In a country where no European man can labor, where the native rests until compelled by his conqueror to work, seven thousand of these women might have been seen, in 1859, climbing to the edge of ravines, with baskets of stone on their heads, to fill, with these tedious contributions, thousands of perpendicular feet, in order that a railroad might wind among the mountains.

In Australia, she carries the burden which man’s indolence refuses; and in Great Britain, the condition of women among the lower classes, revealed by the statistics of her mines and of her manufacturing districts, is such as to make a moralist blush.  Behold her, with a strap around her waist, dragging the coal-cart in the mine, and so ignorant, that when asked if she knew Jesus, replied, “He never worked in our shaft.”

Do we turn to America, we find that in the providence of God her fortune has been advanced and improved by the extension of the era of free government, and by the diffusion of the principles of the gospel of Christ.

True, in the past, throughout the South, a negro woman worked in the field as a beast of burden; but emancipation and the diffusion of the principles of Christianity changes all this in the South, as it has changed it in Turkey and in the East.  The colored man builds for his wife a house, and toils for her in the field or shop, while she keeps the house, and beautifies the sanctuary of the heart.

Now, in all this land, woman’s right to be a woman is recognized, and “woman’s right to be a man” is opposed, though eloquent orators of either sex may declaim in its behalf.  God’s law, natural and revealed, is against it.  Woman’s nature will be woman’s nature no longer when she shall desire it.

An illustration of this fact was recently furnished.  A female orator had just left the platform for the horse-car.  She was tired, and, doubtless, needed a seat.  She had been speaking in favor of woman’s rights, and had berated the opposite sex for their unwillingness to grant them.  Worn out with fatigue, and excited, her lace red, her eyes flashing, she looked around for a seat.  The car was full, and among the number sitting down was a workingman.

She spoke so that all could hear her, saying, “You are not gentlemen, or you would not let a woman stand.”  The workingman looked up, and replied, “Did I not just hear you speak in behalf of woman’s rights?” The woman, supposing she had found a friend, replied in the affirmative.  “Well,” said he, “I will stand up any time, with pleasure, for a housewife or a kitchen girl; but you contend for an equality of rights with men; take it, and stand up among them.”  The shout of approbation proved that the argument was not on the side of woman.  She did not herself believe in the theory advanced.  Down in her heart she felt that, because she was a woman, she was entitled to be treated with love and respect, with honor and consideration.

The right which exempts her from certain things which men must endure, grows out of her right to be a woman.  We feel that it is her privilege and her right to be relieved from the necessity of working in the field, from doing many things which it is manly in man to do.