Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/20

12 cowardly trusting to the blood of an innocent person to save her from the consequences of her own acts, no weak doubts expressed as to her own merit; only a sublime confidence in the infinite tenderness and love of the God she worshiped —the God who grew to her more all-pervading, more all-absorbent, and more grandly just and wise, as she herself grew broader in intellect and larger in heart.

Marie Jeanne Phlipon, daughter of the drunken engraver, child of the people, wife of the just and conscientious philosopher Roland—in thee we find our ideal woman, as Christendom finds in Jesus its ideal man! Virtuous, loving, lovely, intellectual, self-sacrificing woman, could any Christ live an holier life, or die more nobly than thou didst? As he was put to death by a rude rabble because of his brave utterance of pure principles, so also wast thou. If his crucifixion was a more protracted bodily anguish, the horrible outlines of the blood-begrimed guillotine were no less terrible to