Revelation is the only system that assigns to woman her natural and proper elevation in the scale of being, and inspires a consciousness of her real dignity. The moment that an intelligent being is by any injurious treatment, or by any prevailing error, induced to form a degrading estimate of itself, that moment it begins to approximate a state of meanness which was hitherto only imaginary. Let such an one be conscious of being held in no esteem, or prized solely as the tool of servitude or the food of appetite, and all majesty of character is lost; all aim or wish to rise above the brute, to aspire after a station or character, to the occupation of which a tyrannic impiety has opposed an insurmountable barrier, is gone; and those great principles which confer a superiority upon the human kind, and point to a noble pre-eminence, cease to operate, and expire for want of action. This state of things is unnatural, contrary to the original purpose of creation, and in fact, more dishonorable to the usurper than to the degraded sufferer. In Mahometan and Pagan countries the rights of women have been sacrificed to the caprices of men; and, having plucked this fair flower of creation from its original and highly elevated situation, its beauty has faded, its glory been lost in the sacrilegious hands of its barbarian possessor. Abject slavery or base flattery have existed where woman has been displaced from her proper and original character, and the most mischievous consequences have ensued. [4] The first woman is said to have been formed _out of man_; hence, as a _part of himself_, it seems the law of creation, that man should cherish the most affectionate sentiments for the woman:--"Therefore," says the inspired history, "shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." It is observable, that the woman was neither taken out of the _head_, nor from the _feet_, but from the _side_, and near the _heart_! If, therefore, on the one hand, she ought not to assume pre-eminence, on the other she is not to be trampled on and despised, but received as an equal and a friend. As the original arrangements of Infinite Wisdom were the most perfect in their respective kinds, the appropriation of _one_ woman only, as the companion and _wife_ of the first created man, indicates both the will of the Creator respecting marriage, and the circumstances in which it is most likely to produce the greatest sum of domestic felicity. Man is neither to live _alone_, nor to indulge that depravity of taste, which, by seeking enjoyment in diversity, not only ensures disappointment, but generates discord.