Has a woman the right of conscience or the exercise of private judgment under this state of things? Is popery any worse?* In the course of our remarks, we have shown that the husband was urged, as a duty devolving upon him, to force religious instruction on the wife, and to compel her to conform to religious exercises, with a tacit approbation of a portion of the well informed and religious part of the community. Of course, her husband must be the judge as to the matter and manner of her religious instruction and exercises, and enforce them by physical coercion, as he is to use some other means than "persuasion and exhortation," and we know of no other than physical coercion. Here is popery in all its abhorrent feature, or rather Mahometanism! This opinion, advanced in a respectable religious periodical without contradiction, is equivalent to a law; as public opinion is in a great measure what woman has to depend upon as the guarantee of her liberty, and is the law by which she is governed. The wife is denied the right of conscience, when the husband is represented as invested with

The Synod of this church at its session the present year, 1849, unanimously agreed to continue to exclude female members from the right of voting. They say, "female members are excluded from the privilege of voting on account of their relations." See Minutes of Synod, Christian Instructor, Vol. V., No. 10, page 302.

On account of what relations are women denied the right of voting? We suppose they are excluded on account of being wives, but they were ashamed to avow it. (Can it be possible they are excluded on account of being mothers? the man is by the woman.) Are all their female members wives, or does the church of Christ know its members as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers? "There is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Have not all believers "the adoption of sons and heirs, according to the promise?" &c. What authority has the husband to judge for the wife in spiritual matters? Is the wife "merged in the husband" soul and body? Can the husband answer for the wife at the bar of God, or pay a ransom for her soul? "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To her own master (Christ) she must stand or fall." Does a branch of the protestant church of the "orthodox" stamp, award to the husband both temporal and spiritual authority in the blaze of the light of the nineteenth century; thus declaring that the husband sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God? Protestants who thus "lord over God's heritage" have no room to censure papists for their usurpation. Pope and council are as well qualified to judge for the laity in spiritual matters, as are husbands in the aggregate to judge for their wives, and have equal scripture authority: neither have scripture authority. How long will women tamely submit to such violations of their Christian liberty?

authority over her in all things called temporalities. How could she "clothe the naked, and feed the hungry," under such circumstances?

Are these restrictions to be placed on woman for her benefit? All authority in Christ's kingdom is for the special good of the governed. No, it is avowedly to degrade her, to manifest her subordinate inferior position, and to exalt the man to a "secondary god." He has not the modesty of the Pope, or Pope and council, to say that they occupy the infallible chair, and God will so direct their judgment that they cannot err, and they wish people to be governed by their judgment for their own benefit. They have not the arrogance and audacity to say that they are placed there as the only teachers, for the purpose of their own glorification and the learner's degradation. Popery would soon accomplish its own defeat, if it would make such arrogant assumptions. They do not say that the laity are placed at their footstool as learners for the purpose of manifesting their teachers' superiority and their own inferiority, and that they must not have any aspirations after a more exalted station; but women are always to be learners, and should be content with their station." So, we see that this aristocracy of sex claims all the authority of popery, and on a principle more degrading to the governed.

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Hideous a monster as slavery is, with all its manacles, whips and thumb-screws, it holds no principle requiring the slave to fall prostrate at its footstool as a moral and intellectual being. There is no principle in slavery that represents the slave as violating any reverence or duty for his master in exercising his intellectual faculties in any way he sees proper, on the rostrum, in the pulpit, or at the bar. There is no power in the civilized world that requires its vassals to refrain from the exercise of the intellectual faculties, from the principle that it would be a violation of the respect and reverence due to their authority. It is the policy of all despotisms to keep their vassals ignorant, or what is the same thing, interdict the exercise of intellect-to tell them dictatorially that it is both a sin and a shame for them to exercise their intellect. An Austrian Emperor asserted, "that his people would be better subjects, and far more happy,

if they were not allowed to learn to read." When any government attempts to put out the eyes of its subjects, it is a sure indication that it is not from God, and that its intention is to act the tyrant. A despotism is supported by the ignorance of its vassals; a free government by the intelligence of the people.

These things call loudly for redress. Women are held in as great vassalage in the Protestant church, with very few exceptions, as are the vassals of popery;-held in as great a vassalage, did we say? Nay, a greater. She is represented as veiling her face, in good Turkish style, when entering into the house of God, as a token of homage to man's supremacy; thus doing homage to the creature which is only due to the Creator, in his house of worship!

Now, have we not proved that this aristocracy of sex unites in itself claim to the authority of political despotism, domestic slavery, and spiritual despotism, or popery? Have we not proved that it lays claim to greater reverence and authority, than all the three combined? It requires the god-like attributes of our nature to be prostrated at its footstool to do it reverence, (which neither of the three does,) on the principle of its moral and intellectual superiority. Nor is woman's state of vassalage confined to those three organizations; but, in the performance of her duty, in civil society, man arrogantly claims the right to say to her, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool, as we have already illustrated by our seceding brethren in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Their conduct is illustrative of public opinion, respecting the moral and intellectual rights of women-its exponent and embodiment.

Is it necessary to prove that it is tyrannical, unchristian, and unjust, to exercise the authority of one of the three despotisms we have named? How much worse when the whole amount of authority of the three is united in one great despotism, with some modifications, and calls for greater reverence and authority, as it respects our moral and intellectual faculties than all the three combined! Have we not proved that this authority is usurped, without the semblance of foundation from the Creator? Man and woman were placed in dominion over the world and the irrational creation; but where is it said that man was invested with

dominion over woman? His subjects are enumerated in the eighth Psalm, but woman is not mentioned as one of them. She was placed in dominion at the creation, the same as man over the irrational creation. Man is the generic term, and includes both, Gen. i. 26-29, and placed in dominion equally in the human family, by the fifth precept of the Decalogue, which is the source of all authority. The declaration in Gen. iii. 16, "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee," is a prophecy, and was no more given to man as a rule of action, than it was a rule of action for Satan, fifteenth verse, where it says, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." No, it is plain that both Satan and man are volunteers in the magnanimous business of oppressing woman.

Supposing it true that the husband is to rule the wife, which we deny, how does that constitute men in cumulo a great hereditary aristocracy, with plenary powers to rule all women? Such pretensions to authority should be supported by indubitable testimony, so that "he may run that readeth it." Nevertheless, it rests with man to produce his testimonials properly authenticated from the court of heaven, showing that he has been inducted into this highly responsible place, (as every commissioned officer is expected to have his commission at hand,) and not woman to prove a negative. We say it is his place to prove his commission to rule, and not woman's to disprove. We think we have shown that man's pretensions to rule woman are arrogant and self-assumed. "He shall rule over thee," has been fulfilled to the very letter, which shows it is not a command of God, or it would not be so universally obeyed. It is an incontrovertible truth, that more sighs and groans have ascended to the God of the oppressed, and he has more tears in his bottle from this source than from all other inflictions by man. God has so ordered matters in this world that we cannot inflict an injury on our fellow-creature, without inflicting a greater injury on ourselves. There is nothing more demoralizing to any portion of the community than despotic power. Few who exercise it fail to be contaminated by its influence. Man has inflicted a far greater in

jury on himself, by the assumption of arbitrary power, than he has on woman, though it is extremely pernicious to both.

Moral writers acknowledge that the wife occupies a moral position superior to the husband. Dr. Wayland, in speaking of the submission of the wife, whose "duty is unargued to obey," says, "It is to be remembered that the act of submission is, in every respect, as dignified and as lovely as the act of authority-nay, more, it involves an element of virtue which does not belong to the other." It is universally taught that the Christian graces belong to woman, to qualify her for her subordinate station-that they are not necessary for man as ruler. This is tacitly taught by moral writers. Dr. Wayland says, that "woman's power is always greatest in concession; she is graceful and attractive, while meek and gentle; but when angered and turbulent, she loses the fascination of her own sex, without attaining to the dignity of the other." Now, what is this but claiming a right for man to be angry and turbulent, and representing this as comporting with his dignity as a ruler? Both Drs. Paley and Wayland have selected Peter's epistle for the wife's direction; we suppose because Peter speaks of meekness and quietness of spirit in connexion with the duty of wives. Of this portion of scripture, Dr. Paley says, "No words ever expressed the true merit of the female character so well as these," intimating that they were not the attributes of male character. How often have we heard it inculcated from the pulpit, that women were to be adorned "with humility, meekness, patience, self-denial !" &c. &c. To this we have no objection, for it is all true. Christ himself was meek and lowly; but what we object to is, that these graces are not inculcated as belonging equally to all Christians, both male and female. Peter inculcates meekness on all Christians. In the four verses immediately succeeding the portion of scripture, where he delineates the duty of husbands and wives, he inculcates most particularly the duty of forbearance and self-denial, and a subjugation of turbulent passions, 1 Peter iii. 8-12. It is entirely unnecessary to show that meekness, humbleness of mind, quietness of spirit, are not peculiar to either male or female Christians. When an example of meekness is presented to our view,