Page:Woman and the Bible.pdf/32

28 exchequer, and then at the end of the year we Doctors of Divinity will meet in council and proclaim to the world what the ministry is doing to save the race.

After the collection the sphere of woman is rigidly defined in the texts. "I suffer not a woman to teach." "But I would have you know that the head of the woman is the man." "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." "The woman being deceived was first in the transgression." "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church."

"If a woman would know anything let her learn of her husband at home." "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine," This is some of the "spiritual" pabulum on which the parson feeds his female flock, and women seem to like it. Indeed the "lovely Christian women" seem to enjoy the silence, subjection, martyr and sacrifice business. I cannot see how self-respecting women can enjoy the "divine mystery" of being classed with the ox and the ass, yet the Seventh Commandment does this very thing.

As the Bible makes woman the fountain of iniquity I have often wondered how the "sons of God" could so lower themselves as to marry the "daughter of men" notwithstanding their celestial lineage they seem willing to be born of, and wedded to them.

The Bible says too if we "would be saved we must be born again." Now I object to being born again, whatever other women may do. One ordeal of that sort is enough for me. If children are "conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity" there should be a law passed prohibiting any one being born once, thus making it impossible to be "born again." The clergy are so busy keeping the women in harness that they ignore other commands of the Bible. Celibacy is as