It is the peculiarity of the Bible that it honored woman when every other book was blind to the true dignity of her character and the royal possibilities of her nature. The old Testament exalted her not only as wife and mother, but as citizen and ruler, and some of the most stirring songs and daring deeds of patriotism are recorded in the Bible to the honor of woman. Her inspired pen is immortalized in the Word of God, and if it be not meet that her voice sound from the halls of Congress, it is a fact of history that it was heard on the field of battle and in the chamber of justice more than three thousand years ago, when, by the mouth of Deborah and the hand of Jael, the Lord delivered Israel from the power of the spoiler. She may not be thought competent to have part in framing the laws of a State, but she was competent to judge the chosen people and to mould the character of the world's Redeemer.
The conservative who would obstruct the wheels of progress endeavors to accomplish his end by an appeal to the Bible. Sacred Scriptures were represented as the friend of slavery; they are now cited in defense of Papal idolatry and Mormon impurity; and how often we hear them quoted against the emancipation of woman. But the Bible is the most radical book in all the world, and its maxims of wisdom and virtue are in advance of every age. Whatever has been accomplished for the improvement of woman's lot may be traced to its hallowed influence. "It found her the slave of man's appetite in the East, the servant of his cupidity in the West, and the victim of his cruelty in the South," and it broke the chain that bound her soul in darkness and the social fetters that linked her womanhood with dishonor.
We have in the Bible pictures of womanly tenderness and nobleness, and also of womanly debasement unequaled in secular literature. I know how exalted are the women of Homer—"The Heroes' Battle-Prize," "The Heavenly-Minded," "The Sought-For," "The Sister of Heroes," "The Widely-Praised," "Ruling by Beauty," "The Far-Thoughted," "The Hospitable," "The Ship-Guider," and "The Web-Raveler"—names that indicate the queenly beauty of the women who bore them; but I search Iliad and Odyssey in vain for one trace of that glorified character, sublime self-sacrifice and unwavering faith which "crowned the daughters of Israel and made them daughters of Jehovah." On the other hand, Shakspeare's "Lady Macbeth" is weakness itself when compared with Jezebel, who from the harem of Ahab mounted with blood-stained feet the throne of God's chosen people, and there defied the majesty of heaven. How cold, cruel, implacable and lost to all that is human was that accursed daughter of murder, whose crimes were far greater in number and turpitude than those of her infamous father Ethbaal. We hear from her lips no cry,
"Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse
That no compunctious visitings of nature