Of course, there are bad women, as there are bad men. But if the ability to restrain one's passions be a virtue, if resistance to temptation is indicative of strength of character, women are much stronger than men. There are few men who would not make fools of themselves if women encouraged them. If patience, endurance of pain, and self-sacrifice are desirable traits of character, women are braver than men. Every time a woman becomes a mother, she descends, so to speak, into the grave to give life to another. There is not a man who was not at one time carried in a woman's arms. But for her love, tenderness and unselfishness, there would have been no civilization.* If woman counts for anything to-day; if intellectually, socially, industrially and politically, she has stepped to the front, it is all due to her own efforts--efforts against ancient and "inspired" prejudices, against the opposition of bibles and the creeds, of priests and politicians, and of Church and State. Unaided by man or God, woman has saved herself from a life of slavery and inaninity, of injustice and drudgery, and to-day both Church and State fear the rising power of woman! * Consult the author's Woman Suffrage; or, the Childbearing Woman and Civilization. But perhaps the bible is great for its _literary_ qualities. Much is said in praise of the bible in this respect. We are asked to admire it as a collection of literary masterpieces. But which are the masterpieces in the bible? Is it the book of Ruth? Is it Esther? Is it Jonah, or Daniel, or Ezekiel? Is it Leviticus, or Isaiah? Is it the Psalms of David, or the Songs of Solomon? The only book that comes near being a masterpiece is the book of Job, which, with the exception of the first and second chapters, in which Satan makes a fatal wager with Jehovah for the soul of Job, is the work of a sceptic. Is there any story or romance in the bible that can compare in beauty and might to the _Faust_ of Goethe, or the _Omar Khayyam_ of Fitzgerald, or to the _Prometheus Unbound_ of Shelley? Is there a book among the five attributed to Moses, or the dozen or more attributed to the prophets, that is as entrancing as Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables?_