Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/111

Rh get far beyond this theory and this practice, until woman has her natural rights as the equal of man, and takes her natural place in regulating the affairs of the family, the community, the Church, and the State.

It seems to me God has treasured up a reserved power in the nature of woman to correct many of those evils which are Christendom's disgrace to-day.

Circumstances help or hinder our development, and are one of the two forces which determine the actual character of a nation, or of mankind, at any special period. Hitherto, amongst men, circumstances have favoured the development of only intellectual power in all its forms, chiefly in its lower forms. At present, mankind, as a whole, has the superiority over womankind, as a whole, in all that pertains to intellect, the higher and the lower. Man has knowledge, has ideas, has administrative skill; enacts the rules of conduct for the individual, the family, the community, the Church, the State, and the world. He applies these rules of conduct to life, and so controls the great affairs of the human race. You see what a world he has made of it. There is male vigour in this civilization, miscalled “Christian”; and in its leading nations there are industry and enterprise which never fail. There is science, literature, legislation, agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce, such as the world never saw. With the vigour of war, the Anglo-Saxon now works the works of peace. England abounds in wealth—richest of lands; but look at her poor, her vast army of paupers, two million strong, the Irish whom she drives with the hand of famine across the sea. Martin Luther was right when he said, “The richer the nation, the poorer the poor.” America is “democratic,” “the freest and most enlightened people in the world.” Look at her slaves: every eighth woman in the country sold as a beast; with no more legal respect paid to her marriage than the farmer pays to the conjunctions of his swine. America is well educated; there are four millions of children in the school-houses of the land: it is a state's prison offence to teach a slave to read the three letters which spell God. The more “democratic” the country, the tighter is bondage ironed on the slave. Look at the cities of England and America. What riches, what refinement, what culture of man and woman too! Ay; but