"Cedo, yo, Francisco, esta Casa a mi Sposa, Maria Lucia Zepada de Conclingo."
(I, Francisco, give this house to my wife, Mary Lucia Zepada de Conclingo.)
How many husbands have the courage to make like proclamation? "Very uncommon in Mexico," says the American custom house clerk; very uncommon anywhere. Yet the fact is not uncommon. In a town adjoining Boston, a gentleman said his was the only house that was not deeded to the wife of the occupant. Better put the fact over the door. Still, though the wives own all the best houses in that large town, and can sell them, and be sued for them, they can not vote to protect them, to keep out the liquor-shops which injure their property, and to create a government which shall improve it. I read in the coach to-day that the Maine House of Representatives had voted woman the ballot. The Senate should follow its example. It is the seal of assurance to her liquor legislation. It is the only salvation of the ballot-box from the stuffing and bribing abominations of to-day. Senora Maria Lucia Zepada, etc., is a sign of the coming woman in the State, in all save her cooking. She looks as if able to bear her honors, with her large and healthy and handsome family; not a solitary and sickly unit, to which social ideas now diminish and degrade the household. With her abundant kitchenly ways, owning her casa and honoring it, shall she not also jointly own and honor the State?
Much more, the Church; for there her heart is, and her treasure also. Let not the Church lag behind the State in opening every door to her admittance. Let her be welcomed, especially when she is knocking at these doors; nay, when the Lord has Himself come down from heaven and opened these doors, not by sending His angel, but by the abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit with signs following. Not more clearly was Paul thrust among the unwilling Peter and his ten—the vacancy in the apostolate being kept open by the Head of the Church for his admission—than is the sisterhood of the Church thrust by the same Head into like fellowship with their elder, but not superior, brethren. He that hath ears let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
