With woman, as God made her, we are not acquainted.  Glimpses of her pristine beauty, and characteristics of her former excellence, shine forth; but sin has marred the original picture, and defaced the model fashioned by the Creator’s hand.  The ruin wrought by the fall brought Christ to earth.  He opened a way back to Eden—­not on earth, but in heaven.  The curse remains.  The race is under it, because sin is in the world.  The law, formed after the fall, is the expressed will of God.  Christ did not come to do away with it, but to fulfil it.  Then, as now, it was a law of love, of good will, of peace.  When Christ came, woman’s condition was deplorable.  She was the abject slave of man in nearly all the world.  Yet Christ made no attempt to break down their original arrangements.  He knew that without a change in woman herself, no external changes in her condition could be of any benefit to her.  He recognized the great fact that she herself must be educated to a better life, that she must have a character which in itself would command respect, and make her worthy of a higher place and a larger liberty.  Truly has it been said, “Institutions, of themselves, can never confer freedom upon a people.  They must be free men, capable of liberty, and then they will be able not only to make their own institutions, but keep and defend them also.  So the emancipation of woman can be effected only by breaking the bonds of her ignorance, frivolity, and vice.  A character must be given her, and then the iron door of her prison-house will open to her of its own accord, and she will find that the angel of liberty has been leading her forth indeed.”  In this direction Jesus labored.  Paul, in his Epistles, gave emphasis to the teachings of the Old Testament, and so he wrote, “Let your women keep silence, in the churches, for it is not permitted them to speak; but they are to be in subjection, as the law also says; and if they will to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church,”—­I Cor. xiv. 34, 35.

Against this command many arguments have been brought to bear, and despite this apostolic command, some women insist upon their right to preach.  It is a significant truth, that whoever does this, enters upon a conflict with public sentiment born of God, and subjects herself to terrible mortification.  The refusal of lending Universalist divines to share the exercises of an ordination with a woman, illustrates this principle.  The recognition given to man as the head of the household, involves the loss of woman’s individuality, and of her right to a support.  It opens a window to life, and shows why our higher nature revolts against woman being compelled to labor in the field.  That is man’s place, and the labor elevates him.  It degrades a woman.  The praises of agricultural toil for man find a place in song and story; but labor in the field is destructive of womanhood, of motherhood, and of wifehood.