When I see Eve with this powerful influence over Adam and over the
generations that have followed, it suggests to me the great power all
women have for good or for evil. I have no sympathy, nor have you,
with the hollow flatteries showered upon woman from the platform and
the stage. They mean nothing, they are accepted as nothing. Woman's
nobility consists in the exercise of a Christian influence, and when I
see this powerful influence of Eve upon her husband and upon the whole
human race, I make up my mind that the frail arm of woman can strike a
blow which will resound through all eternity down among the dungeons,
or up among the thrones.
Of course, I am not speaking of representative women--of Eve, who
ruined the race by one fruit-picking; of Jael, who drove a spike
through the head of Sisera the warrior; of Esther, who overcame
royalty; of Abigail, who stopped a host by her own beautiful prowess;
of Mary, who nursed the world's Saviour; of Grandmother Lois,
immortalized in her grandson Timothy; of Charlotte Corday, who drove
the dagger through the heart of the assassin of her lover, or of Marie
Antoinette, who by one look from the balcony of her castle quieted a
mob, her own scaffold the throne of forgiveness and womanly courage. I
speak not of these extraordinary persons, but of those who,
unambitious for political power, as