Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/96

84 be found in political equality. In the midst of the fierce conflicts in the Anti-Slavery Conventions of 1839 and '40, on the woman question per se, Mr. Whittier remarked to Lucretia Mott, "Give woman the right to vote, and you end all these persecutions by reform and church organizations.'

 So, this is all the utmost reach Of priestly power the mind to fetter! When laymen think when women preach A war of words a "Pastoral Letter!" Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes! Was it thus with those, your predecessors, Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes Their loving-kindness to transgressors?

A "Pastoral Letter," grave and dull — Alas! in hoof and horns and features, How different is your Brookfield bull, From him who bellows from St. Peter's! Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, Think ye, can words alone preserve them? Your wiser fathers taught the arm And sword of temporal power to serve them.

Oh, glorious days — when Church and State Were wedded by your spiritual fathers! And on submissive shoulders sat Yours Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers. No vile "itinerant" then could mar The beauty of your tranquil Zion, But at his peril of the scar Of hangman's whip and branding-iron.

Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church Of heretic and mischief-maker, And priest and bailiff joined in search, By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker! The stocks were at each church's door, The gallows stood on Boston Common, A Papist's ears the pillory bore — The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!

Your fathers dealt not as ye deal With "non-professing" frantic teachers; They bored the tongue with red-hot steel, And flayed the backs of "female preachers."