And the sermons that were preached against it--the prophecies of deacon and preacher--were so numerous, so denunciatory, and so violent that they form a queer and interesting chapter in the history of the attitude of the Church toward women, and illustrate, in our own time, how persistent it has been in its efforts to prevent woman from sharing in the benefits of the higher civilization of the nineteenth century. But fortunately for women, Infidels are more numerous than they ever were before, and the power of the Church is dying of dry rot, or as Col. Ingersoll wittily says, of the combined influence of softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. Appendix O. "St. Gregory the Great describes the virtue of a priest, _who through motives of piety had discarded his wife_... Their wives, in _immense numbers_, were driven forth with hatred and with scorn... Pope Urban II. _gave license_ to the nobles _to reduce to slavery the wives_ of priests who refused to abandon them."--Lecky. Appendix P. 1. "Hallam denies that respect for women is due to Christianity. "--Buckle. 2. "In England, wives are still occasionally led to the market by a halter around the neck to be sold by the husband to the highest bidder."--Ibid. "The sale of a wife with a halter around her neck is still a legal transaction in England. The sale must be made in the cattle market, as if she were a mare, all women being considered as mares by old English law, and indeed _called_ 'mares' in certain counties where genuine old English law is still preserved."--Borrow. 3. "Contempt for woman, _the result of clerical teaching_, is shown in myriad forms."--Gage. 4. "The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, _and is now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement_."--John Stuart Mill. 5. "I have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine, that what is mine is yours, but what is yours is not mine; and I should prefer to decline entering into such a compact with anyone, _though I were myself_ the person to profit by it."--Ibid. It will take a long time for that sort of morality to filter into the skull of the Church, and when it does the skull will burst. 6. "Certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes invented, in order to intimidate the masses. Hence the Church made free thought the worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of blasphemies.... As late as the time of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit was obedience to the temporal power.... All these influences fell with crushing weight on woman."--_Matilda Joslyn Gage_ in "Hist. Woman Suffrage."