The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-10-04

o. the whole of the effect of this stage
of their existence in the race; and sly
ness and subtlety are traits against
which many of them-but thank Heav-
en-! not all-have yet to struggle Civ
ilization had gone very far indeed be-
fore women left this condition Of sub
lection. Only inseparate and not alto
gether admirable instances were they
free from 1t even 30 late as the time Of
the best Greek conditions II was z
nominal freedom that they had in Rome.
where one wife was the rule. but where
the freedom OF divorce was . nullify-
ing and destroying Offset Il was in
the Hebrew life that women first re-
ceived any due share OF recognition at
time when the harem, or the zenana,
or its equivalent was nearly every
where else the rule The poetical and
sacred character Of womanhood had
been recognized in Miriam. in
Deborah. in Anna; and in the
custom of the one wife the initial
point of the real family had
started. But civilization seems to work,
like leaven, through the whole lump,
and not in separate parcels; for just as
we have at the time OF the European
renaissance, without any known COM
munication. a renaissance Of the same
sort in the islands of the farthest East,
80 the custom Of having but one wife
presently prevailed in Rome and in
many other places. as II by common
consent Women then with the Ger
mans were sort of priestesses; they
ruled in q way as strongly as If by
force. Expeditions were undertaken at
tneir will. were abandoned if they for
babe, and their blessing was striven
for But great as advance had by this
time become. greater yet was the adj
vance that chivalry and the spirit Of
the crusades effected. There had doubt
less been individual love and worship
before; but now 1t was general. 80 to
speak; no one beautiful woman was so
much to be reverenced as womanhood
ITSELF This half poetical, half relig-
ious reverence, extended to the whole
sex, was not so ennobling to women a.
to men themselves; it did men vastly
more good than it did the feeble women
mewed in cages and receiving an aims
Of worship. The act of worship was
ennobling to the worshiper, and once
lifted to the plane where he could see
the real worth Of woman, man has not
receded. and every advantage that she
has since gained has been given to her
by the man who might have withheld
it taf E-l
1t was then. among the people Of q
pure and grand religion, where moral
law existed of the straitest sort. that
woman first rose from the mere dust
respecting herself as she received re-
spect, feeling her first thrills of aspira-
ton. And it was under the develop
ment of this same religion in its lowell
est and Hottest life that she became the
object Of tender regards that she ceased
to be a slave, that the world was
opened to her to use according to her
powers, and in the lines marked out by
her own nature, its Limitation here, its
boundlessness there. 1t IL under the
reign of Christianity that woman has
come to her full opportunity and has
taken her place beside man; it Is under
the benignant law of the leader whose
first recorded word after the stone had
been rolled from the sepulcher was
woman" that she can 60 forward still,
and in moving take with her her son
and her sons sons 1t 10 under
this dispensation that it has
come to be understood that
1.-THE woman's cause is mans; they rise or
sink
Togethe1 dwarfed or godlike, bond or free;
For she that out Of Lethe scales with man
The shining steps OF nature shares with man
His nights, his days, moves with him to one
goal,
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands
II she be small slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men growr'
-Horper's Bazaar