Again, she must ‘make no claims, and maintain no rights, but what are the gifts of honor, rectitude and love.’ From whom does woman receive her _rights_? From God, or from man? What dost thou mean by saying, her rights are the _gifts_ of honor, rectitude and love? One would really suppose that man, as her lord and master, was the gracious giver of her rights, and that these rights were bestowed upon her by ‘the promptings of chivalry, and the poetry of romantic gallantry,’--out of the abundance of his honor, rectitude and love. Now, if I understand the real state of the case, woman’s rights are not the gifts of man--no! nor the _gifts_ of God. His gifts to her may be recalled at his good pleasure--but her _rights_ are an integral part of her moral being; they cannot be withdrawn; they must live with her forever. Her rights lie at the foundation of all her duties; and, so long as the divine commands are binding upon her, so long must her rights continue. ‘A woman may seek the aid of co-operation and combination among her own sex, to assist her in her appropriate offices of piety, charity,’ &c. _Appropriate_ offices! Ah! here is the great difficulty. What are they? Who can point them out? Who has ever attempted to draw a line of separation between the duties of men and women, as _moral_ beings, without committing the grossest inconsistencies on the one hand, or running into the most arrant absurdities on the other? ‘Whatever, in any measure, throws a woman into the attitude of a combatant, either for herself or others--whatever binds her in a party conflict--whatever obliges her in any way to exert coercive influences, throws her out of her appropriate sphere.’ If, by a _combatant_, thou meanest one who ‘drives by _physical force_,’ then I say, _man_ has no more right to appear as _such_ a combatant than woman; for all the pacific precepts of the gospel were given to _him_, as well as to her. If, by a _party conflict_, thou meanest a struggle for power, either civil or ecclesiastical, a thirst for the praise and the honor of man, why, then I would ask, is this the proper sphere of _any_ moral, accountable being, man or woman? If, by _coercive influences_, thou meanest the use of force or of fear, such as slaveholders and warriors employ, then, I repeat, that _man_ has no more right to exert these than _woman_. All such influences are repudiated by the precepts and examples of Christ, and his apostles; so that, after all, this appropriate sphere of woman is _just as appropriate to man_. These ‘general principles are correct,’ if thou wilt only permit them to be of _general application_.