the opponents of this cause are justifiable. But concede that she has a rational soul, and you concede the equality of her rights. Concede that she is capable of being a Christian, and you concede that she has a right to help do the Christian's work; and the Christian's work includes all forms of noble activity, as well as the duty of self-development.
But some people are afraid of agitation. You remember the story of the rustic, who fainted away in the car when taking his first railroad ride, and gasped out, on coming to himself, "Has the thing lit?" He belonged, probably, to that large class of people who go into hysterics every time the world begins to move, and who are never relieved from their terror till quiet is restored.
Great alarm prevails lest this agitation should breed _a fatal quarrel between man and woman; as though there could be a want of harmony, a collision of rights, between the sexes. Sad visions are conjured up before us of family feuds, mutual hair-pullings, and a general wreck of all domestic bliss. Certainly, there are difficulties about settling some domestic questions. Marriage is a partnership between two; no third person to give the casting vote. Then they must "take turns"; the wife yielding to the husband in those cases where he is best qualified to judge, and the husband yielding to the wife in those matters which most concern her, or concerning which she can best judge. Yet man is the senior partner of the firm: his name comes first. Few women would be pleased to see the firm styled in print as "Mrs. So-and-So and Husband."
Woman wants more self-reliance. Has she not always been taught that it is very proper to faint at the sight of toads and spiders and fresh blood, and whenever a gentleman pops the question? Has she not always been taught that man was the strong, towering oak, and she the graceful, clinging vine, sure to collapse like an empty bag whenever his mighty support was withdrawn? Until all this folly is unlearned, how ean she be self-dependent and truly womanly?
Women are afraid to claim their rights; and not timidity only, but laziness — the love of ease — keeps them back from the great duty of self-assertion. True, it is a good deal like work to summon up the soul to such a conflict with an opposing and corrupt public opinion. But woman must do that work for herself, or it will never be done.
Woman's rights we talk of. There is a grandeur about these great questions of right, which makes them the glory of our age; and it is the shame of our age, that right and rights in every form get so generally sneered at. What use have I for my conscience, what remains of my noble manhood, if, when half the human race complain that I am doing them a wrong, I only reply with a scoff? A man without a conscience to make him quick and sensitive to right and duty, is neither fit for heaven nor for hell. He is an outsider, a monster!
Conservatism says, "Let the world be as it is"; but Christianity says, "Make it what it should be." No man need call himself a Christian, who admits that a wrong exists, and yet wishes it to continue, or is indifferent to its removal. Let us
"Strike for that which ought to be,
And God will bless the blows."
