pagans, Samaritans, heathen of any sort—if they suc­ ceed in casting out devils, they are of our party. Thus, in the very life-time of the Master, and in the very circle of his immediate friends, began that struggle between partisanship and charity, which has raged ever since that early day, and which now tears apart the Christian world. Can Christian work be monopolized? That is the question. Can such a thing be admitted as proprietorship in the humane and universal? Shall ownership in truth and charity—in moral and spiritual elemnts—be allowed ? Is any company large enough, or strong enough, or wise enough, or honest enough, to take out a patent for the enlight­ enment and inspiration of mankind? The human passion for proprietorship is some­ thing prodigious. It is enormous. It stops at nothing. It ranges from earth to heaven, from dirt to Deity. Man makes everything his own. He would set on everything his private seal, and make it sacred as property. Houses and lands, personal estate, wardrobe, horses, furniture, plate, merchandise, are not the only things that bear the charmed name of possessions. The phrase, my servant, my porter, my clerk, my friend, my child, my husband or wife, is almost as familiar as the phrase, my carriage, or my house; and it is used in much the same absolute spirit. “I would not take five thousand dollars for that little protege' of mine,” said a friend unwittingly to me. Love is full of private jealousies. It cannot bear that others, not even that humanity, not even that God, should have any part in its beloved. It is resentful that the interests of the race should appropri­ ate the thoughts or affections of its darling. When the dear God takes to his bosom, child or friend, we complain that he has robbed us | of what belonged to us as a piece of private property. The passion for proprietorship does not stop with persons. It lays hold on ideas; hangsits livery on universal truths; sets its private stamp on the Infinite. How constant­ ly we hear of “my” philosophy, “my” creed, “ my ” system, “ my ” truth ! A man is supposed to have reached the hight of spiritual experiences when he can say, “my” God. The Jews had a notion of God, which they said was peculiar to themselves—nobody else had it; nobody else should have it, unless he joined them, and became a Jew. It was their monopoly; they had a patent for it, and jealously guarded their right, for it secured to them the key to the kingdom. They took great pains to keep it distinct from every other idea of God that prevailed in the world. They would not carry it or send it anywhere. Whoever wanted it must come to them and get it. Now one would say that this niggardliness of theirs proved them unre­ ligious; proved that they had no worthy idea of God at all. No! it gains them the repu­ tation of being the most religious nation on the face of the earth. If, instead of saying “our” God—the God of the Hebrews—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—they had said simply, ‘ ‘ God the Infinite and Eternal ”— “all men’s God”—they would have been reckoned little better than pagans. If, instead of saying, “Come to us, all ye people, and we will give you God, for we alone have him,” they had said, “In every nation he that feareth and worketh righteousness is accepted, ” it would have been said that they cared no more about God than so many heathen. To say my God—our God—is the special mark of the saint. To say ‘1 all men’s God ” is equivalent to saying “no. God.” When a man can feel that he has secured a personal or family interest in Deity—when he lias suc­ ceeded in elbowing his way through the vulgar crowd into the Divine Presence, and, catching his eye, has extorted from him a promise of future favor, he is said to be con­ verted. The man with a new heart has ever a long list of special providences wrought in his behalf. It is his privilege to have a God who singles him out from the rest of mankind, and makes his private affairs a concern of his. Only the unsanctified disavow this sort of pro­ prietorship in Deity, contend that he rules the world by general laws—loving no one in par­ ticular—and speak of him as the Absolute, the Infinite, the Eternal. It follows, naturally enough, that this pri­ vate possession is held in very high esteem. �Monopoly in Religion. 267 My things are better than yours. There is no ity is the only authority conferred by the o house that I like so well as my own. There Spirit; my priesthood is the only priesthood ■e is no horse like my horse. My child is a won­ that has the true ordination;—when a sect ider. My friend is peerless. The circle I says: You must shout my shibboleth, or you belong to is the choice circle. The family will be damned; you must work my organizay from which I sprung ranks with the very first tion, or you can do nothing; this way of mine st for antiquity and honorableness of descent. is the only way; I have the charmed formula; :. There is no blood purer than the blood in my these men outside are Infidels; they are doing y veins. Aristocrats are we .all, somewhere. harm; their influence is bad; God does not !. My town ranks the country—my country is favor people who deny these doctrines which s the chosen’ spot of the earth. This little we hold, and neglect those practices which e infirmity of private conceit in ordinary life we follow; when a doctor of divinity says in a e and in small matters, we pass by with a lecture: “If a man believes the creed, he has smile; but in graver matters it becomes seri.- a faith ; if he denies it, he has a philosophy, ­ ous. When Religion thus overworks the per­ and Anti-Christ is a philosopher ;” it is time to sonal pronoun—when Religion emphasizes say that the divine grace has not made itself s the I, the me, the our, the us—when Religion over to any denomination or party ; that for i lets its sunshine and its rain fall upon this seed the matter of need, God needs none of us. 1 of individuality, till from it there shall spring 5 The idea that this little clique of theologia tree whose top touches the heaven—when ans, who cannot even define their own terms, i Religion makes this me a mountain whose should pretend to hold so much as a small 3 summit overtops the country round, and ac­ latch-key to a back door unto the kingdom of commodates the court of Jupiter and all the use and beauty ! The idea that this church, ì Gods—when Religion gives its divine sanc­ whose history is stained with blood, should tion to this idea of ownership, and allows a pretend that only she can make men white ! i man to think that his opinion is the final This, too, in a world which has seen churches 1 truth; that his way of saving men is the only rise and fall like waves, under the blowing of the 7 way by which men can be saved; that his invisible Spirit ! This in a world which has J church is the providential institution, outsidej seen systems chase each other across the sky of which is no salvation—it is time to look; of thought like clouds! This in a world about and ask what it means. Some fieldsj which has seen vast institutions dry up like certainly must be rescued from this exorbitant mist in the dawn! This in a world where ; claim of proprietorship. When the Reformer• mighty results are brought about by trifling says to his fellow-men, “You who wish to aidI causes, which no man could see a moment in men to throw off this great burden of abuse, advance, and where the most tremendous to deliver Jhemselves from this particular■ efforts of organized man have so often failed oppression, to emancipate themselves from. to accomplish anything! This in a world this special sin, must come into my party, where a thousand agencies cross and recross take my oath, adopt my tenets, use my spe­ one another, doing the perfect will from cific; we shall count you against us unless moment to moment ! you join our society, and wear our badge; It is said, I know, that this feeling of private * for nobody can do this thing but we; wheu ownership is the only guaranty that people the Temperance reformer, for instance, brings will take an interest in the work they are set out his pledge of total abstinence, and bids to do. Men care tor their own ; and as their you sign and circulate it, as the only means own, will work for it, save for it, live and die of stopping the curse of intemperance, and for it ; while for that which is not their own, on penalty of being reckoned an enemy of the they will lift no finger and give no dollar. inebriate if you decline; when he says: All The selfish feeling of proprietorship keeps the other devices are worse than useless; every world a going; just as water, till it is forced other doctrine than this of mine is damning; to flow between banks, spreads out into a every other society than this of mine is a pre­ marsh, overflows valuable territory, rots the tense ; it is time to declare that there is work land and the trees, gives play-ground to slimy so broad and radical that it needs all earnest snakes and frogs, and keeps the country men to do it. When a church says: In my about well supplied with fevers for grave­ communion alone is salvation; my sacraments : yards; so men and women become—we are are the only genuine sacraments; my author- i told—shallow and stagnant and pestilential, �268 The Friend of Progress. till you set them at work for their own pri­ vate interest. It is of no use to talk of humanity and justice and the welfare of the race. People are kind to themselves and to those who belong to them, and to no others. Public buildings may burn, but each individual takes care that his house does not take fire. The mother no doubt is very fond and foolish and tiresome, and kindless, who thinks that never a sweet babe was born till her darling came into the world; but unless she did think so, she would not nurse the baby, and carry it through all the perils of infancy. Who would do for another’s child from sentiments of humanity, for heaven’s sake or for God’s sake, what she does for her own child, for her own sake ? The sentiment of ownership is, we are assured, the main-spring of life. To turn the wheel of existence, love must be set running through a sluice-way. The coldhearted man provides bountifully for his own family; watches jealously over his daughters; educates carefully his sons; spares no pains and no cost for health, instruction, culture; spends his life, in fact, in the effort to train this little plant of his so that it shall bear beautiful blossoms and rich fruit—all the while priding himself supremely on its thrifti­ ness and beauty. He is improving his own property, and increasing his own possessions. You do not find him doing that, or anything like it, for those who are not his own; but he keeps his little garden-plot weeded. The patriot will fight for his country and her insti­ tutions, whatever they may be, and will send his sons to fight and bleed for them too; exulting in their glorious death when they go down into premature graves. There is no devotion like his. Poets make it the theme of their song; orators make it the source of their inspiration; historians use it as the best material for the holy traditions that bind the generations of national existence together, and warm up a people’s heart with grand memories of valor and sacrifice. The man without a country—rather the man whose country is the world—the man who can claim one country as being his own as much as another—the man who, instead of being rooted to a little island, has the freedom of the globe—whose countrymen are all mankind— never does anything like this. He will not fight for a flag; he will not engage in a national struggle; he will not sing patriotic songs, or lay down his life that a people may be tree; because no people is his people, no songs are his songs, no nation is his nation, and no flag is his flag. He has nothing spe­ cially at stake. His pride is not enlisted; his self-love is not appealed to; his vanity is not excited; and so for him all causes are indifferent; all revolutions alike interesting or uninteresting; all struggles equally mo­ mentous or idle; all flags but silken symbols of nationalities'in which he has no special concern; and the convulsions of states are but so many social movements of which he is a curious spectator. The largest expense in the grand patriotic demonstration of February 22 was incurred by the people whp wanted to display their sign-boards. The man who cares nothing for the social ties that link men together, upon whose ear the words “human brotherhood” come with an unmeaning sound, who has no conception of a unity as existing between himself and his fellow-men, and will consequently do nothing to promote that unity, may become intensely interested in his church, because it is his church—the church of which he is a pillar and in which he is a proprietor—and in the act of building up that by enlarging its mem­ bership, filling its meetings, augmenting its sociability, enriching its communion and ves­ per services, adorning and beautifying its sanctuary, he will help make a bond of unity felt among a number of his fellow-beings; he may create a limited brotherhood of human souls, and may build a sheepfold or a home where the imperiled may find shelter and the outcast may find rest. All the time it is his church, his church, that is uppermost in his thoughts; but it cannot be his church without being also the church of many human souls besides himself. Or take another illustration. There was a meeting at the Academy in behalf of the sol­ diers—called by the officers and friends of the Christian Commission. There was nothing remarkable in the published list of speakers, or in anything else, to attract a crowd. But the crowd was there—immense, crushing. Interest rose to the pitch of excitement. The appeals of the orators roused the audience to enthusiasm, and when the collection was taken up, people, instead of following the usual custom—of searching for a small piece of currency among the bills—poured out the entire contents of their purses; nay, took the rings from their fingers, the chains from their necks, the bracelets from their arms, the watches from their pockets, and flung �Monopoly in Religion. them promiscuously into the pile of trea­ sure. ■What prompted this extraordinary generos­ ity ? A feeling of humanity ? Sympathy with suffering ? A conviction of the soldiers’ needs ? Why, those needs had been presented to them hy the Sanitary Commission for four years. For four years eloquent speakers had been arguing, exhorting, appeali^, praying for money for these very soldiers, from these very people. But they did not touch this sensitive sectarian sentiment. They did not ventilate the personal pronoun. They did not say, “we, we,” but only “they, they.” They did not forbid those that followed not with them. ‘ ‘ Cast out the devils, ” they said, 1 ‘ and we are satisfied.” But the devils were not cast out. Now comes a body that adopts the narrow sectarian policy, holds out hope of sectarian aggrandizement, pricks the spirit of sectarian vanity and conceit, and jealously shouts, “we, we ”—our denomination—owr church— and the charity sprouts up like coal oil in Pennsylvania. What will not men do for the sake of their own souls, who will do nothing for the sake of the bodies and souls of all Christendom 1 Speak to them of justice, of humanity, of the claims of a common kindred in God, of the poor man’s need, the sick man’s misery, the stupid man’s ignorance, the weak man’s vice, the wicked man’s turpitude and sin, and they are as immovable as rocks. Frighten them a little about the safety of their private souls, and there is no end to their charity. Make alms-giving a private business, the chief pro­ fits whereof are to accrue to themselves—gua­ rantee to them a special interest in the kingdom of heaven—and you rouse them to such effort as will make a desert blossom. The premium on private seats in heaven built the Church of St. Peter. Seeing all this, people argue that monopoly in religion is a good thing; that narrowness in church life is a good thing; that sectarian­ ism is a good thing; that every kind of pious partisanship is a good thing; that the constant over-working of the personal pronoun “I,” 1 ‘ we, ” ‘ ‘ ours, ” “ us, ” is a good thing. Is it ? Was that rebuke of John well bestowed ? Is it well to say to people: Cultivate your exclusive­ ness, if it is only in exclusiveness and through exclusiveness that you will work—insist that no man shall cast out devils at all unless he will cast them out in your way—is it well to say this? 269 • Remembering who it was that rebuked this disposition when it first showed itself among his own disciples, let us consider this point. Granted that men work more intensely when they work for their own denomination, church, party, organization, sect, corporate interest—granting that the effort to monopo­ lize power, authority, privilege, prestige, to triumph over rivals, to get patronage away from competitors, is the mainspring of all intensity of labor—the question still remains: Is the work done, the work required ? Are the demons cast out ? Are none but demons cast out? When the zealous John forbade the casting out of devils by that outsider, because he did not join his company, was he not thinking a little more of his com­ pany than he was of the dispossession of the demons? And was he not more interested in the gathering in of followers than he was in the driving out of devils ? And presently, when Paul came along and proposed to cast out heathen demons, on another plan, did not this same John think that the integrity and compactness and orthodox consistency of the Jerusalem church would more than compen­ sate for the weeding of the Lord’s garden? Did he not vote that Paul was little better than a demon himself, because he divided the company and drew some away ? The close churchman, the narrow sectary, the exclusive partisan, becomes so absorbed in his church, his sect, his party, that he for­ gets there are any demons to be cast out. He may give, work, toil, spend, apparently for objects outside; but it is always for objects inside. He bestows only on himself. He flings the gold away from him with most impetuous and lavish hand; but flings it in such a way, that, like the Indian boomerang, it comes directly back to his own hand. Partisanship in morals and religion strength­ ens nothing but itself. It is very doubtful if mankind are any better for it. It is true, no doubt, that, to a certain extent, the poor are aided, the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed; but this is done indirectly, inciden­ tally, as a means to an end, and in a spirit that makes the utility of it very questionable; for with every gift of clothing or money goes something of the Phariseeism that bestows it. The Christian Commission will, of course, render much assistance to the soldiers in camp and hospital; but with every package of sup­ plies will go a package of tracts; every bun­ dle of clothing will contain just so many suits �270 The Friend of Progress. of sectarian livery; every bottle of medicine will be folded in wrappers indicating the spir­ itual drug-gist it came from, and soliciting patronage for the firm; every pair of shoes will suggest to the sore-footed recipient the strait and narrow way of orthodoxy, by which alone he can find the kingdom of heaven; and every blanket, as it is put on, will remind the shivering man of certain filthy rags of infidel­ ity, which must be put off. The temporal estate of some denomination is the thing to be improved, after all. The soldiers must follow after us. I make bold to say, for my own part, that the good done to the soldiers is slight, as compared with the evil done to the cause of religion. It would be better, in my judgment, every way, that the soldiers should have nothing beyond what the government can furnish them with, than that this enor­ mous vice of sectarianism should grow. It were better that the demon of cold and hun­ ger and pain should not be expelled, than that the far more terrible demon of religious partisanship should take possession. If we could break down the principle of monopoly in faith, we could richly afford to let the world take its chance with its physical and social ills. It will have to take its chance with these at any rate. What does the costly religion of New York, supported by these most munifi­ cent sectarians, do toward diminishing the burden of excessive taxation, lessening the fearful rate of mortality among the poorer classes of citizens, stopping the gaping sources of disease that belch out streams of poisoned air in every foul street, providing that the children should be saved from the wholesale murder to which they are exposed through the neglect of Street Commissioners, or saving the poor from the outrageous and merciless spoliations of their rulers ? We New Yorkers live daily on the very brink of destruction. All the demons are let loose upon us: foul odors, dirt, putrefaction, the elements of every conceivable disease, beggary, thievery, vice in every variety; and the Citizen’s Associa­ tion cannot find ten good men to undertake its gigantic sanitary work. The organiza­ tions that represent the law and will of God are busy filling their quotas for the ranks of saints in the world to come. A sure way, perhaps, of effecting the sani­ tary reform of the city, would be to fire some body of sectaries with the idea that it would redound greatly to its religious reputation and its denominational power, to redeem the city from its filth. Let there be a rivalry started among the churches as to which should, glean the richest harvest of converts from the poor who were saved from pestilence and the rich who were saved from pillage—let some “ Christian Association ” be induced to under­ take the work of cleaning our augean stables for the “lovt^of souls,” and in a very few weeks our city would rival Paris in the exqui­ site cleanliness of its streets, the complete­ ness of its sewerage, the admirable ventilation of its dwellings, the absolute abatement of all its nuisances, and the beauty of its municipal appointments. The demons of the earth would be expelled, but in their place we should have demons of the air; an atmosphere filled with controversial and theological dust; heaps of evangelical tracts; a police watch set at the avenues of thought. When the unclean spirit had gone out, into the swept and gar­ nished city would come seven other spirits more wicked than he, and the last state of that man might be worse than the first. For this disposition, illustrated by John, conjures up more d mons than it lays. Nay, it leaves the real demons in full possession, and goes to work to expel as demons what there is ground for believing are no demons at all, but the saving spirits of the earth. The test of any faith is that it casts out demons; but the people who say that none but they have authority or power to cast out demons, simply assail as demons all who try to cast out demons in a different way from theirs. Every sect is demonic in the eyes of every other sect. The list of the arch-fiends whom Christendom has tried to cast out is rather remarkable. St. Paul heads it. At long intervals follow Huss, Jerome, Savona­ rola, Luther, Servetus, Latimer, Ridley, Chan­ ning, Parker—all men who fought real devils to some purpose. Church does its best to exorcise church, denomination to dispossess denomination, party to put party under the ban; while ignorance, want, suffering, sor­ row, limitation, imbecility, sit moping and gibbering on the hearts of human kind. The Pope of Rome, in whose holy city 800,000 francs are annually spent in masses, while 214,000 suffice for public instruction, issues his manifesto, in which he pronounces accurst and summons the faithful to expel some half hundred or more of spirits which we in America are accustomed to consider the very guardian angels of our social estate. �Monopoly in Religion. But you will find that the different parties in Christendom have their devils too, in whose expulsion they are as much interested as he is in his; and of those devils he is reckoned the chief. The test of a faith is its power to cast out demons. But who shall tell us what the demons are? It is very easy to say, Cast out devils; but thus far it has resulted in Christians trying to cast out one another, and letting the devils remain in possession. Who shall tell us what the devils are? 0 friends! we cannot know what they are, till we are delivered from the prince of them, which is the spirit of Phariseeism, and exclu­ siveness, and monopoly. We canno’t know what they are, until we come out of our sec­ tarian corners and ecclesiastical closets, where we have been so long barricaded, and standing in the open plains of humanity, ask ourselves what it is that injures Man; what 'Curses society at large; what depraves and eradicates human nature; not what weakens our party, shakes our organization, enfeebles the influence of our church. When we can forget the personal pronoun entirely—forget that we have an establishment to build up— forget that we have a denomination to sustain —forget that we have a church to fill—forget that we have a private spiritual interest to serve—forget that we have a system to defend and promulgate—and only remember* that God has a truth to serve—then, and not till then, shall we know what the demons are that we are called to cast out. Then we may discover, possibly, that the first demon is the spirit which we have been all along cherishing as angel: the hunger for personal or partisan appropriation—the rage for spoils in the heavenly kingdom. The faith that makes men large and liberal—call itself what it may —is the true faith. The faith that delivers men from their limitations, stirs them from their stupor, makes them ashamed of their igno­ rance, puts down unwarranted authority, expels from their bosoms the fear of God, exorcises the spirit of distrust and timidity, of doubt respecting themselves and the world they live in—the faith that gives them confi­ dence in their power to find the truth, and in the power of natural and providential agencies to get them out of their misery—no matter what ugly name it may happen to bear—is good faith. Call it orthodoxy, heterodoxy, heresy, infidelity, secularism, pantheism, or whatever else is most obnoxious in title—if it 271 casts out the demons of ignorance, lethargy, stupor, blindness, and servility of mind—if it expels the spirit of tame acquiescence and dumb submission to want and misery—if it drives out cowardice and credulity and super­ stition—if it is a spirit of liberation, it is good. It may not be for our church—it cannot be against our influence. Jesus said bitterly one day: “A man’s foes are they of his own household.” Indeed they are. The foes of a man are they that bar his way out into generous relations with his fellow creatures and his God—bosom foes all— demons of the threshold: domestic luxury, personal exclusiveness, family pride, social contempt, sectarian zeal, church foppery. God help us to put these things away. God help us to love truth more than opinion, society more than sect, the community more than the church, him more than ourselves. Then we shall find ourselves in possession of the charm that casts out every demon. When will men understand that they are powerful only when they serve the truth—that they must always be weak when they patronize it ? When will men understand that they gain nothing by appropriating ideas to themselves, and insisting on their monopoly being re­ spected? Just as all our back yards—now so dark and moldy and grassless and forlorn— would each and all be green and blooming if we would pull down the high fences that shut out light and air, and in place of them put up open inclosures of iron-work, through which the breeze would circulate—so each one of our opinions and credences would gain in vitality if the sectarian barricade were removed and the common air of heavenly truth allowed to sweep over and freshen the whole. In God we cannot lose ourselves—we always find our­ selves. We lose ourselves out o’f him. The universal never drowns us—it saves us from drowning. The very largest charity, while it seems likely to let the man ran out and be drained off, serves to let the great spirit run in and fill him up frill. Do you lose your breath when you open your windows to the air of heaven ? Every great example takes hold of us with the authority of a miracle, and says to us, If ye had but faith, ye should also be able to do the things which I do.—Jacobi. It is impossble to be a hero in anything, unless one is first a hero in faith.—id. �272 The Friend of Progress. The Friend of Progress. C. M. Plumb & Co., Publishers. NEW YORK, JULY, 1865. Mr. Towne’s Survey of Mr. Beecher’s Beliefs and Opinions will be resumed in our next number, and probably be completed in the number following. The contribution for this month is unavoidably delayed. The Psychometrical Delineation of the Character of Abraham Lincoln, to be found upon another page, is published not so much for the purpose of adding another to the many individual opinions of our late Presi­ dent, as for the sake of the peculiar method of the examination, and its striking harmony with the character revealed to the nation in the career of Mr. Lincoln, since 1861, when the examination was made and first pub­ lished. The Truth in Error. That the human mind is naturally truthful, is no less evident from the efforts of liars than from the credulity of the honest. Were we as enamored of the face of falsehood as of that of truth, the task of the hypocrite would be needless, as a lie might flaunt its own colors without disparagement. Counterfeits are only profitable where a sound currency is their basis. We ought then to expect a show of truth in all the professions of men, and where a doc­ trine has been passed down from age to age, till it has become the spiritual and mental life of thousands, we should look for a reality of truth, as well as the specious appearance of it in that life-creed. Where men are persist­ ent in their exercise of gnawing theological husks, it is safe to conclude that some kernel enlivens their dry fodder, or that they have power to assimilate even husks, and derive from them a little spiritual nutriment. Often we have only to translate the idea from the cant of the conventicle into the lan­ guage of common sense, to get a very appre­ ciable fact out of a very abominable dogma. A kernel of good sense may be wrapped up for a thousand years in the unsavory mummy­ foldings of a creed, and yet retain vitality enough to germinate under the free air and sunshine, in the natural soil of unsanctified’ thought. Thus the doctrine of total depravity, the existence of which in the mind of any sane man is the nearest approach to its de­ monstration that so gross a doctrine is capable of, has in its loathsome wrappings a little mummy wheat which does not refuse to vege­ tate when carefully separated from its dismal surroundings, and nursed by a purely human philosophy. The venerable Assembly of Westminster Divines put forth the conclusion, pithily summed up in that juvenile distich: • “In Adam’s fall We sinned all,” and backed it up by certain hideous commen­ taries and consequences, in which their disci­ ples discovered that hell, already well “paved with good intentions,” was paved anew “with infantsnot a span long,” McAdmalzed with these little offshoots of Adam’s depravity! Now just as this double outrage upon God and Man is getting to smell too decidedly of the very ancient sarcophagus from which it was exhumed, while the very divines are making a bonfire of the bituminous rags and dusty hide of the old mummy, a vital fact drops out of the old cerements, and takes root in the mind—the fact that certain tenden­ cies are hereditary, that men do partake, not of the flaws only, but of the virtues and talents ot their ancestors. Some time since men learned, on the purely animal plane of philosophy, that horses, cows, and sheep owe much to parentage; and vast sums of money and no little care have been bestowed on the physical perfection of the lower races, with very marked advantages. Of course it would be very distasteful to apply the principles of good sense to the perfection of the animal man, for a tender regard to> delicacy and propriety seem to require that man-culture should be suffered to go on at haphazard, in transgression of all laws that happen to lie across the path of a blind pas­ sion, or a dazzled fancy, and let God take care of the cripples and monsters that are bred of such folly. But with all deference to the squeamishness of the very delicate, it may be suggested that a better “improvement” might have been drawn from the venerable' text of transmitted depravity. The one grand fact long buried in the mon­ strous creed, has not yet been sown widely enough to effect the race; nor will it, till men learn to pluck the pearl of truth out bf the �Education. muck-heap, instead of scratching there for worms, like the foolish cock in the fable. If the good God would speak to us audibly, as he does in every fact of his providence, or in other words, if we would listen to the true teachings of Nature, our human homes would cease to be mere nurseries of blights and abortions, and our youth no longer marrying the sons and daughters of Cain, instead of those of Enos, men and women would be so well bom the first time, they would not need to be born again. B. Education. Every child must receive an education, and that education must consist of a double train­ ing—a training of the mind and a training of the body to invigorate the mind. Moreover, education must be of such a na­ ture that, first, every child shall learn to think for itself, independently of master and authority; second, it shall be furnished with a knowledge of things rather than words; and third, the mode of teaching shall be such, and the nature of the things taught of such a real, practical character, that the moral and reli­ gious instincts shall receive at every instant increase of strength and gratification. 1. To teach a child unselfishness and con­ sideration for others, the teacher must begin by setting an example of unselfishness in not forcing upon the pupil his own opinions, com­ ments, or interpretations, or that of any authority, however much venerated of old, when those opinions do not at once coincide with the receptive mind. No matter how quaint, crooked, irreligious or dreadful, the objections of the child to old traditions, socalled beliefs, and fables, may be, a respect for the mind working within, and common sense, should teach us not violently to enforce our ideas upon it. That violence, even if it were in favor of the most evident truth, de­ moralizes the child, and renders it incapable, in general, of arriving by its own original ef­ forts at the truth thus forced upon it. It will learn to hate the truth, and the creature thus trained will only become as a man, a hypo­ crite, a mocker in his heart, and a constitu­ tional liar. As religion is the embodiment of truth itself, the enforcement of what is to the mind an untruth, a fable, a contradiction, an im­ piety—however lovely and divine your own thought and long habit may have made it—is 273 the first corroding agent, the world’s ignorant and selfish want of consideration for others, imposes on the child. The mind ready and fresh for truth receives in this way its first degradation. The ignorant ask for submis­ sion merely; instead of seeking to give that Light, which must be free to be true. In the old time, history was an exaggera­ tion; religion, fairy tales; literature, in­ ventions; poetry, extravagance; science and medicine, quackery; law, the whim and bru­ tality of the judge. Through this Slough of Despond the human mind had to march. From infancy to old age, violence was done to it; so that the child was almost invariably a preco­ cious enemy of every truth and of every good impulse—an embodiment of hypocrisy of con­ duct, violence in action, and submission to authority from abject fear. The physiogno­ mist traces still on the countenances of almost all, that inexpressible want of manly expres­ sion, which, like the word Mystery on the forehead of the Beast, has been written on the face by this chaos of contradictions, su­ perstitions, and violations of the moral right to free thought. To systematically destroy the originality of the pupil’s mind, is the wanton act of the barbarous and unintelligent teacher. The selfish man is unwilling that the scholar should deviate from the methods and ideas which have dwarfed himself. He strives, therefore, to maintain his own authority, and uses the authority of the ignorant past as a means to this end. Take the artist’s studio as an example. An exaggerated veneration is created for the Michael Angelos and Raphaels of art. This ven­ eration is due not merely to the actual talents of those artists, but more to the fact of the in­ cessant repetition of the same praises—praises given and yielded to by the worshipers without a thought of investigating the sub­ ject for themselves. The teacher insists, and denounces any doubt or question with indig­ nation ! Had the pupil been allowed to ex­ amine and criticise for himself, hewoukl have discovered in all authorities defects and in­ feriorities. But under the influence of master and the jeers of his fellow-students, the youthful aspirant gives his whole soul to the adoration of the mannerisms and faults of the artist-saints, and losing by degrees bis own natural originality, becomes a mere imitator or painter-ape. We want to study the works of others by an �274 The Friend of Progress. incessant examination or criticism of them— thus using them as a stepping-stone, and not a stumbling-block, to our own improvement and progress. 2. Things are better than words. When we know wliat a thing is, then the words of the book are full of meaning and information as to its nature, its habits, its history, &c., &c. What is h-o-m-e as letters put together as a word, to a child, which has had no means of associating the sound of the word or the combination of the letters, with the family­ circle and living-place ? What is g-l-a-s-s, as a combination of letters to form a word without a view of the object? When transparent? when opaque ? How brittle ? Can it compre­ hend ? Does it know how it is made ? Then bring the materials, and make it, so that as this and other objects are presented in their reality and demonstrated in their various combinations, the child may insensibly learn the elements of chemistry and other sciences and arts. There are a thousand facts of creation which children ought to know before they are out of childhood, which most men know nothing about, so wretched is our training. The child-mind is an inexhaustible source of curiosity, and every fact which it re­ ceives becomes so completely a part ol itself, that the future man is the work­ ing product of this constructed mental ma­ chine. It will know—it puts endless ques­ tions—it asks the meaning of every word it sees or hears, and wants to see and handle and manipulate every (to it; unknown ob­ ject—to search out its cause—to investigate its character and nature—ascertain and apply its uses. Education, then, must be a mass of mentally digested things and facts, about which there can be no mystification—no de­ ception—no lie. When the things are known and the facts are ascertained, words are easily found for every species of demonstration. That is an art of itself—the word art—but secondary, not as heretofore, the first point of education. The pressure of word-teaching upon the brain has been such that millions of educated children have had nearly all incipient talent crushed out of them. Mere book-learning, stale, dry, and unprofitable word-gabble, has been the vampire of our school-system. While things seen and felt leave an indelible impress, the vague word-description of the unseen and unknown thing leaves confusion and suggests absurdities. The unhealthy, crazy conceits, attachments to old errors, credulity about what is clearly false, and blindness to the practical evidences of the senses, is one form of word-education. The mind dwells and lingers in an evil-disposed chaos ol contra­ dictory, artificial, and arbitrary thoughts. 3. A perfect disorder of intellect is the growth of our chaotic system of education. It is the intellectual man that is generally the most prejudiced and the most blind to simple and positive truths and facts. And as all he has learnt has been forced upon him under the influence of flattery—the teacher of the false instinctively knows the repulsiveness of the absurdities he is impressing, and so uses evil’s last resource—he, (the intellectual victim,) under the belief thus adroitly imposed upon him, hates what is new, rejects discovepies and denies facts, because they open up to him the falsities of his labors and credulities, and shock his selfishness by threatening to diminish the profits of the business or pro­ fession to which he has been ignorantly har­ nessed. The struggle of the intellect of the nineteenth century is to get rid of that intellectual blind­ ness, which has stayed the progress of mind in all past times. A blindness which is the fruit of the imposture of words and phrases—of their incomplete, uncomprehended, miscon­ strued meaning—of their wrongly interpreted, translated, and misprinted passages—of num­ berless interpolations, pious frauds, and rav­ ings of iusane persons, passing among the vulgar of the time for holy men and women— of excessive admiration for certain authors and authorities—[Shakespeare for example, the most obscure passages in which, arising probably from errors of the printer, are oftenest admired]—of rapt enthusiasm for legal quibbles, medical quackeries, pious fables, and scientific absurdities. These stum­ bling-blocks to truth, men are now struggling to remove; but it cannot be thoroughly done, except by a change of our system of educa­ tion from the too exclusive study of words, to a more thorough study of things, beginning at the earliest age. When we reflect that the greatest intellects of the past have, with few exceptions, been dupes of the most irrational superstitions and scientific falsities, and that great and simple truths almost invariably have come from men who had no classical or scientific education, and add to these facts our own �experience that simple and positive truths are almost always accepted and comprehended intuitively by simple-minded persons and the young, we shall at once see with what care and suspicion we should receive the “wis­ dom” of the past. Self-made men—intellectually speaking— are generally modest in proportion to the greatness and earnestness of the truth that is in them. College-made men are almost inva­ riably conceited, even, when they have some intellectual ability. This fault arises from the mode of teaching. Instead of the “moral and religious instincts receiving at every instant increase of strength and gratification, ” their literary education is held upto them constantly as a subject of pride in contradistinction to the ignorance of the people; and this pride runs through all the professions, with this addition to the religious, that it is inculcated in all persons, high and low, rich and poor—by the sects as one against the other—and is thus made the great backbone of all the falsities, as it is of all the vices and crimes of society. Hence a simple truth, spoken at the be­ ginning of the first century, was just as repul­ sive to the educated man of that day, as it is now in the nineteenth century. It was to the simple and ignorant in a literary point of view, that the truth was addressed, in de­ spair of convincing the irrational acuteness of the pocket-interested of the age. This ir­ rational acuteness pretends to demonstrate logically the truth of fables that are scientific absurdities ; and is just a part of that system of unreasoning to sustain falsehoods, super­ stitions, and interested fictions, which have so long characterized the schools. To moralize education, then, we must make it general, and direct it out of the mire of mere word-study, into that of the demon­ stration of the realities and wonders of the creation. The pride of sect—that curse and degradation of humanity for the support of idlers—must be broken up ; and that can only be by making truth free to all—for the truth shall make all free. From the earliest infancy the child is dragged to the Sunday-school to learn words of self-esteem and mystification ; and to the church to hear these commented and dogma­ tized upon and sustained, as proved, by quo­ tations, questionable extracts, and fabled sayings and doings of beings who have or have not existed. All is in the vague. He is told every day, every hour, that his sect is better than others—consequently that he— however ignorant, or unworthy—is better than others! This great crime is the begin­ ning of his degradation as a man—he is practically lowered to the grade of the ani­ mal, the criminal—and his actions towards his brethren subsequently, show by their vio­ lence of word and deed the effect of the training. But when you take the child, and putting aside the love of slander and hatred incul­ cated by the old system, simply teach him the great truths found in the wonders of God’s creation, there is no room for selfish feelings, but ample space for admiration, and enthusi­ asm, and love of the Creator and all that he has made. The children of the common Fa­ ther learn instinctively that all are brothers. The intellect develops without effort, and the moral feelings are kept in healthy activity. The mind exclusively occupied in acquiring new scientific facts, finds no time for mere lancies, theories and superstitions. It builds not on sand, but on rock. Fairy tales, novels, fables, and barefaced assertions will lose their influence—compromises with evils, with injustice in the guise of law, with quackery in the guise of medicine, with superstition in the guise of religion, with assertions in the guise of science, will end. And with the progress of a purified intellect may we expect a more correct appreciation of the laws which should govern society, and such an application of them as will obliterate in time those social evils which have so iong disgraced humanitvA." BY CORA L. V. H ATC H . Youngest, rarest household treasure; Source of constant care and pleasure; Bud of promise; gem of beauty; Idol of home’s love and duty— Babe Mabel! Eyes as blue as mirrored ether; Earth and heaven blent together; Roses, girt with lily’s blossom, Paling upon neck and bosom— Fair Mabel! Form of shape and mold most, human, Fittest for a future woman; Sweet caprices; frowning, smiling, Baby anger; now beguiling— Sweet Mabel! Eager face and lips upturning; Proffered kisses often spurning; Giving love when none are wooing; Busy ever with undoing— Witch Mabel I Body poised, its balance trying; Arms outstretched, like wings, for flying; Little feet, uncertain, straying, Life’s first journey just essaying— Brave Mabel! Longer journeys are before thee; May as loving ones bend o’er thee; And, when sterner tasks are calling, May Heaven’s arms shield thee from falling,. Bear Mabel! �The Triend of Progress. ^Relations of the Indians and the General Government. BY CAPTAIN R. J. HINTON, U. S. C. T. The last Congress took steps towards a thorough investigation of the present position and relation of the Indians to the General Government, by the appointment of a Con­ gressional Commission to visit the tribes, and make such investigations as the subject de­ manded. It also considered, though it did not pass, a bill securing a territorial civil or­ ganization for the Indian territory, south of Kansas. Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, one of the ablest and most humane members of the U. S. Senate, is at the head of the Investi­ gating Commission, and this with the presence of the Hon. James Harlan, of Iowa, in the Secretaryship of the Interior, are evidences that a wiser and more equitable adjustment of the status of the American Indian is about to take place. When it shall be generally known that during the progress of the great rebellion, we have maintained an army against Indians, larger than the entire regular army was be­ fore the rebellion; when we remember that we have had two outbreaks of a most disastrous character; that of Minnesota in 1862, and that on the overland and Santa Fe Mail Roads and the settlements contiguous thereto, with the murder of several hundred unpro­ tected settlers, the interruption of our interoceanic lines of travel, and the robbery and destruction of at least five millions dollars of goods and stock, it will be granted that the necessity for a thorough overhauling of our Indian policy is most imperative. We have maintained and now have in the field about fifteen thousand men altogether, employed in looking after the Indians. General Dodge, commanding in Kansas, has two expeditions in the field, and with the troops guarding the great routes, must have at least six thousand men in this service. General Curtis, com­ manding the North-West Department, has about five thousand, half of whom are in the field, the remainder holding the frontier posts, and forts on the upper Missouri. Gen. Conner has at least a brigade in Utah, mainly employed in checking Indian depredations. The Department of the Pacific has considera­ ble expeditions in the Humboldt region, in Washington, and a large force in Arizona. At no time in the history of the Govern­ ment has the necessity been so apparent, of devising some plan of dealing with the Abo­ riginal tribes under our control, alike humane towards them, just to our own citizens, and comprehensive enough to meet the expansion and true growth of the country. The rebellion has broken many idols. It has made the nation conquer its prejudices. War is the sternest of logicians. The premises once ac­ cepted, its conclusions cannot be contro­ verted. One lesson it practically enforces, and that is the duty which devolves upon power, to aid the weak and defend the op­ pressed. The present struggle affords mani­ fold occasions to the statesman to lay broad the foundations of equitable administration. It compels our executive and legislative in­ cumbents to recognize that America means Man, not Caste, and that Democracy repre­ sents the race, and not condition. In this spirit we would deal with the question under discussion. The public mind, even yet in these days of crowding events, retains the terrible recollections of the Minnesota massacres. On the other hand, while we remember with loathing the race that committed such deeds, we also have brought to us, as a companion, yet diverse picture, the story of the endurances, suffering, valor and sacrifices—deeds done in behalf of the Union by loyal Indians, on our south-western frontier. The amazing discoveries of the precious metals in our continental mountain-ranges, and consequent rapid development in popu­ lation and wealth of the territories newly formed there, demand also the adoption of a just and comprehensive policy for the present and prospective government of the Indian tribes, who roam the Sierras Madre and Ne­ vada and their connecting mountain chains. Whatever policy is proposed, or whatever measures be adopted, there should be a care­ ful avoidance on the one hand of the senti­ mentalism which has often characterized discussions of this subject, and on the other, of the crushing-out spirit of the practical West. The romance which attaches itself in the minds of many with relation to the In­ dian character, fades rapidly into a very sensible disgust, wherever we are brought into contact with the tribes scattered through­ out oui’ broad domain. This disgust is hightened most sensibly by the fact, that in the new States and- Territories, Indian Reserva­ tions are the choicest lands as to situation �Relations of the Indians and the General Government. and quality. This excites the white settler’s cupidity and consequent animosity. The fact may be cause for regret; but it is true. Human nature is imperfect, and must be dealt with as such. It cannot be questioned that the policy of treating with the tribes as dependent nationalities, is a mistaken one. They have none of the elements—are within the limits of the Union, and under its authori­ ty. The land belongs by the highest law to those who subdue it to the uses of civiliza­ tion. It cannot be surrendered to or con­ trolled by an idle race, marked by a savage individuality which renders it difficult for them to devote themselves to industrial pur­ poses. Indeed, though the theory has been that the original ownership of the land lies in the Aboriginal tribes, and treaties are con­ tinually made with them, yet the fact is that the Government has always compelled the removal of the Indians, when the necessities of advancing settlements required them for the use of the husbandman. The entire system now pursued by the Government toward the Indian, is wrong, both to them and the white citizens. The placing of the various tribes on reservations scattered wide apart throughout our Western States, is calculated only to increase the num­ ber of well-paid officials, and to deteriorate, debauch, and ultimately to exterminate by drunkenness and disease, the tribes so located. The policy of appointing tribal agents tends only to enrich a large number of politicians and hangers-on, whom the various Senators and Representatives take this method of pen­ sioning upon the national treasury in consid­ eration of party or personal services. We assert from an extended knowledge of the class of men appointed to fill the various In­ dian Agencies, Superintendencies, etc., that considerations of fitness—such as knowledge of the Indian character, a desire to benefit them, acquaintance with agriculture or other arts of civilization, are among the very last things that seem to have entered the minds of the appointing power. The Indian Bureau, as at present managed, is necessarily but a huge machine for enriching a lot of offi­ cials, who desire to make the most of the four years’ lease of power. The only other effect of the existing agencies is to persistently de­ stroy the confidence of the Indians in the Government, to render our frontiers liable to such scenes as have occurred in Minnesota and upon the overland-routes, whenever the HI embarrassments of the nation or the despera­ tion of the savages may afford an opportunity or pretext, and to continually embitter the pioneer population of the West against the unfortunate red men. The other and collateral portion of the present policy, is the payment to Indian tribes of large sums of money in the form of annui­ ties—these payments being with the permit­ ting of authorized traders among the different tribes, who generally manage, with the pe­ culiar faculty which belongs to all connected with the Indians, to enrich themselves at the expense of their customers. By arrangements made with agents, the Indians are permitted to run into debt at the stores, and when the payments are made by the Government, but a small portion of the annuities reach the pock­ ets ofthose for whom they are intended. Ex­ amination of the accounts of a trader to any tribe will disclose how enormous are the profits of the traffic, and how large a portion thereof is for articles which are of no practi­ cal benefit. Paint, beads, paltry and gaudy articles of dress, constitute the largest items in the bills incurred by the Indians at their trading-posts. The fiction is that agents have nothing to do with traders. The truth, however, is that they obtain a large percent­ age of these profits. It can be readily seen how such temptations tend to illegitimate ar­ rangements. On this subject we find the fol­ lowing well-considered suggestions of Judge Usher, in a late report. They deserve con­ sideration and contain the germ of the true Indian policy which should be pursued by the National Government: “lam iully convinced that many serious difficulties grow out of the practice of permitting traders to sell goods and other property to the Indians on credit. The profits which are made by the traders, might be used for the Indians. It seems to me expedient for Congress to provide by law, for the purchase of such goods, agricultural implements, stock, and such other articles as the Indians need, to be paid for from the sums provided by treaties to be paid to the Indians. These should be placed in charge of a store-keeper under the control of the agent, and should be delivered to the Indians as their necessities may require, charging them only the cost and transportation. All contracts with them should be prohibited, and all promises or obligations made by them be declared void. A radical change in the mode of treatment of the Indians, should, in my �The Friend of Progress. judgment, be adopted. Instead of being treated as independent nations, they should be regarded as wards of the Government, en­ titled to its fostering care and protection. Suitable districts of country should be assign­ ed to them for their homes, and the Govern­ ment should supply them, through its own agents, with such articles as they use, until they can be instructed to earn their subsist­ ence by their labor.” Mr. Usher has struck the key-note of the whole question, in the expression that the Indians should be regarded “as wards of the Government, entitled to its fostering care and protection.” The same principle has forced itself upon our attention in the necessities at­ tending the condition of the freed people of the South. It grows out of the demands of a Christian civilization which compels a re­ cognition of the duty incumbent upon power, wealth, culture, to protect the weak and lift up the ignorant to higher planes of progress. Neither the Negro or the Indian can develop in isolation. Both are eminently gregarious, though differing widely in the manifestations thereof. Hence the futility of endeavoring to save and elevate the Indians by the present system, apart from just objections to it, found­ ed on the opportunities for plunder on the part of those connected with them. The most feasible and practicable plan for the protection and advancement of both Indians and whites, seems to be found in the Territo­ rial system hinted at by Secretary Usher, more elaborately stated by Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, in a paper laid before the Indian Bureau, and published in Mr. Commissioner Dole’s report for 1862, which plan has been broached to the loyal Indians of the Territory west of Arkansas. This plan had reference mainly to the semi-civilized tribes living on reservations in the State of Kansas, and con­ templated their removal to the Territory oc­ cupied by the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminóles. We propose to elaborate this same plan and show its appli­ cation to a settlement of the entire question under discussion. To do this properly, some statements should be given as to the numbers, condition, pro­ gress, locations of the Indian tribes within the United States. From the preliminary report of the Eighth Census, we copy the following table of the Indian population, retaining their tribal character and not enumerated in the Census: West of Arkansas,.. G5,680 California,............... 13,540 Georgia,....................... 377 Indiana,...................... 384 Kansas...................... 8,189 Michigan,................. 7,777 Minnesota............... 17,900 Mississippi,................ 900 New York,................ 3,785 North Carolina......... 1,499 I Oregon,..................... 7,000 Tennessee,................ 181 Wisconsin,................ 2,833 Colorado Ter.,......... 6,000 Dacotah Ter.,......... 39.664 Nebraska Ter.,......... 3,072 N evada Ter............... 7,550 New Mexico Ter., . .55,100 Utah Ter.,.............. 20,000 Washington Ter.,.. 31,000 I i I I 294,431 Governor Evans, of Colorado, states in his first Report to the Indian Bureau, that the Utahs, Kiowas, and Comanches number 10,000, and range in the western part of that Territory. Large bands of the Kiowas and Comanches roam through portions of Colora­ do, New Mexico, and the Indian Territory. All of these tribes are wild and warlike. Since the spring of 1864 they have been in constant hostility. The long continued inter­ ruption of the Overland Mail and Telegraph, with robberies and murders committed upon the frontier settlements of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, during the last ten months, point conclusively to the necessity of com­ ing to some permanent, just understanding with these tribes, and all similar ones; or, if that be not possible, then to a war so com­ plete, thorough, and energetic as shall once for all break down and destroy the warlike marauds of the plains. We are also urged to the adoption of a correct policy towards tribes that have not yet made treaties, by the rapid growth of our empire in the direction of their haunts, and consequent necessity of providing equitably for their wants. In addi­ tion to those enumerated in the foregoing table, tribes which bear relation to the Gen­ eral Government of a more or less distinct character, there are probably not less than one hundred and fifty thousand belonging to tribes which have not yet acknowledged our rule while living within our Territory, and who are more or less in hostility to our people. We believe that we under- rather than over­ estimate the number. A glance at the map, and at the location of the principal bodies of Indians, will readily show that any territorial system which will cover the whole case, must involve at least the location of four districts, of suitable extent and character to support the entire Indian population within the territorial area of the Union. The most prominent, because, from the circumstances attending its past and present history, the most accessible and suita­ ble, is the region known as the Indian Terri­ tory, bounded on the North by Kansas, South. �delations of the Indians and the General Government. 279 by Texas, East by Arkansas and a small strip the Federal authority in Florida, Hal-us-tus■of South-West Missouri, and West by New tenug-gee, was the leader of his people in the Mexico. It contains an area of 74,127 square battles they fought in common with Creeks miles, or 47,441,480 acres, being in length and Cherokees, against their rebel brethren east and west, 320, and breadth, North and in November and December, 1861, and since South, 220 miles. It has a delightful climate as members of the Indian Brigade of the in the same zone as Mississippi, Alabama, Army of the Frontier, under Major General and the Carolinas, producing in abundance Blunt. Captain Billy Bowlegs is in command the cereals of the temperate and the products of the Seminole company, in the Federal of semi-tropical States, and having a virgin service. He is a nephew of the chief who soil of inexhaustible fertility, it offers a tempt­ resisted so long in Florida. They number ing field to the labor of the emigrant. The 2,226 persons. The Choctaws are disloyal, eastern portion is well watered, and wooded being intensely pro-slavery. They numbered by the Arkansas, Canadian, and Red River, 18,000, and owned 2,297 slaves. They are and such streams as the Neosho, Grand, well educated, and supported, before the war, Illinoise, Elk, Verdigris, Spring, and other the largest number of schools. The Chickaminor water-courses. The whole country is saws form part of the Choctaw Nation. They admirably adapted to the raising of stock. number 5,000. This is true of the western portion, the vast The rebellion has materially changed this. prairies of which will afford a congenial occu­ Slavery is dead among these tribes, and this pation for the Indian, in the care of the herds removes one obstacle to an equitable re­ and flocks which will one day cover the buf­ adjustment. They numbered 60,000 of the falo range. 65,000 Indians living in this Territory. The The fact of the settlement of the eastern negroes, slaves and free, 7,773, and the portion of this territory by the well civilized whites 1,988. This, according to the census tribes that now inhabit it, and the necessity of 1860. The mortality has been terrible for new treaties with them, owing to the since. The casualties of war, and the rava­ changes produced by the rebellion, points to ges of famine and disease, must have reduced this territory as the mostiavorable district for them at least 20,000. The present population may, therefore, be set down as about 55,000, liberally carrying out a new policy. The five principal tribes, Cherokees, Creeks. all told, including those in the Federal and Choctaws, Chickaaaws, and Seminoles, were, Rebel service. at the commencement of the war, among the In this Territory we propose that the Gov­ wealthiest communities in the continent. ernment shall offer homes to all of the semi­ They were large farmers, slave-owners, and civilized tribes of Kansas, Southern Nebraska, stock-raisers. The Cherokees were the own­ Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and ers of 2,504 slaves. Their personal wealth perhaps Minnesota. The tribes who come was very large. The war has changed the under the designation of civilized, will number character of affairs and reduced them to pov­ about 30,000, and be possessed of considera­ erty. The loyal Cherokees exhibit a com­ ble wealth and intelligence. The alternative mendable spirit of adaptation to their new may be presented to the more advanced of surroundings. They have abolished slavery, them, who yet preserve a distinctive charac­ making colored natives of the Territory citi­ ter, of abandoning the tribal form, national zens. disfranchised the rebels, and otherwise annuities, and taking their present reserva­ legislated in that direction. They express tions in severality, and thereby becoming­ themselves willing to make arrangements for citizens of the United States. Those who do the settlement of other Indians in their midst. not choose to accept this, and are desirous The Creeks are an important tribe. The of preserving their semi-national existence, loyal members of this tribe, comprising a can be removed to the Indian Territory, and large majority, have abolished slavery, accord located on new homes, where the necessary citizenship to the negroes and whites in their steps should be taken to provide for them midst, donate lands to the freed people, and until their industry returns support. Such a on equitable terms cede to the Government Territory and population, wisely managed lands for the settlement of their tribes. and generously provided for, would in a very The Seminoles are a small and intensely few years be a self-supporting community, loyal people. One of the last chiefs to resist affording the nation the satisfaction of seeing �280 The Friend of Progress. the Aboriginal race preserved and made of value to themselves as well as to the country. Might we not well hope, if a wise policy was pursued, to see it asking admission a few years hence as a Free State into the Union? In the meantime a delegate might be allowed them in Congress. The Fosses, Christy, Dowing, and other chiefs of the civilized In­ dians, are able and educated men. Objections may be urged to this plan, of expense in removal, necessity of a large military force to preserve order, and similar arguments. We reply, that the economy in the Indian admin­ istration here would in a short period more than compensate for the expense incurred by removal, provided that in all future arrange­ ments, the system of trading, of paying annui­ ties, and of tribal agents now in vogue, be entirely abolished. Experience has proved the capacity of these loyal Indians to act as soldiers, and to defend their own homes and interests. There are three regiments of mounted infantry (Indians') in the United States service jn that Territory. These In­ dians can be intrusted with their own police. They should, when practicable, be intrusted with such duty, if only for the purpose of edu­ cating them up to the full requirements of citizenship. Thus much by way of suggestion in relation to the Indian Territory. For the tribes located and roaming in Northern Nebraska, Idaho, Dakota, Minneso­ ta, and the Lake Superior region, a Territory should be organized in some portion of the North-West. A portion of Dakota could be wisely selected. It will not do to locate it too near the mountains, as the continued gold discoveries attract emigrants hitherward, and will necessarily disturb the Indians. Such a district must be chosen with a view to a cer­ tain accessibility in supplying the military force that will be required among them for some years. It should be adapted to agri­ cultural and grazing purposes, and be sup­ plied with fuel and water. Gen. Pope, when in command of the NorthWest, suggested the territory north and east of the Upper Missouri, and west of the James River. The country around Lake Mini Wakan, and at the head of the Plateaus De Coteau, Du Missouri, and Du Coteau Du Sioux, is an admirable location, and his policy has been to establish a chain of posts from the Red River in Minnesota, to the Missouri, and up to the confluence of the Yellowstone, and gradually drive in the hostile Sioux, placing a cordon around to retain them there. He succeeded to a considerable extent, and if his policy be pursued fully, it will work well. With the wants of the Indians properly supplied, and a judicious selection of officers over them, this population, now the source of uneasiness, may be made valuable and selfsustaining. In this relation it would be wise to select agents from among educated half­ breeds and missionaries, men whose identifi­ cation with and knowledge of the race, will en­ able them to deal understanding^ and justly. There is now left to care for, the tribes within the Pacific States and Territories, and among the mining region of the Sierra Madre or Rocky Mountains. For a large portion of those in Colorado, suitable homes can be found in the western portion of the Indian Territory. For tribes to whom that country might not be adapted, a portion of Utah might be obtained. Here the mountain tribes of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada might be gathered and controlled. In New Mexico the condition of the tribes at all tamable, the ex­ istence of the Puebla Indians offers a success­ ful result for the guidance of new experiments. We have not the details of their life and pro­ gress, though we know generally of their industry and good order. To the devoted priests of the Catholic church belongs the honor of civilizing these people. They have always been successful, and it would pay the Government to support missionaries of that faith among the red men of the west. There are tribes in New Mexico and Arizona, who seem determined to die in their independence, rather than submit to civilization or the en­ croachments of the w’hite man. Such are the. Navajoes and Appaches. These must submit, if not to peace, then to be crushed. The present amazing gold discoveries in these Territories demands this. Civilization needs wealth to aid its forward march. Gen. Carleton, commanding in New Mexico, has succeeded in effectually subduing the Navajoes. This is the first time for one hun­ dred and fifty years, that anything like peace has been brought about. He is now en­ gaged and has been for twelve months past engaged in removing them from their moun­ tain homes to the valley of the Bosque Redonds, where it is intended to locate all but the Pueblas. For the Appaches of Arizona, who, during two hundred years, have deso­ lated this region, nothing short of remorseless warfare will succeed. �Each Fights for AU. Is it best for humanity that the inexhausti­ ble treasure hived by the centuries, and held safely locked in the primal granite of the mother-mountains as a sacred trust for the era enterprising enough to demand their hitherto unproductive riches, should be snatched from us by a sentimental reverence for the hypothetical rights of a dog-in-themanger people who can neither use nor de­ velop such wealth themselves, nor will allow any other people to do so ? Is the nation that wrung free commerce from the Japanese, likely to allow the uncultured Indians to throw barriers in the way of its advancing march? The question is an important one. The onward progress of benign civilization should not be stayed, while justice and mag­ nanimity should always take part in the deci­ sions of a great nation. Upon the Pacific coast there is the same need of a just Indian policy. In California there are fifteen thousand of this race, who have neither lands nor homes. They have not even the poor satisfaction of a paltry reserva­ tion. The Spaniard never recognized the Indian land-title, and we, succeeding to his sovereignty, have succeeded to his policy. Something must be done for the Californian Indians. Would it not be practicable to ob­ tain sufficient territory, say in Washington, to mass the tribes of California, Oregon, and the territory named, carrying out the same gen­ eral policy suggested herein for the manage­ ment of the proposed Indian territory ? The plan here suggested is the result of careful thought, observation, and desire to deal rightly by the Indians and our own people. We are not wedded to it as a hobby, but rather suggest it as a measure of practical and beneficent policy. The great end and aim of all efforts in this nation for the amelio­ ration and advancement of any portion of the population placed as are the Indians or ne­ groes, must be to clear the path, aiding them to reach the utilities of an industrial and Christian Democracy, that thereby they may become worthy of being an integral portion of that nationality which, aiming to establish in Government the ideal justice, will yet prove practically that all men are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 281 The sons of light in every age and zone, Though on the cross, the gibbet, or the throne, Now armed with love, the martyrs of a faith, And now with steel, the anointed priests of death, Who shed the tyrant’s or their own best blood, Stand rank to rank one serried brotherhood; Moses who smote the Egyptian to the dust, With him who died the Just for the unjust: Deep-thoughted Plato with his mystic “ word,” And fiery Cromwell armed with Gid eon’s sword, Melancthon mild, with Luther roughly strong— That storm-plowed crag with its lark’s nest of song; Fair tyrant-slayers, Jael and Corday, With brave Grace Darling plucking ocean’s prey Out of his foaming jaws, and her, as brave, That Nightingale whose music ’tis to save ; AU free strong natures, beautiful and clear, Who make earth better, and the heavens more near, Servants of God—the sacramental host Who bear his banners down the invaded coast Of flying darkness, form one dauntless corps, To whom yon million worlds add countless thousands more. A thousand rivers swell the same free surge, A hundred ways to one fair town converge, An 4 rock, and tree, and treasures of the mine, In one grand temple, one sweet home com­ bine : So meet all gifts in service of the One Who rays them out as from a central sun. He builds for all who builds by inward law, For years unborn, and lands he never saw: The smallest insect in the coral reef, Unseen, unseeing, and of life so brief, With pulpy arms too powerless to command The ponderous motions of a grain of sand, Weaving at once his vest and burial robe, Lays the foundations of the solid globe ; So true work grows and least at last is great, And each serves All in one well-ordered state. The sword Harmodius on the tyrant drew, If justly drawn, struck well for me and you; The song of Miriam, by the avenging sea, Was sung for bondmen on the dark Santee ; The people’s cry that crumbled the Bastile, Was the old shout that made first darkness reel. When Spartan valor kept that narrow pass Where Freedom fell with slain Leonidas, Not Persia’s millions could subdue the braves, Nor all the centuries trampling on their graves: They strike for Freedom in her every blow— The soul is the most powerful of all poisons. Their deed sheds light on every dauntless brow; It is the most penetrating and diffusible stim­ Who dares to die to make a people free, ulus.—Novalis. Still guards unconquered his Thermopj las : �282 The Friend of Progress. Hope of the nations—heir of pure renown, Though named Leonidas or Old John Brown ! A gallant spirit never breathed our air. But left some touch of nobler being there ; No heart of pity soothed a brother’s pain, But sent some pulse to life’s remotest vein: A soul of truth becomes a Name of power— The saving watchword of a crisis’ hour: Around great natures, with no trumpet-call, The peoples rally, proud to fight and fall. They choose their lords as doth the lioness, Who wins the battle, wins their love’s caress. What though, as round their rival chiefs they crowd, A hundred war-cries shake their streamers proud, Till all that clamor to pained ears might seem The wild disorder of a frenzied dream ; Ore spirit rears each burning Gonfalon, And men are clanships because Man is one ! [From “Answers to Questions.”] Psycliometrical Examination of Abraham Lincoln. BY A. J. DAVIS. By particular request, a friend in Wash­ ington furnished the President’s autograph and a scrap of his hand-writing. By this method a connection with the characteristics of Mr. Lincoln was perfected, and the results of the examination are herewith respectfully submitted. I have no personal knowledge of the mental peculiarities of the President. What is here given, therefore, must stand or fall, according to the facts in possession of those who know him best. I shall welcome the verdict of his most intimate friends; more especially do I wait for proofs to be furnished by him as President of the United States. [The following was written soon after Mr. Lincoln entered upon the duties of his office in 1861.] IMPRESSIONS ON VIEWING HIM OBJECTIVELY. His physical system is muscularly, but not vitally, powerful. It is unevenly developed in the joints and sockets. He is not nervous, elastic, or sensitive; and yet, with respect to bodily endurance, he is remarkably easy, steady, and unyielding. With care he can resist the approach of disease in any form ex­ cept in the loins and throat. His internal organs are not large, but their functions are steadily and fully performed. He is built to sustain a prodigious quantity of either manual or mental labor; but such labor, to be well done, must be very carefully graduated by an orderly division of days and hours. He must not be hurried and urged beyond his natural deliberateness. He is rapid only when under ; the action of his own temperaments. All j outward stimuli, in the shape of air, and foods, and drinks, exert but little effect. j . In conversation, or when addressing a mul­ titude, the same seli-steadiness is exhibited. There is no dissimulation in his manners; no attempt to stand straighter, to look hand­ somer, to speak more eloquently, or to act more gracefully, than when alone with a friend or in the retirement of his family. He is not impetuous in physical gesture, but em­ phatic and strong, with an irregularity which is almost eccentric and quite original. He appears like a man not fond of parlor life. Temporal comforts do not tempt him from the rugged paths of duty. His features are indicative of honor, sincerity, simplicity, generosity, and good nature, with much of the indomitable and unchangeable. IMPRESSIONS ON VIEWING HIM SOCIALLY. His domestic affections are temperate and unwavering, but not powerful, and yet, at home with his family, there is no man more happy and contented. Children are interest­ ing to him when they are playful. But his tongue is the quickest to interest the young. He appreciates the young mind, is attracted by its simplicities, and is ever ready to hear or relate a story. But this man is not over-much wedded to locality. He is not a traveler by nature, and yet a change of place is rather a relief to, than a tax upon his feelings. His private life is remarkable for artless­ ness and uniform truthfulness. Warm and confiding to his friends, and never embittered toward his enemies, he smooths the path of many in his vicinity. He is fond of praise, but is likely to remain firm in friendship, un­ der the lash of private disapprobation. He is not hasty to demolish his opponent, even when he has been sorely aggrieved by him, but rather inclines to give his enemy another conscious opportunity for reflection. IMPRESSIONS ON VIEWING HIM INTELLECTUALLY. There is a singular texture of brain for his mind to act through. It is elastic only after repeated exertions to bring it into action. Then his intellectual organs act separately, so to say, or one at a time—each, like an inde­ pendent entity, doing its duty singly, and with­ out consulting the feelings or inclinations of its fellow-laborers. His understanding of a matter is at first unsatisfactory to himself. The facts, and fragments, and data of an event or case first occupy all the spare rooms in the department of bis intelligence. Things, and persons, and places, and the acts of agents in relation to them, cluster in chaotic groups before his perceptions. He is, there­ fore, not certain, at first, whether he sees things in their proper places, and whether he appreciates the full import and force of a single fact; but, guided by a wholesome and powerful love of accuracy, he persists in ob­ serving, and arranging, and recombining the items of a matter, untd, with an approbation wholly internal, he fixes his opinions and proceeds therefrom to act. There is a critical and studied adhesion to established rules of thought and reasoning. He dreads an unauthorized digression from the recognized powers in either law, politics, �Psychometrical Examination of Abraham Lincoln. or religion. And yet he pays deferential respect to the deductions of no one mind in any department of human interest. His per­ ceptive powers are active, and readily dis­ cover the errors and tricks of men, and are equally quick to detect a ridiculous flaw in an argument, or the most assailable point in a general proposition. He will rely on his own judgment, and is unwavering in attach­ ment to his own conclusions. There is nothing impetuous in the delibera­ tions of such a mind. The lightning flash of ! genius, though it might reveal to his eyes the inlinite unity of the universe, would not move him. The range of real principles he must infer from the position, magnitude, multipli­ city, and force otfacts. He cannot penetrate the surface by intuition, but must enter in at the open door of events and data. Shelley’s poetry could interest his mind rarely, but be would glean much poetry from the sermons of Dr. Channing. History would give much rest to his intellect; but science, if it should smell of mountains, and forests, and grand objects in space, as geology and astronomy, would yield the largest gratification. And yet this man’s mind is never satisfied unless its deductions are consistent with the major elements of hu­ man nature. IMPRESSIONS ON VIEWING HIM MORALLY. By this I mean spiritually, or with reference to the most interior and religious attributes of his being. He is a man of talent and indus­ try, but no genius, no man for the moment, no ability to decide in advance of reflection and analysis. The man of intuition is impoli­ tic and revolutionary. Mr. Lincoln is no such man. He is willing to accept a great responsi­ bility, to act well his whole duty, and to leave things as he found them. A new State and the foundations of new Laws are the electrical eliminations of genius. Strong minds are certain to elaborate and administer the inspi­ rations of genius, but such minds cannot elec­ trify a country with the enunciation of any very revolutionary law. No new truth ever bubbles over the bowl of their lives. Mental powers are unfertile, unless fed and fostered by the endless fires of truth and justice. Morally speaking, Mr. Lincoln is what the religious world would call a “naturally good man.” Whether sanctified by faith or not, his “works” are distinguished by an ex­ tremely sensitive regard to everybody’s rights and everybody’s greatest welfare. Justice, when tempered with a gentle paternal mercy, is dear to him. He is, however, more benevo­ lent than conservative, and more humanely sympathetic than conscientious, and is there­ fore liable to err and come short .under the pressure of appeals from the unfortunate. In all matters intrusted to his care and control, he is self-sacrificing and faithful to the end, with very much' beautiful self-forgetfulness and straightforward integrity. But there is a remarkable trait in this man’s spirit, not often found among professed poli­ ticians, and that is, a willingness to concede that he does not know what will occur to­ 283 morrow. For this reason he is teachable, and is most anxious to gain knowledge from almost every imaginable source. How earn­ estly and sincerely, how calmly and faithfully, does Mr. Lincoln give audience, even to the discourse of the least of his associates! The modesty of his manner is an earnest of his moral excellence. He cannot be certain that his knowledge is up to the measure of to­ morrow’s consequences; wherefore he, unlike the conceited pettifogger and political mountebank, is open to more light and instruction. I think he would be much rejoiced to learn of the departed concerning the eternal to­ morrow. But shall we not also mention that this man is a close-mouth ed-keeper of “ his own counsels” ?* This trait is observable, even to his most intimate friends, with whom he is ever confiding. Whenever there is the least obscurity, he hesitates, checks his impulses, and looks steadily toward consequences. The doctrine of Retribution, so far as be is indi­ vidually concerned, would seem to have no weight. He is above personal fear, and does not court public favor or position: but the question whether the results of a given course will subserve the interests of mankind, is very deliberately revolved by his moral faculties. Cajoling demagogues cannot captivate this man’s moral forces. He is silent, but firm, amid cotton-lords and slave-dealing monopo­ lies. He is fond of progressive civilization, amid the strongholds of conservatism and aristocracy, and'the God of his heart is for lawful freedom and unitary strength. He appreciates the loathsomeness of treason, sees its deadly blight as it steals over the minds of once faithful men, and yet enter­ tains glorious hopes and undimmed faith in the direction of freedom and peace. IMPRESSIONS ON VIEWING HIM INDIVIDUALLY. Under this head I propose to give the sum of Mr. Lincoln’s character in its relation to the world. He is cordial, loves to entertain friends, but is not fastidious in the matter of selection; and is a devoted friend and brother to all. But, intellectually and morally, he is too cautious and too fearful of doing wrong, to be party to any very original or revolu­ tionary scheme. He will step slowly, and firmly, and independently; but, in the mean­ time, many things will come to light, and events will transpire which will compel a modification of procedure. Of enemies, Mr. Lincoln will have but few. Of friends, among all parties, as long as he lives, there will be a great multitude. He is a true American citi­ zen, and believes not in leading public senti­ ment, but following it, guided only by the Constitution and thelaws'of Congress. While, he. listens deferentially to those about him, including the constituents of his Cabinet, he is not the man to be carried be­ yond his own judgment. He will surely act according to the orders of his individual reason and will. It is folly to suppose that any diplo­ matist or influential legislator can succeed long in warping the judgment of this con­ scientious man. • �284 The Triend of Progress. Mr. Lincoln is a very prudential character, and would not transcend the letter of the law. Its letter and its spirit are inseparable in his eyes. He is preeminently a man of “peace,” and would not object to a “compro­ mise,” if the people so declared their wishes; but from him the world may never expect such a proposition to emanate. There is, however, some danger to be apprehended from the exceedingly sympathetic, cautious, legal, and economical suggestions of his peculiar mental structure. The poet has very nearly defined his conception of what should consti­ tute the foundations and glory of our Govern­ ment: “----- Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above the brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude— Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare main­ tain, Prevent the long aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: These constitute a State; And sovereign Law, that State’s collected will, O’er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.” Let the country take counsel of its hopes, and despair not, for there is a divinity, behind the presidential mind, which will direct heaven’s high purposes, and bring a better day out of this black and awful night. Mr. Lincoln will betray no trust, neither will he shrink from still more pressing responsibili­ ties; and the people would do well to share the burthen of sympathy and care with which he is oppressed. BY PHCEBE CARY. Alas, alas! how many sighs Are breathed for his sad fate, who dies With triumph dawning on his eyes. Who sees amid their ranks go down, Great men, that never won renown, And martyrs, with no martyr’s crown ? Unrecognized, a poet slips Into death’s total, long eclipse, With breaking heart, and wordless lips ; And never any brother true, Utters the praise that was his due— “ This man was greater than ye knew!” No maiden by his grave appears,* Crying out in long after years, “I would have loved him,” through her tears. We weep for her, untimely dead, Who should have pressed the marriage-bed— Yet to death’s chamber went instead. But who deplores the sadder fate Of her who finds no mortal mate, And lives and dies most desolate ? Alas ! ’tis sorrowful to know That she who finds least love below, Finds least of pity for her woe. Hard is her fate who feels life past, Though loving hands still hold her fast, And loving eyes watch to the last. But she, whose lids no kisses prest, Who crossed her own hands on her breast, And went to her eternal rest; She had so sad a lot below, That her unutterable woe Only the pitying God can know ! When little hands have dropped away From the warm bosom where they lay,, And the poor mother holds but clay : What human lip that does not moan, What heart that does not inly groan, And make such suffering its own ? Yet, sitting mute in their despair, With their unnoticed griefs to bear,, Are childless women everywhere ; What thousands for the soldier weep, From his first battle gone to sleep That slumber which is true and deep. Who never knew, nor understood, That which is woman’s greatest good, The sacredness of motherhood ! But who about his fate can tell, Who struggled manfully and well; Yet fainted on the march, and fell ? But putting down their hopes and fears,. Claiming no pity and no tears, They live the measure of their years. Or who above his rest makes moan, Who dies in the sick tent alone— “ Only a private, name unknown !” They see age stealing on apace, And put the gray hairs from their face, No children’s fingers shall displace ! What tears down pity’s cheek have run For poets singing in the sun, Stopped suddenly, their song half done. Though grief hath many a form and show, I think that unloved women know The very bottom of life’s woe ! But for the hosts of souls below, Who to eternal silence go, Hiding ttupr great unspoken woe : And that the God, who pitying sees, Hath yet a recompense for these, Kept in the long eternities! �The Inner Temple. The Inner Temple. BY ESTELLE. I have somewhere read, long ago, of a heathen devotee, who had constructed, in a corner of the temple where devotions were Offered to the gods, a chamber, which was kept sacred to his own use; no profaning foot was allowed to enter there, no irreverent or carious eye must gaze therein, lest some bab­ bling lip may whisper the secrets of the con­ secrated chamber—the Inner Temple belonged wholly to himself and the gods he worshiped. Deep in the corner of every human heart, far hidden from every eye, is an Inner Temple, consecrated to the uses of the individual alone. We all meet upon a visible plane—we live our outward life of rejoicing, of sorrow, of prosperity, of want—we call this one covetous, that one a profligate, here is a moral hero, there a bigot. They pass us on the street, and sit at our table, labeled with the verdict of their fellow men: avaricious, sycophantic, generous, amiable. We stamp them compla­ cently, and there is no appeal from our deci­ sion. Human nature, we say, is as an open book, that he who will may read. We call ourselves students of human nature. We penetrate the weaknesses of our fellow mortal, and when we have discovered a great flaw or weakness in his character, we rub our hands with complacent, self-paid compliments for our own cleverness. Atas for the student of human nature! When we have read and combined all the fin­ ger-boards of a man’s character, which Nature has placed upon each of her children—when opposing elements have been carefully bal­ anced, predominant passions brought for­ ward, all points summed up into an infallible whole, what have we gained ? The vestibule to the Inner Temple only—the door of the secret chamber is closed, and the key is not in our possession. We act our various roles in life behind a mask, not bceause of will, but of necessity. Once in a life-time some one is found to whom this Holy of Holies is revealed. What bliss to wander hand in hand with this kindred spirit, down the rough valleys, and up the sunny slopes of this life, to lay down the burden of mortality together, and mingle in the glories of immortality, one mind and one soul. 285 But though this inner life is, and must of necessity be a sealed chapter to us, I often amuse myself by speculating upon its nature, as developed by outer indications. I once saw a poor woman returning after a day of hard labor to her miserable hovel, stooping to pick a stunted, faded blossom, on which the summer dust had gathered thickly, and it pleased me to imagine that in the Inner Temple rare flowers bloomed, and sweet birds sang, and music and fragrance shed their soft­ ening influence over her life of squalor, pov­ erty, and wretchedness. I have seen a friend sit at her piano when twilight shadows were gathering in the room, and let her fingers wander over the keys in a sort of dreamy trance, wakening harmonies that were never practiced under the eye of a teacher, or learned from books; and I knew, if she did not, that she was playing for the spirit that dwelt in the Inner Temple. Best gift of Nature when its outward mani­ festations are harmony, charity^ kindness, and love. How terrible when it becomes the abode of demoniac passions—a secret cham­ ber full of unclean images, where the imagi­ nation delights to wander, groveling in gross­ ness and sensuality of spirit, while the avenues are kept pharisaically clean and pure for the eyes of the world. “ If I keep my thoughts to myself they can do no harm, ” says the spiritual debauchee. A little longer, and the screen of mortality is laid aside, and he can behold the blackness of ashes where the vestal flame should be burn­ ing—the walls defaced with hideous images, a temple where none but evil passions could delight to dwell—images, which it will take years of progress to erase. Every offense against purity leaves a scar upon the soul. Alas for those to whom the Inner Temple is but the tomb of a dead or crucified love, waiting the touch of the shining finger ef the Angel of Death to roll the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher, that this love may rise transfigured and glorified, with wings poised for the spheres of immortality. “Your unvarying cheerfulness is unac­ countable to me, ” said a friend to me one day., “ If I did not know you better I should say yon were too frivolous to realize misfortune.” “I dwell in my Inner Temple,” was the nnspoken reply, saddened by the thought that this faithful friend of years, whose hand had clasped ours in love a thousand times, knew so little of that bright realm where fragrance, �■286 The Friend of Progress. and sunshine, and music, and all things beau­ tiful, reign perpetually, and cast their shi­ ning halo over the adversities of common life—a splendor that turns its common dross to precious gold. Alas for those who sit together at the hearth with clasped hands on winter nights, and in the wailing wind without can hear no undertone of harmony—who sit day after day at the same table, who lie down at night, and rise in the morning together, who walk side by side through life, and ever strive vainly to pierce the vail that separates their souls, gro­ ping with baffled fingers for the entrance to that spiritual chamber where where each holds converse with his own imaginings. Guard well the Inner Temple. Cleanse it from envy, from impurity, from uncharitable­ ness—so shall you be more prepared to enter into that life where suffering is not, and sor­ row cannot come. sighted friends are not the most agreeable persons to have relations with. To them the object they are after, the evil to be remedied, the patch of color or limb just before their eyes, is the one only noble purpose of life. All who do not run in their grooves are sav­ agely denounced; all who, looking beyond, see the soft landscape stretching away into a beautiful perspective; all who see how the Divine Artist has rounded out the statue of life into complete and perfect proportions, and therefore cannot give more attention than properly due, to the apparent imperfection of detail; these are denounced and derided as wanting earnestness, and as unworthy workers. Let us not eschew earnestness. Let us be zealous, but at the same time tone our judg­ ments by that divine charity which recognizes the finiteness of man, the imperfection of his surroundings, and the controlling power of circumstance. Fight we the evil with the spirit of the Crusaders, but let it be the evil, and not so much the individual doers thereof, who, after all, are likewise its victims. H. A Single String. Some one says: “ The more music you can make on one string the less it will cost you to keep your fiddle strung.” The advice is poor economy unless toe instrument be played by a master hand. It takes a Paganini to make harmony from a single string. The richest lives are not found among the one-idea men. When, however, the subtile keys of melody or thought have been touched, genuis can create from its single truth or chord, that world of weird’suggestions and correspondence, from which the rhythmical harmonies are evolved. A single great idea., like the central chord in music, is a key by which the possessor unravels the spiritual universe, and enters into all mysteries. Yet, let none believe that either life or mu­ sic can be perfect upon the one-string theory. Development is the distinctive mark of this era. Harmony is the hope of the age. How do we see men whose devotion to one thought, one purpose,—whose resistance to one evil, has completely obscured their vision in all other directions. These are the genuine fanatics; persons who get so near the object aimed at, that they cannot see its relations to the other parts of the universal whole. I have seen a near-sighted man looking at a picture or statue. Forced by his infirmity to get near the object, it was utterly impossible for him to see beyond that portion upon which his eyes rested. Tiie tout ensemble is invisible to him, or only to be absorbed by slow and painful efforts. Is not this an example of the rigid, unbending pu­ rist, the possessed one-ideaist. The near­ sighted men, either in physical or mental life, acquire a microscopic minuteness and accu­ racy which in some degree makes up for their deficiency of breadth and comprehensiveness of vision. But in mental activities our near­ BY LOUISE PALMER, Her letter lies under my pillow—its words burn heart and brain ; Ten days ago their warming changed to the smarting fire of pain: “My lover dear,” she says, “Of strong men prince and flower, I hold my soul in patience up, and watch and wait the hour When past all shouting in the street to my list­ ening ear shall come The eager tread oi your manly feet in the regiment marching home. 0 happiest girl in the warring land to reach the day at length When my hero’s arms shall shut me close in the safety of their strength.” Bitterest words to me who lie in the hospital ward alone, With a crippling wound in my leg, and my arm forever gone! She fills her heart with her lover’s praise in dreams that never tire, Nor knows he lies a shattered wreck—past any heart’s desire. Her own will fail when she comes to see—I have no fear for her truth; She will turn her pride to protection—her love to sorrowing ruth. For that you know, is a woman—forever patient and true In sacrifice to your need of her, while she needs nothing of you: That brings the question quick to heart with subtlest rankle and sting, What have I to give for her perfect youthmost sweet and precious thing 1 �Relinquish eel. What but the burden of my loss to clog her lightsome years— My weakness where God meant support—a cloud of cares and tears. Yet every pulse of my broken life tremulous yearns and stirs To bind its pitiful weakness up with the joyous strength of hers! In passionate prime when I held you close in the grace of a first caress, And called you my Lizzie, my own for life, I loved and wanted you less Than now, as I lie all nerveless, spent, and wan with the pallor of pain, And no right arm to draw you close to my longing heart again. 287 I To thick of the added care oi a wife, and beg your kindly release.” Such speech as this will kindle her pride and the fire of her quick disdain Will snap the bond her pity would bind like the links of a daisy-chain. The letter is ended and sped, and I think of it day by day; On its journey home, where I thought to be taking my eager way, Till it reaches the hand whose tender touch I was hoping now to feel. I think of her face as its impatient eyes the letter’s sense reveal! As quick along the rambling lines her kindling glances scan, I know I can hobble home on my crutch, and She will not guess my heart’s best blood along claim my promised wife— the letters ran. Creep into the arms of her pity and shelter me there for life. 0 sweet and strong temptation! 0 precious I did not know that mortal days could float a man so slow; rest to win! God help me rally what manhood’s left against Once cast aloose from love and hope on their dull tide to flow! the lovely sin! Lord save me from the selfish deed of taking I feel the longing lack of her loss in every leaden hour: her life for mine ; Let me give her freedom, the one good gift Yet keep like a fool her image at heart in its place of ancient power. left to my love divine. I shall see not even her writing again on aught Greater is he who conquers his soul, is the —not the tiniest note, praise of the holy page, Save cold address on letters returned, that my Than one that taketh the city strong in face of lost right hand wrote. the enemy’s rage. Yet my pulse leaps up when the mail comes in, I braced my spirit with half the strain for the refusing to feel how vain shock of bloody fray The hope of precious missive sent from her That it takes to scale the cruel hights of sac­ firm white hand again. rifice to day! But at last my bitter strife prevails,- and my As I lie in silence alone, and close my eyes to­ heart’s desire lies slain: night, Now the letter quick, lest the foe revive and I let the thought of her grow and fill my inward make my victory vain. sight, Till I almost feel her smile the shadowy ward Only the ink and paper, nurse—I will not tax illume, your hand: And hear the float of her dress, and breathe its My poor one left must begin to learn in place vague perfume. of the right to stand. Why, my heart is as loth to coin the words as Kind Savior! whose tear is this that has fallen my awkward hand to write ! on my face ? Yet cold and hard I put them down, to lie at Whose these two hands that hold my one in last in her sight. clinging soft embrace ? I know her too well to write the truth, to sound Whose voice can speak to me such words—too her its wailing strain sweet for truth their sounds ; Of, “ My darling, I shut your sun from my life “My own ! do we love the dear Christ less for and sit in the night of pain ! the mangling of his wounds 1” The stalwart knight of your maiden choice went down in battle’s rack, Lizzie! my soul leaps out to light at the dayFailing forever out of the world—so take your dawn of your eyes, plighting back; That I could not blind to my yearning love by Nor cheat your heart a crippled wretch can for any cold disguise. its loss atone, And waste upon his ailing life the sweetness of 0 quick to follow the shining steps of tbe your own.” Lord of woman born, No words like these : but coldest talk of “cir­ Who came from the hights of Paradise to wed cumstance, if foreseen the church forlorn, On the summer-day we made our troth, the And gave for it his priceless life in offering glad vowing had never been. and free, The late battle disabled me somewhat, and on So out of the depths of her holy love she gives the whole, I must cease I herself to me. �288 The Friend of Progress. Our Librarj/. The Ideal Attained: Being the Story of Two Steadfast Souls, and how they won their Happiness and lost it not. By Eliza W. Farnham. 1 volume. New York: 0. M. Plumb & Co. We give the title of Mrs. Farnham’s , volume in full, because the first part of it conveys no idea of its purport. It is a story of a man and a woman, constructed after the author­ ess’s ideal, who met on a sailing-vessel bound for San Francisco; she on her way to an uncle there; he yielding to an attraction which had sprung up in his heart for her. Other characters take part in the develop­ ment of the story; but they serve merely as foils to display these two. The incidents of the plot are also arranged evidently with a view of exhibiting these two personages in the greatest variety of attitudes, both as indi­ viduals and as related to each other. They are brought intimately together—they are kept sternly apart. They share in comforts and in privations. They are subjected to rest and to labor. They are tried by dependence and by independence. They are alienated and reconciled. Their minds meet on trivial sub­ jects and on grave. The test of experience brings out their weak and their strong points. In the end, they are joined in a perfect union. We infer from the Publishers’ Preface, that this book was written a considerable time be­ fore the last work, “Woman and her Era.” Mrs. Farnham must, however, have had the doctrine of that work matured in her mind before she planned this. The two books are complements of each other. “The Ideal Attained ” is the illustration in the form of experience of the theory maintained in “Wo­ man and her Era.” It is the concrete of that abstraction; or rather that gives the philoso­ phy of the characters and relations depicted in this. No reader of Mrs. Farnham’s last book should fail to read the story before us; and the reader of the story would do well to turn over the chapters of that more elaborate work. To many Mrs. Farnham’s theory of the relation existing between man and woman, and of their providential attitude in history, seemed repulsive, owing, perhaps, to the ne­ cessarily critical, analytical, and to some ex­ tent, controversial character of the volumes in which that theory was explained. But in this vivid sketch of two lives, the relation between the man and the woman is as natural and sympathetic as one could wish. If Mrs. Bromfield is a woman after Mrs. Farnham’s own heart, and ‘ ‘ the Colonel ” is such a man as her soul delights in, and their union the legitimate and fair result of her premises, then we say “ amen ” to her philosophy. For Mrs, Bromfield is a woman who would adorn the choicest circle—whom women would admire—whom men would honor, accept, and be only too glad to take to their homes as wife, in the noblest sense of the word. “The Colonel” is a man of a rare stamp, whom women might be pardoned for adoring, and whom men would applaud as a model of manly virtues; and their union comes as near what all good and cultivated people would call a perfect marriage as this earth gives an opportunity of seeing. The characters are certainly idealized. They could hardly have been life-studies. If they were, we envy the authoress her experience in men and women. They are constructed, we fancy—creations of her mind; but the traits which her imagination supplies, be­ long, without exception, to the pure manly and womanly, and fill out, instead of distort­ ing, the image of ordinary humanity. The book is intensely earnest in its tone. There is no trifling in its chapters. The dramatis personae all have brains, and well do they use them in discourse on grave themes. Even the table-talk is significant. The “asides” are momentous. We do not get these people to the end of their voyage without sailing over many seas of thought and sound­ ing many deeps of reflection. To most people, the reading of the book would be an educa­ tion in liberal opinions, and a very pleasant education too—for the course, though rigidly exact, is so delicately conducted and so bril­ liantly illustrated, that one is instructed while seeming to be merely amused. The literary execution of the volume has much merit. The description of the sea-voyage is full of alternate calm and breeze. The life on the island might have been painted from actual sketches taken on the spot. The life in the young San Francisco was, in truth, so painted, and we should not know where, out of these pages, to find another so faithful photograph of the woman­ less, childless, chaotic, sandy town, as it was in its early days. We feel as if we had been there, and were glad we had got out of it. “The Ideal Attained” will add greatly to Mrs. Farnham’s literary reputation, as a suc­ cessful attempt at the philosophical fiction: the novel that holds an earnest, moral, social, and even humane purpose, without losing the fascinating excitements of the novel; the trea­ tise on high themes of personal interest, clothed in the rich garments of the novel, and yet retaining the dignity of the treatise. The story is good as a story; the moral is good as a moral, and both moral and story are one. We rather object to long letters at the end of a tale. They look as if the author, tired of his task, laid by his art, and supplied the deficiency of his work by opening his files of correspondence; and Mrs. Farnham’s epis­ tolary style is not as graceful as her narra­ tive: but the letters cannot be omitted by the reader who wishes to understand the story of the two lives, and the substance of them will amply compensate for the form. * * � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Friend of Progress. Vol. 1. No. 9, July 1865 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [New York] Collation: [257]-288 p. ; 24 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. _Louise Palmer -- a review of 'The Ideal Attained' by Eliza W. Farnham. The spiritualist and occult journal was previously named Herald of Progress and then Banner of Light before becoming Friend of Progress which became more explicitly devoted to reform. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5295 Subject The topic of the resource Periodicals Women's rights Indigenous peoples Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Friend of Progress. Vol. 1. No. 9, July 1865), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Women https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7a9baa2aa9e7c07e6a32dda13ed6cc29.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=HF1VsVQlMnhLt7dMhv7W84aiBEa-tcQtMN3RTlMOUlk9HyPfjYJSItk08u02nY9CkZaQ%7EezFzmlblDX5ueBiXa6OmRaZBaHaVrqffYb9gUbpJB1xcJSCOToc-yH66tXlLHd6gCzcs6%7EXGvcI4MeQTt8e-tflS%7E-e6ciwCbYVhb9yOUtRTxw2I32%7EFPvLYLbzf7Zqksa3Cqp9MTIIFSRWxPW70e5t2b9R5fF25CKsIycXcrP3xztWg%7EiWCJe4EuqSKMWcGliq6jWGsHJlx3ltBPtL4ftSWfjqFepjfdsn8RQaAqJoew%7EMXDKIieg5VFwgFrQUhehoqSL9GxaCerZ-7g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 76df4cb2ecff70614305efd9b61e5212 PDF Text Text oé’? NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. By ANNIE BESANT. [Reprinted from the National Reformer, June 4, 1876,j The first annual meeting of the “British, Continental, and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitu­ tion ” was lately held at the Westminster Palace Hotel, and was largely attended by friends of the movement from all parts of Eng­ land, from France, and from Switzerland. M. Loyson, better known as Father Hyacinthe, was to have been present, but a severe attack of bronchitis chained him to his room ; M. de Pressensé, another well-known French speaker, was, however, there to take his place, together with M. Aimé Humbert, a gentleman whose talent appears to lie in organisation and in work more than in speech. The longsustained labor of the Society for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts is well-known to our readers ; many of them may not, however, be aware of the late extension of the sphere of them work, consequent on the thought and toil of their noble-hearted missionary, Mrs. Josephine E. Butler. The narrative of her crusade through Europe in the bitter cold, through France, into Italy, into Switzer­ land, over the Jura in the depth of winter, now lies before us, and is the record of a heroism equalled by few women, or by few men either. (The title of the book is “The New Abolitionists”, price half-acrown, and it well deserves careful perusal, ) Undaunted by failure, unwearied by defeat, loyal in spite of taunts, brave in spite of threats, gallant-hearted in face of a misery and an evil which might well drive the boldest to despair, Mrs. Butler sets us all an example by which we should strive to profit. Societies have been formed in all �2 THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. directions in France, Switzerland, and Italy, and these are now feder­ ated together into one body, sworn to destroy the recognition and encouragement of prostitution by the State. Reaction from Christian cant upon this subject, and the rightful recognition of the sacredness and dignity of human nature, physical as well as mental,. have to a great extent prejudiced many of the Secular party against the society agitating for repeal; the unwise and indelicate proceeding of scattering wholesale—so that they fell into the hands of the youth of both sexes—a number of tracts and leaflets dealing with medical details and with terrible crime«, the perusal of which by young girls and boys is about as wholesome as the reading of the Police News, roused a feeling of bitter indignation against those whose names appeared as leaders of the repeal move­ ment, although they were very likely utterly ignorant of the follies perpetrated by unwise coadjutors. This phase fortunately seems to have disappeared ; and it is hardly necessary to say that there is nothing in the^speeches made at the meetings of the society to which the most prudish could object, unless, indeed, they object to the question being dealt with at all. Should this position be taken, surely it is then well to remind such that the discussions to which they object only become necessary through the existence of the evil attacked, and that the lack of modesty lies in the commission of the evil, and not in the endeavor to rescue the victims of it. When men of the world angrily object to women touching such a subject, they should remember that if they really respected the modesty and purity of women no such subject would be in existence, and that to tho&e who gain nothing by the perpetuation of prostitution their loud in­ dignation looks very much like the angry dread of a slave -owner who fears that the abolitionist preacher may possibly, sooner or later, deprive him of the services of his human property. I assert that the Secular party, as a whole, has a duty with regard to this subject, which it somewhat fails to discharge; a duty towards the promotion of national morality, of national health; and a duty also of asserting the sacredness of the individual liberty of women as well as of men, the inalienable rights of each over his or her own person. It is perfectly true that marriage is different as regarded from the Secularist and from the Christian point of view. The Secularist reverences marriage, but he regards marriage as something far higher thana union “blessed” by a minister ; he considers, also, that marriage should be terminable, like any other contract, when it fails in its object, and becomes injurious instead of beneficial; he does not despise human passion, or pretend that he has no body; on the con­ trary, reverencing nature,, he regards physical union as perfecting the union of heart and mind, and sees in the complete unity of marriage the possibility of a far higher and nobler humanity than either man or woman can attain in a state of celibacy. But, surely, in proportion to our admiration for this true marriage, and our reverence for the home which it builds up, and which form s the healthy and pure nursery for the next generation of citizens, must be our pain and our regret when we come face to face with prosti- �THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVEKY IN ENGLAND. 3 tution, .By prostitution I mean simply and solely physical union sold by one sex and bought by the other, with no love, no respect, no reverence on either side. Of this, physical degradation and mental degradation are the invariable accompaniments: just as intoxication may be sometimes indulged in without leaving perceptible and per­ manent bad effects, but, persisted in, destroys body and brain, so may ®exual irregularity be practised for a time with little apparent injury, but, persisted in, destroys as fatally as intoxication. This is no matter of theory, it is simply a matter of observation ; individuals whose lives are irregular, nations where prostitution is widespread, lose stamina, virility, physical development, the whole type becoming degraded. It is urged that “ man’s physical wants must be satisfied, and therefore prostitution is a necessity”. Why therefore ? It might as well be argued, man's hunger must be appeased, and therefore theft of food is a necessity. The two things have no necessary con­ nexion with each other. Does prostitution promote the national health ? If so, why this necessity for legislation to check the spread of contagious diseases ? Those diseases spring from sexual irregu­ larities, and are an outraged Nature’s protest against the assertion that prostitution is the right method of providing for the sexual necessities of man. As surely as typhoid results from filth and neglect, so does the scourge of syphilis follow in the wake of prosti­ tution. These unfortunate women who are offered up as victims of man’s pleasure, these poor white slaves sold for man’s use, these become their own avengers, repaying the degradation inflicted on them, and spreading ruin and disease among thore for whose wants they exist as a class. Mrs. Butler truly writes : “You can under­ stand how the men who have riveted the slavery of women for such degrading ends become, in a generation or two, themselves the greater slaves; not only the slaves of their own enfeebled and corrupted natures, but of the women whom they have maddened, hardened, and stamped under foot. Bowing down before the unrestrained dictates of their own lusts, they now bow down also before the tortured and fiendish womanhood which they have created. . . . They plot and plan in vain for their own physical safety. Possessed at times with a sort of stampede of terror, they rush to International Congresses, aad forge together more chains for the dreaded wild beast they have SO carefully trained, and in their pitiful panic build up fresh barri­ cades between themselves and that womanhood which they proclaim to be a ‘permanent source of sanitary danger’.” Mrs. Butler was writing from Paris, where the system is carried out which we have in England in only a few towns. If any one doubts the reality of this natural retribution, let him go and watch the streets where many of these poor ruined creatures may be found, and there see what women are when transformed into prostitutes—a source of disease instead of health, of vice instead of purity. Each one might have been the centre of a happy home, the mother of brave men and women who would have served the Fatherland, and we have made them this. National morality and national health go hand-in-hand; a vicious nation will be a weak nation, and when a government begins to deli­ �4 THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. berately license women for the purposes of prostitution, it has taken the first step towards the ruin of the nation it administers. Louis Napoleon made Paris a sink of impurity; when the struggle came, the working-classes only—whose circumstances preserved them from gross excesses—-were fit to fight for France. When the license system has had a fair trial, and the danger spreads and spreads, the govern­ ment finds itself burdened with a class of women it has formed and certificated; and despairing of repressing disease by simple licensing, it begins to gather the women into houses, licensed also by itself; abroad, in England’s colonies, these houses are licensed by England’s riders, and in France, in Italy, and elsewhere, they are found in most cities. Thus government becomes saddled with the supervision of a vast and organised system of prostitution, and struggles vainly against the evils resulting from it. In Italy, the government draws money from this source, and the shame of Italy’s daughters and the profli­ gacy of her sons are made a source of national revenue. And what is the result ? simply that these houses become foci of vice, demoralising the youth of the country. “Pastor Borel testified to having seen schoolboys entering these haunts of patented vice, with their satchels on their backs.” Well might we ask, with the old Roman Consul, Postumius : “ Can ye think that such youths are fit to be mad@ soldiers ? That wretches brought out of the temple of obscenity could be trusted with arms ? That those contaminated with such debaucheries could be the champions for the chastity of the wives and children of the Roman people ? ” Profligates can never be made into sturdy citizens ; muscles enervated by the embraces of purchased women will never be strung to heroism ; a vicious nation will never be a nation of freemen. Then, in the name of the liberty we have won, of the glory of England, in the hope of the coming Republic, we are surely bound to protest against the introduction of a system among us that has degraded every nation in which it has been tried, which has only got, as yet, one foot upon our shores, and which, if we were true to our duty, we might easily drive from our English soil before it has time to sap the strength of our men and to destroy the honor of our name. It still remains to see how this legislation is consonant with indi­ vidual liberty; how it is touched by the question of a standing army ; fond how the evil of prostitution may be met and overcome. I have already urged that no repressive Acts wall destroy disease in a community where prostitution is encouraged, and that the wide prevalence of prostitution is ruinous to the physique of a nation; the admitted failure of regulation abroad, and the more and more com­ plete control demanded for the police over the unfortunate worn® sacrificed to the “necessities of men”, prove, beyond the possibility of denial, that no eradication of disease is to be hoped for unless the registered women be given over thoroughly to continual supervision, and be literally made slaves, equally obedient to the call of the doctor who heals and to that of the man who infects, holding their bodies at the hourly order of each class, with no rightv of self-possession, no power of self-rule permitted to them. I challenge this claim, made in �THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. O the name of the State, over one class of its citizens, and I assert that the sacred right of individual liberty is grossly and shamefully out­ raged by this interference of government, and that, therefore, every soldier of liberty is bound to rise in protest against the insult offered to her. No more inalienable right exists than the right of the indi­ vidual to the custody of his own person; in a free country none can be deprived of this right save by a sentence given in open court, after a jury of his peers has found him guilty of a crime which, by the laws under which he lives, is punished by restriction of that liberty; so jealously is this right guarded, however, even in the criminal whose full exercise of it is temporarily suspended, that the limits within which it may be touched are carefully drawn ; even in the prison-cell th© felon has not lost all right over himself, and his personal liberty is only restricted on the points where the law has suspended it. No official may dare to compel a criminal to labor, for instance, unless compulsion to labor is part of the judicial sentence. Firm and strong lies the foundation stone of liberty. No citizen’s personal liberty may be interfered with, unless proof of guilt justifying that interference be tendered in open court, and every citizen has a right to demand that open trial if he be arrested by any officer of the law. This is the foundation Stone which is rudely upset by the Contagious Diseases Acts. Under them women are arrested, condemned, and sentenced to a terrible punishment, without any open accusation or public trial; by simple brute force they are compelled to submit, despite their pleading, their ene®, their struggles; they have no redress, no assistance ; they are degraded both in their own sight and in the sight of all who deal with them; a free woman is deprived by force of the custody of her own body, and all human right is outraged in her person —and for what ? in order that men may more safely degrade her in the future, and may use her for their own amusement with less danger to themselves. A number of citizens are deprived of their natural rights in order that other citizens may profit by their loss ; and the State, the incarnation of justice, the protector of the rights of all, dares thus to sacrifice the rights of some of its members to the pleasure of others. It is idle to urge that these women are too degraded to have any rights; the argu­ ment is too dangerous for men to use; for if the women are too degraded, the men who make and keep them what they are are partners of their degradation; if the women are brutalised, only brutalised men can take pleasure in their society; every harsh word cast at these poor victims recoils with trebled force on the head of those who not only seek their companionship, but actually pay for the privilege of consorting with them. But not only is liberty outraged by this intrusion on individual selfpossession, but it is still further trampled under foot by the injustice perpetrated. Two citizens commit a certain act; the law punishes one by seizure, imprisonment, disgrace ; it leaves the other perfectly fre®. No registration of women would be necessary if the other sex left women to themselves; no disease could be spread except by the CO-operation of men. By what sort of justice, then, does the law Seize one only of two participators in a given action ? If it be pleaded �6 THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. that individual liberty may be overborne by social necessities-an argument which does not really admit of being used in this matter— en the good of society” demands the arrest, imprisonment, and examination of both parties ; it can serve no useful purpose to allow unhealthy men to propagate disease among healthy women. If men have the right to demand the protection of the law, why should women be deprived of that same protection ? If so necessary for the safety of men, why not necessary for the safety of women ? Is it not, really, far more needed among the men, for, if a married man should contract disease, he may infect his innocent wife and his unborn children f Surely the State should interfere for the protection of these , and any man found in a house of ill-fame, or consorting with a prostitute, should be at once arrested, be compelled to prove that he is not married, and has no intention of being so ; and, failing such proof, should be examined, and kept in hospital, if need be, until perfectly cured. The Acts would be very rapidly repealed in St. Stephen, s if all their provisions were carried out justly, on both sexes alike. Men would not submit to it.” Of course they would not, if one gleam of manhood remained in them; and neither would women, with any sense of womanhood, submit to it, if they were not bound hand and foot by the triple cord of ignorance, weakness, and starva­ tion. Poor, pitiful sufferers, trampled on by all, till the sweet flower of womanhood is crushed out for evermore, and only some faint breath of. its natural fragrance now and then arises to show how sweet it might have been if left to grow unbruised. In the name, then, of Liberty outraged, in the name of Equality disregarded, we claim the lepeal of these one-sided Acts, even if the bond of Fraternity prove too weak to hold men back from this cruelty inflicted on their sisters. But, it is urged, with a celibate standing army, prostitution is a physical necessity. Then, if an institution lead to disease, deteriora­ tion of physique, and moral and mental injury, destroy the institution which breeds these miseries, instead of trying to kill its offspring one by one. .A large standing army is unnecessary; the enforcement of celibacy is a crime. Of course, if a number of young and healthy men are taken away from home, kept in idleness, and deprived of all female society, immorality must necessarily result from such an un­ natural state of things. The enforcement of celibacy on vigorous men always results in libertinage, whether among celibate priests or celi* bate soldiers. But the natural desires of these men are not rightfully met by the State supplying them with a number of licensed women; to do that is to treat them simply like brutes, and thereby to degrade them; it is to teach them that there is nothing holy in love, nothing sacred in womanhood; it is to change the sacrament of humanity into an orgie, and to pollute the consecration of the future home with the remembrance of a parody of love. With a celibate standing army prostitution is a necessity, and I know of no reason why we should look at facts as we should like them to be, instead of facts as they are ; but a celibate standing army is not a necessity. The true safe­ guard of a free nation is not a large standing army; rather is it a well-organised militia, regularly drilled and trained, whose home­ �THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. 7 ties and home-interests will, in ease of honorable war, nerve each arm with double strength, and string each muscle with the remembrance of the home that is threatened by the foe. The hero-armies of history are not the armies which idle in peace, and have nought in common with the citizens ; such armies are the pet toys of aristocratic generals, and are easily turned against the people by tyrants and by ambitious Soldi®'#; but the hero-armies are the armies of citizens, less dainty in dress, less exact in marching, less finished in evolutions, but men who fight for home and -wife, who draw sword in a just quarrel, but to please no prince’s whim; men like Cromwell’s Ironsides, and like Hampden’s yeomen; men who are terrible in war because lovers of peace; men who can never be defeated while living; men who know how to die, but not how to yield. What remedy is there for prostitution other than that attendant upon a celibate standing army ? So far as the women are concerned, the real remedy for prostitution is to give women opportunities of gaining fairly paid employment. By far the greater number of pros­ titutes are such for a living. Men are immoral for their amusement; Women are immoral for bread. Ladies in the upper classes have no conception of the stress of agony that drives many a forlorn girl “ on th® streets”. If some of them would try what life is like when it consists of making shirts at three halfpence each (cotton not provided), and starving on the money earned, they would perhaps learn to speak tt-Or® gently of “those horrid women”. Lack of bread makes many * girl sell herself, and, once fallen, she is doomed. On the one side are eelf-respect, incessant toil, starvation ; on the other side prostitu­ tion, amusement, plenty. We may reverence the heroic virtue that mists, but we can scarcely dare to speak harshly of the frailty that submits. Remunerative employment would half empty the streets; pay women, for the same work, the same wage that men receive ; let sex be no disqualification; let women be trained to labor, and edu­ cated for self-support; then the greatest of all remedies will be applied to the cure of prostitution, and women will cease to sell their bodies when they are able to sell their labor. The second great remedy, as regards the women, is that society «hmild make recovery more possible to them. Many a young and lovinggirl is betrayed through her love and her trust; having “fallen” she is looked down upon by all; deserted, she is aided by none ; everybody pushes her away, and she is driven on the streets, and in despair, .reckless, hopeless, she becomes what all around call her, and drearily sinks to the level assigned her by the world. Meanwhile her seducer passes unrebuked, and in the families where she would not be admitted fts seullery-maid he is welcomed as fit husband for the daughter of the house. . That which has ruined her and many others is only being ’. *n t^ie circles where he moves. A public opinion which should,be just is sorely needed. The act so venial in the man cannot be a crime in the woman, and if, as it is said, men must be immoral, then those who are necessary to them ought not to be looked down upon for their usefulness. We ask for justice equal to both sexes: punishment for both, if their intercourse be a crime against society ; �8 THE LEGALISATION OF FEMALE SLAVERY IN ENGLAND, immunity for both, if it be a necessary weakness. We hold up one standard of purity for both, and urge the nobility of sexual morality on man and woman alike. More reasonable marriage laws would also tend to lessen prostitution. Much secret immorality is caused by making the marriage tie so unfairly stringent as it is to-day; people who are physically and mentally antagonistic to each other are bound together for life, instead of being able to gain a divorce without dishonor, and to be set free, to find in a more congenial union the happiness they have failed to find with each other. Reasonable facility of divorce would tend to morality, and would strengthen the bond of union between those who really loved, who would then feel that their true unity lay in them­ selves more than in the marriage ceremony, and was a willing, ever renewed mutual dedication instead of a hard compulsion. But at the root of all reform lies the inculcation of a higher morality than at present prevails. We need to learn a deeper reverence for nature, and therefore a sharper repugnance for all disregard of physical and moral law. Young men need to learn reverence for. themselves and for the physical powers they possess, powers which tend to happiness when rightly exercised, to misery and degradation when abused. They need also to learn reverence for the humanity in those around them, and the duty of guarding in every woman everything which they honor in mother, wife, and daughter. If a man realised that in buying a prostitute he was buying the womanhood of those he loved at home, he would shrink back from such sacrilege as from the touch of a leper. Woman should be man’s inspiration, not his degradation; woman’s love should be his prize for noble effort, not his purchased toy; the touch of a woman’s lips should breathe of love and not of money, and the clasp of the wife should tell of passionate devotion and supremest loyalty, and never be mingled in thought with the memory of arms which were bought by a bribe, of caress that was paid for in gold. ONE PENNY. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Brablaugh, 63, Fleet Street, London, E.C.—1885. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The legalisation of female slavery in England Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Reprinted from the National Reformer, June 4, 1976. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Date of publication from British Library catalogue. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.l.]. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1885] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N067 Subject The topic of the resource Women's rights Prostitution Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The legalisation of female slavery in England), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Prostitution Sex Workers Women Women-England Women's Rights https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1caf1cfedddc258ad4cf5ea7061baf80.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=lFsSyaof%7EP-LV3cmTDOwtrJzMuUMDByOhrlpukc3lOb9WmKZsfrJZGkNCtVTa8ETA80I73juA5zX0HghitqbREbJkCJ%7Ecrw701f9AY0UAScYLJtuf40u3rI-3UgVEecJh8dgJNWPjNRkTG9JMTOzCcQ6o9xWBQI8%7ERinb2ezETdWwv0pkjwJfRFxJ2gPBJ4dVLLyHn0CESazjjxLegi2OktcLM7RygaPMwnzT6HmT7RDA1zenyiE5EM%7EEoJ2HegCt4PWcBaQ-tHSjgYO-s%7EY6QOBd1jHptM9Z%7E2wzYEmVrmVUcIV%7ESha8LAb6esbXxTlyq0UDuGt4JpUmMtmq6XY1A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ad78b48a1831cbf16372c6e8565d4a26 PDF Text Text ������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Women in France Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Perrier, Amelia Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 213-219 p. ; 23 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (October, 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. Author cited as "A.P." - attribution from Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1871] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5321 Subject The topic of the resource Women's rights France Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Women in France), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Women Women's Rights Women's Rights-France