Sez I, “We won’t argy long on that p’int, for I might overwhelm you if I approved of overwhelmin’, but, will merely ask you to cast one eye on England. Was the rain of Victoria the Good less peaceful and prosperous than that of the male rulers who preceded her? And you can then throw your other eye over to Holland: is their sweet queen less worthy and beloved to-day than other European monarchs? And is her throne more shaky and tottlin’ than theirn?”
He didn’t try to dispute me and bowed his head on his breast in a almost meachin’ way. He knowed he wuz beat on every side, and almost to the end of his chain of rusty, broken old arguments. But anon he brightened up agin and sez, ketchin’ holt of the last shackly link of his argument:
“You seem to place a great deal of dependence on the Bible. The Bible is aginst the idee. The Bible teaches man’s supremacy, man’s absolute power and might and authority.”
“Why, how you talk,” sez I. “In the very first chapter the Bible tells how man wuz turned right round by a woman, tells how she not only turned man round to do as she wanted him to, but turned the hull world over.
“That hain’t nothin’ I approve of; I don’t speak of it because I like the idee. That wuzn’t done in a open honorable manner as things should be done. No, Eve ruled by indirect influence, the gently influencing men way, that politicians are so fond of. And she brought ruin and destruction onto the hull world by it.
“A few years later when men and wimmen grew wiser, when we hear of wimmen rulin’ Israel openly and honestly, like Miriam, Deborah and other likely old four mothers, things went on better. They didn’t act meachin’ and tempt, and act indirect.”
He sithed powerful and sot round oneasy in his chair. And sez he, “I thought wimmen wuz taught by the Bible to serve and love their homes.”
“So they be. And every true woman loves to serve. Home is my supreme happiness and delight, and my best happiness is found in servin’ them I love. But I must tell the truth, in the house or outdoors.”
Sez he faintly, “The Old Testament may teach that women have some strength and power. But in the New Testament in every great undertaken’ and plan men have been chosen by God to carry them through.”
“Why-ee!” sez I, “how you talk! Have you ever read the Bible?”