Does a “_visible church of Christ_” consist of persons possessing a newly‐ created nature, by which alone any truly virtuous acts can be performed, or does it consist of persons who unite to sustain the public worship, ordinances and teachings of Jesus Christ? Are children to be trained to believe that all their feelings and actions are “sin and only sin,” till they receive a new nature from God, or be taught that whenever they choose what is _right_, with the _intention_ to do right, they act virtuously and please God? Are children to be allowed to come to the table of their Lord and Saviour as soon as they can understand the nature of the ordinance, and wish and intend to obey Jesus Christ in all things, or are they to be excluded until church officers decide whether the signs of a _new nature_ are to be found? Are women and children to be excluded from the Lord’s table because they interpret the Bible diversely from the church with which they worship? These are the practical questions involved in the doctrine of the depraved nature of man, as taught by the clergy of the great Christian sects. It has been stated that many intelligent and pious women in various parts of our country have already quietly assumed their rights as authorized interpreters of the Bible on all these questions, have cast off the Augustinian theory, and thus, in fret, have set themselves in opposition to the clergy, except so far as the clergy themselves have come to the same results. The writer, in this work, has done little more than has also been done by many pious and intelligent mothers and teachers, except to define, methodize and publicly express opinions which other women have _practically_ adopted in training children, as the result of their own experience, common sense and study of the Bible. Some of the leading organs of the High Church party in the Episcopal church, and thus the most strenuous defenders of ecclesiastical infallibility and authority, in noticing the writer’s volume, _Common Sense Applied to Religion_, previously referred to, ask with _naive_ simplicity, what right has a woman to apply common sense to religion, or to have any opinions except as she is taught them by the church, at the same time sneering at the idea, that “the dear people” are competent to understand and interpret the Bible for themselves. This shows that the issue is now fairly presented and understood. The ecclesiastical party, more or less, openly claim that the only authorized interpreters of the Bible are the ordained priesthood, or the regenerated church. On the other hand, the people, and women, as that half of the people to whom the training of the human mind is especially committed, maintain that they are ordained to this office by a Higher Power and by the imposition of a nobler hand than any who boast an uninterrupted apostolical succession.