Another argument is that if orthodox Christianity were not good for
women they would not support and cling to it; if it did not comfort them
they would discard it. In reply to that I need only recall to you the
fact that it is the same in all religions. Women have ever been the
stanchest defenders of the faith, the most bitter haters of an infidel,
the most certain that their form of faith is the only truth.* Yet I do
not hear this fact advanced to prove the divinity of the Koran or the
book of Mormon. If it is a valid argument in the one case it is valid in
the others. The trouble with it is it proves too much. It takes in the
whole field. It does not leave a weed, from the first incantation of the
first aborigine to the last shout of the last convert to Mormonism, out
of its range; and it does, and always has done, just as good service
for any one of the other religions as it does for ours. It is a
free-for-all, go-as-you-please argument; but it is the sort of chaff
they feed theological students on--and they sift it over for women. It
is pretty light diet when it gets to them--but it is filling.
* See Appendix G.
Recently I heard a clergyman give the following as his reason for
opposing medical, or scientific training of any sort, for women: "Now
her whole energy and force of action (outside of the family) must be
expended upon religion. If she were allowed other fields of action
or thought, her energy, like that of man, would be withdrawn from and
_fatally cripple the Church_."
To me, however, it seems that any organization that finds it necessary
to cripple its adherents in order to keep them has a screw loose
somewhere.
And it also seems to me that it is time for women to try to find out
where the trouble is. They will not want for aid from the men
who think--the men who hold self vastly inferior to principle and
justice--the rare noblemen of nature, honorable, fair, just, tender,
and thoughtful men--men who love to see the weakest share with them the
benefits of freedom--men who know that they are not the less men because
they are tender, that women are not the less women because they are
strong; and no land under the sky holds so many such as ours.