“Who thinks of their martyrdom, their efforts in the good cause, and the help they gin the old male prophets? Nobody, not one.
“I spoze the account of these things bein’ writ down by males and translated by ’em makes a difference; it’s sort o’ naterel to stand up for your own sect.
“But folks ort to own up, male or female; and them old females ort to have justice done ’em.
“And though it is pretty late in the day—thousands of years have flown by, and the dust of the desert lays deep over their modest, unassumin’ graves, where they have lain unnoticed and overlooked by everybody—
“But here is one in Jonesville that is goin’ to brush away the thick dust that has drifted down over their memory, and tell my opinion of ’em.
“It is too late now to tell them old Miss Prophets what I think of ’em, thousands of years too late to chirk ’em up, and lighten their achin’ hearts, and brighten their sad eyes by lettin’ ’em know the deep sympathy and affection I feel for ’em.
“I can’t make ’em hear my words, the dust lays too thick over their ears.
“But yet I am a goin’ to say them words jest out of a love for justice.
“Justice has stood for ages with the bandage on tight over her eyes on one side, on the side of wimmen, and her scales held out, blind as a bat to what them old females done and suffered.
“But she has got a little corner lifted now on the side of wimmen; Justice is a beginnin’ to peek out and notice that ‘male and female created He them.’