3.  The influence of education deserves consideration.  Fashionable women send their daughters to Roman Catholic institutions of learning, where the Sister or Mother Superior carries her to the chapel, bows reverently before the altar, and kissing the cross, exclaims, “How can Protestants be so blind as to reject the cross on the ground that it savors of Popery, when they know that all their own hopes of salvation must hang upon it?” or where the morning service concludes with a prayer to the “Mother of God,” in these words:  “Most holy Virgin, I believe and confess thy most holy and immaculate care of man, pure and without stain.  O most pure Virgin, through thy virginal purity, thy immaculate conception, thy glorious quality of Mother of God, obtain for me of thy dear Son, humility, charity, great purity of heart, of body and of mind, holy perseverance in my cherished relations, the gift of prayer, a holy life and a happy death."[A] Thus is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception thrust upon the memory, and the gate is opened to a denial and rejection of Christ as the Saviour, and to an acceptance of Mary as the Intercessor.  The result manifests itself in two ways.  The fashionable boarding-school girl comes to think kindly of Rome, and rebukes all opposition to the church as bigotry or ignorance on the part of those with whom she associates.  The influence is noticeable.  It is fashionable to attend the Papal Church, fashionable to contribute to its prosperity, fashionable for men to smother their opinions, fashionable for the politician to seek the favor of that power that furnishes, in its subtlety and in its power to work in darkness, a perfect mechanism for Satan.

[Footnote A:  Miss Bunkley’s Book, pp. 22 and 68.]

4.  Our wealthy women, by their patronage of Roman Catholic fairs, and by their gifts to the so-called charitable fund, enable the enemies of the cross of Christ to build these magnificent cathedrals and religious establishments, while the churches of Christ languish for support.

Give to woman the ballot, let these girls in our kitchens become voters, and it will not be difficult to understand how “a man’s foes shall be those of his own household.”

The Remedy.  Induce Protestant girls to work, by treating them as sisters rather than as servants.  Talk free in the house and at the table against Romanism, let the consequences be what they may.  Educate children so that they shall know the characteristics of this lifelong foe of the church of Christ; and, lastly, resist this movement to change the order of God’s government in the home and in the state.

Ignore it as we may, the beguiling serpent is busy with our Eve in America, this Eden of liberty, and God only knows the result.  It is a question which cannot be trifled with.  That the drift to-day is against the teachings of the Bible, none can doubt.  Victory for Satan is a terrible calamity for humanity.  Let us then, as an antidote, preach Christ, and strive to make woman the helpmeet of man and the ally of our Divine Master, and then she becomes the deadliest foe of Satan, and the most aggressive champion of the truth.