It was this lack of education which Paganism withheld from women which not only destroyed the radiance of home, but which really made women inferior to men.  All writers, poets, and satirists alike speak of the inferiority of women to men,—­not physically only, but even intellectually; and some authors made them more vicious than men in natural inclination.  And when the mind was both neglected and undervalued, how could respect and admiration be kindled, or continue after sensual charms had passed away?  Paganism taught the inequality of the sexes, and produced it; and when this inequality is taught, or believed in, or insisted upon, then farewell to the glory of homes, to all unbought charms, to the graces of domestic life, to everything that gilds our brief existence with the radiance of imperishable joy.

Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured, neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity.  She could not rise above the condition in which she was born.  No sympathetic priest directed her thoughts to another and higher and endless life.  Nobody wiped away her tears; nobody gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes aspire to enjoy.  No one told her of immortality and a God of forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace and bliss.  Paganism was merciful only in this,—­that it did not open wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy; that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which there is no escape.  If one cannot rise above debasement or misery, there is no use in pointing it out.  If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as an accident which it was easy to surmount.  There would be no contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the reason of men.  Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coarse, uncultivated country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul, and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her condition?  Such was woman under Paganism.  She could rise only so far as men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her degradation.