Not until near the middle of the nineteenth century did that movement commence which has radically improved, and will continue to improve, the position of women. And who took the chief, and, in the initial stage, the only, part in this reform movement? Freethinkers. Who were silent when they were not active opponents? The clergy. "It was just those who most radically abandoned Christianity--Owen, Holyoake, and Mill--that were the most logical and ungrudging in their plea for woman. It was the Mary Wollstonecrafts, Harriet Martineaus, Frances Wrights, George Eliots, Helen Taylors, and Annie Besants that distinguished themselves by fearlessness and unselfishness... The clergy never discovered any injustice to woman; and only one in a thousand could see it when it was pointed out.... All honour to the memory of those clergymen who, like Kingsley and Farrar, protested against the injustice to the full extent of their idea of womanhood.... On the Continent there has been the same story of general clerical opposition and general heterodox support." [251] "Mr. Pinchwife," [252] too, has undoubtedly had a hand in the subjection of woman; but we are investigating the grounds for the contention that Christianity has laid on woman a burden of gratitude, and that, if Christianity were overthrown, women would sink into unknown depths of degradation. Do the above-stated facts bear out that contention? The question arises: Why has Christianity stood in the way of woman's cause? The answer is simple enough: Christianity, in adopting the Old Testament, adopted with it the Hebrew conception of woman. Her inferiority to man was established by her origin from his rib and the leading part she took in his fall. The Vicar of Crantock tabulates [253] the reasons why a Christian woman should cover her head in church, as follows:-- (1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve. (2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. (3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. (4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the Glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. (5) Woman's priority in the Fall. Adam was not deceived; but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression. (6) The marriage relation. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands. (7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is Christ, but the head of the woman is man.