Let us next examine the conduct of this fallen pair, when Jehovah interrogated them respecting their fault. They both frankly confessed their guilt. ‘The man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat.’ And the Lord God said unto the woman, ‘Thou wilt be subject unto thy husband, and he will rule over thee.’ That this did not allude to the subjection of woman to man is manifest, because the same mode of expression is used in speaking to Cain of Abel. The truth is that the curse, as it is termed, which was pronounced by Jehovah upon woman, is a simple prophecy. The Hebrew, like the French language, uses the same word to express shall and will. Our translators having been accustomed to exercise lordship over their wives, and seeing only through the medium of a perverted judgment, very naturally, though I think not very learnedly or very kindly, translated it _shall_ instead of _will_, and thus converted a prediction to Eve into a command to Adam; for observe, it is addressed to the woman and not to the man. The consequence of the fall was an immediate struggle for dominion, and Jehovah foretold which would gain the ascendency; but as he created them in his image, as that image manifestly was not lost by the fall, because it is urged in Gen. 9:6, as an argument why the life of man should not be taken by his fellow man, there is no reason to suppose that sin produced any distinction between them as moral, intellectual and responsible beings. Man might just as well have endeavored by hard labor to fulfil the prophecy, thorns and thistles will the earth bring forth to thee, as to pretend to accomplish the other, ‘he will rule over thee,’ by asserting dominion over his wife. ‘Authority usurped from God, not given. He gave him only over beast, flesh, fowl, Dominion absolute: that right he holds By God’s donation: but man o’er woman He made not Lord, such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.’ Here then I plant myself. God created us equal;--he created us free agents;--he is our Lawgiver, our King and our Judge, and to him alone is woman bound to be in subjection, and to him alone is she accountable for the use of those talents with which her Heavenly Father has entrusted her. One is her Master even Christ. Thine for the oppressed in the bonds of womanhood, SARAH M. GRIMKE. LETTER II. WOMAN SUBJECT ONLY TO GOD. _Newburyport, 7th mo. 17, 1837._