Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/125

 rife, and breeding mysterious physical as well as mental maladies. I guess this hits the blot, Lesbie, and I long to see prudery and bigotry on our part swept away, mais que messieurs les assassins commencent! Let men begin the reform by conceding to women their full rights in all matters; then these secondary symptoms of the social disease will disappear fast enough, that is my notion about it.’

‘Granting, my dear Lettie, that the causes of society’s hollowness be what you say, I cannot agree with you that it rests only with men to initiate the remedy. There must be something more than mere acting on the defensive which induces so many among our sex to hang back against their own development and elevation; I account for it by the slavish habits of mind which have been inculcated upon the female race, and which must be eradicated before anything material can be done to better the world. We want one like the Hebrew prophet to sound in our ears his warning:—“Rise up, ye women that are at ease, hear my voice, ye careless daughters. Many years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women,” etc., etc.

‘This reminds me that there is a part of the question we have hitherto left out of sight, the effects of a false system of religion. I do not mean by this that one sect or body is false as compared with the rest; I mean that a fundamental falsehood underlies and dominates them all. The subjection of woman in religion cannot but have a vast effect upon her social status, and this notwithstanding the fact that what may be called priestcraft rather than religion is losing its hold upon Western nations. The hold it still