society.  Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and shed darkness on all who surround her.  She cannot rally from pain, or labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored.  Paganism ignored what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken tree.  She succumbed before the cold blasts that froze her noblest impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity.  Oh, what a fool a man is to make woman a slave!  He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she cannot defy him she will scorn him,—­for not even a brute animal will patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled to injustice.  And what is the possession of a human body without the sympathy of a living soul?

And hence women, under Paganism,—­having no hopes of future joy, no recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no ennobling friendships, no high encouragements, no education, no lofty companionship; utterly unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in power, in mind as well as heart,—­took no interest in what truly elevates society.  What schools did they teach or even visit?  What hospitals did they enrich?  What miseries did they relieve?  What charities did they contribute to?  What churches did they attend?  What social gatherings did they enliven?  What missions of benevolence did they embark in?  What were these to women who did not know what was the most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to run to waste?  What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the display of sensual charms?  Her highest aspiration was to adorn a perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.

And the men,—­without the true sanctities and beatitudes of married life, without the tender companionship which cultivated women give, without the hallowed friendships which the soul alone can keep alive, despising women who were either toys or slaves,—­fled from their dull, monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness.  They did not seek society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and inspire and guide.  Society is a Christian institution.  It was born among our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry.  It was made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which have their seat in what Paganism ignored.  Society, under Paganism, was confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered, unless for the amusement of men,—­never for their improvement, and still less for their restraint.