THE WRONGS OF WOMEN.

women.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

WHEN We name the infliction of a wrong, we imply the existence of a right. Therefore, if we undertake to discuss the wrongs of women, we may be expected to set out by plainly defining what are the rights of This is soon done. We repudiate all pretensions to equality with man, save on the ground specified by the Apostle, that "In Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female." We claim, in common with man, and in like measure, the undying principle of a spiritual existence. we possess an equal share of inbred cor

ruption, an equal incapacity to deliver ourselves from its bondage, an equal need of the redemption wrought out by our Almighty Deliverer by the sacrifice of himself on the cross for sinners. We want, and therefore we ask, and asking we shall possess, and possessing we shall use, even as man does, the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, to show us the right way, and to uphold us in it when we have once entered thereupon. In the joys of heaven, or in the torments of hell, our portion will be as man's in all these things we are equal. One painful preeminence we cannot deny to be ours, for "the woman was first in the transgression," and to this hour the doom pronounced upon her at the fall is found in operation all over the world. A high and happy pre-eminence in privilege we may also humbly rejoice in; for it was "the seed of the woman" who bruised the serpent's head, and He who had no earthly

father was in his human nature the son of a mother. Thus the sex who were lost by giving heed to the deceivableness of Satan, are "saved in child-bearing," so far as they exercise faith, individually, in the Saviour, who by a woman was born into the world; and man may not reproach woman with her instrumentality in occasioning the loss of Paradise, seeing that she was made the medium of bringing Him into the world who should redeem the forfeited possession.

Complaints are occasionally heard from aspiring individuals of the female sex, as to a supposed depression in the scale of intellectual power and mental capability, below the mark at which they consider themselves entitled to be rated; some conceiving that the spiritual equalization is no less applicable here. As a matter of opinion alone it might be left for every one to settle, in that unbounded liberty of thought which even the fettered galley

slave is free to roam abroad in: and where as in England, speech is almost equally free with thought, the disciples of such doctrine may and will propound it. Setting forth, however, with so doubtful a title, it is due to our readers and to ourselves to announce that we have no intention of advancing any such claims; and further to guarantee that assurance, we frankly confess our entire dissent from the views of those who hold them. What woman originally was, before she transgressed, we cannot say, because we do not know; nor do any means exist of ascertaining that point. We suppose that the serpent, in his great subtlety, made choice of Eve to practise his fatal delusions upon, because he saw in her the indications of comparative weakness: and the important fact distinctly stated by the inspired Apostle, that Adam was not deceived, shows that not even with the aid of the woman could Satan impose upon his mind.