during the reign of Tiberius, against the licentiousness of female manners, it was ordained, 'that no woman whose grandfather, father, or husband, was a Roman knight should be allowed to make her person venal.' The laws of a nation are an instructive and faithful history of its manners. If such was the condition of a Roman baroness, what must have been that of the subordinate classes?" Neither Paganism nor Mohammedanism ever yet understood the female character, or conceded woman's just claims. In many nations, the degradation has been excessive. You remember, probably, the reply of a pagan mother, who, having been expostulated with for the murder of her female child, contended that she had performed an act of mercy in sparing the babe of the miseries of a woman's life. All travelers and all missionaries attest the fact of woman's humiliation, beyond the boundaries of revelation.[1]
If we go to the Bible, we shall learn that it is to Christianity, as distinct even from Judaism, that
- ↑ The reader is referred for detailed statements of the condition of woman in Pagan and Mohammedan countries, to a very able and interesting work by my friend, Dr. Cox, of Hackney, entitled, "Female Scripture Biography, with an Essay on what Christianity has done for Woman." At my instigation, I believe, the esteemed Author is about to publish a new edition of this very valuable work. It is to me surprising it should have been allowed so long to remain out of print. I am indebted to it for some of the ideas contained in this chapter, and an happy thus to announce its expected reappearance.
