I was not prepared to contradict, for the truth is, that Domine told me more in half a dozen sentences than I ever heard before. However, not to appear as if I had suddenly lost _my speech_, I gently hinted, "that Solomon was usually thought a wise man, upon the authority of the Scriptures; and he declares that, in his search after wisdom, he had never found _one_ woman to reward his pains." "Truly, that is not very wonderful," said Oliphant. "When the men, who possessed all the advantages that superior power bestowed, made so little use of it towards the cultivation of knowledge and virtue, that Solomon complains of not finding a man of worth in _a thousand_, no wonder that amongst the weaker sex, who were kept in the lowest state of slavery and degradation, he should not discover any who, deprived of the benefit of education, and shut out from the light of truth, had broken her bonds, and soared above the horrible debasement to which females were condemned by their rulers. The Christian Religion, of which that Bible that you lately quoted as authority for the servitude of women, is the sacred repository, is in fact the charter of female liberty; and in proportion as the Sun of Righteousness shines with more or less refulgence in any land, in such proportion is woman respected." "Pray then, Mr. Oliphant, how comes it that the sense of mankind has always been taking a contrary course? A boy is hardly out of his nurse's arms, before he hears of his superiority over his sisters. When he goes to school, the first grammar that his lisping tongue is turned to repeat, tells him that his sex is most worthy. In the _world_, one hears women only estimated by their beauty, or their wealth; and in families we see them nothing better than the wrecks of a former day, little loved by their husbands, or respected by their children."