“But, Bishop, they might consider the Talmud more venerable authority than Joubert, and the Talmud says, so I am told:  ’Descend a step in choosing a wife; mount a step in choosing a friend.’”

“Thank heaven! there is indeed no Salique Law in the realm of learning.  Mother, I believe one of the happiest auguries of the future consists in the broadening views of education that are now held by some of our ablest thinkers.  If in the morning of our religious system, St. Peter deemed it obligatory on us to be able and ’ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you,’ how doubly imperative is that duty in this controversial age, when the popular formula has been adopted, ‘to doubt, to inquire, to discover;’ when the hammer of the geologist pounds into dust the idols of tradition, and the lenses of astronomy pierce the blue wastes of space, which in our childhood we fondly believed were the habitat of cherubim and seraphim.  Now, mother, if you will only insure my ears against those pink tweezers, of which they bear stinging recollections, I should like to explain myself.”

Mrs. Lindsay plunged her hands into the depths of her stocking basket, and said sententiously: 

“The temple of Janus is closed.”

“What is the origin of the doctrine that erudition is the sole prerogative of men, and that it proves as dangerous in a woman’s hands, as phosphorus or gunpowder in those of a baby——­”

“Why Eve’s experience, of course.  A ton of gunpowder would not have blown up the garden of Eden more effectually, than did her light touch upon an outside branch of the tree of knowledge.  I should say Genesis was acceptable authority to a young minister of the Gospel.”

“That is a violation of the truce, Elise.  You are skirmishing with his picket line.  Go on, Douglass.”

“It is evidently a remnant of despotic barbarism, a fungoid growth from Oriental bondage——­”

“Bishop, may I be allowed to ask if you are referring to Genesis?”

“Dear little mother, I refer to the popular fallacy, that in the same ratio that you thoroughly educate women, you unfit them for the holy duties of daughter, wife, and mother.  Is there an inherent antagonism between learning and womanliness?”

“Indeed, dear, how can I tell?  I am not a ‘Della-Cruscan.’  I only ‘strain’ milk into my dairy pans.”

“Elise, do be quiet.  You break the thread of his argument.”

“Then it is entirely too brittle to hold the ponderous propositions he intends to string upon it.  Proceed, my son.”