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epistle of Paul to Timothy, the following gallant
passages:
"Let the woman learn in silence, with all
"subjection."
"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp
"authority over the man, but to be in silence."
And for these kind, gentle and civilized remarks,
the apostle Paul gives the following reasons:
"For Adam was first formed, then Eve."
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman
"being deceived was in the transgression."
Certainly women ought to feel under great obli-
gation to the apostle Paul.
In the fifth chapter of the same epistle, Paul,
advising Timothy as to what kind of people he
should admit into his society or church, uses the
following language:
"Let not a widow be taken into the number under
"threescore years old, having been the wife of one
"man."
"But the younger widows refuse, for when they
"have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will
"marry."
This same Paul did not seem to think polygamy
wrong, except in a bishop. He tells Timothy that:
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"A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one
"wife."
He also lays down the rule that a deacon should be
the husband of one wife, leaving us to infer that the
other members might have as many as they could get.
In the second epistle to Timothy, Paul speaks of
"grandmother Lois," who was referred to in such
extravagant language by Mr. Talmage, and nothing
is said touching her character in the least. All her
virtues live in the imagination, and in the imagina-
tion alone.
Paul, also, in his epistle to the Ephesians, says:
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own hus-
"bands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the
"head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
"church."
"Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
"so let the wives be to their own husbands, in
"everything."
You will find, too, that in the seventh chapter of
First Corinthians, Paul laments that all men are not
bachelors like himself, and in the second verse of
that chapter he gives the only reason for which he
was willing that men and women should marry. He
advised all the unmarried, and all widows, to remain
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as he was. In the ninth verse of this same chapter
is a slander too vulgar for repetition,--an estimate
of woman and of woman's love so low and vile, that
every woman should hold the inspired author in
infinite abhorrence.
Paul sums up the whole matter, however, by telling
those who have wives or husbands, to stay with
them--as necessary evils only to be tolerated--but
sincerely regrets that anybody was ever married;
and finally says that:
"They that have wives should be as though they
"had none;" because, in his opinion:
"He that is unmarried careth for the things that
"belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord;
"but he that is married careth for the things that are
"of the world, how he may please his wife."
"There is this difference also," he tells us, "be-
"tween a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman
"careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be
"holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is
"married careth for the things of the world, how she
" may please her husband."
Of course, it is contended that these things have
tended to the elevation of woman.