Will you say that she is not human,--that she has no soul? Even Mahomet did better than that. Some one once asked him if the marriage-tie were immortal, and if a husband might claim his wife in the next world:-- "If the man be the superior being," he replied, "he can claim his wife or not, as he chooses; but, if the woman be the superior, the decision must rest with her." And what Mahomet thus prophesied of the world to come is clearly true of the world that is. There is no such thing as cheating either God or humanity. Let him who aspires to rule _make himself superior_ in understanding and moral purpose, and he _will_ rule. No possibilities, visible or invisible, need daunt him; but, let him be false by one hair's breadth, and he carries his doom in his own bosom as certainly as the flawed crystal at the approach of frost. You are, then, to base your demand for woman's civil rights upon her simple humanity,--the value of the soul itself. If you deny this foundation for her, you deny it for yourselves, and the Declaration of Independence is only an impertinent pretence. It may not be easy to push this truth home, and force your friends and neighbors to consider it; but, once convinced in your own minds, you cannot escape from the responsibility. Wendell Phillips once told us of an old catechism, printed, I think, at Venice in 1563, which contained the following question and answer:-- _Q._ How shall I show my obedience to God? _A._ By never doing any thing which is disagreeable to my neighbor. Is it possible that this catechism is still in general use? Fashionable morality is of so loose a sort, that to do any thing disagreeable to one's neighbor is still, in the estimation of most people, the unpardonable sin. People who are capable of hesitating on that account need not be greatly anxious about their responsibility. Our cause does not need them; resting, not on timid self-deceivers, but on immutable truth, and the hallowed recognition of woman herself. Society still cries, like King John in the play,-- "If not, fill up the measure of her will; Yes, in some measure, satisfy her so, That we shall stop her _exclamation_!" And woman, serener than Constance, may whisper back,-- "Wherefore, since law is perfect wrong, Why should the law forbid my tongue to cry?" FOOTNOTES: [42] A law, apparently favorable to all widows, passed the Massachusetts Legislature at the last session. It seems to me, however, to bear the marks of a law passed for a special case. I have made several applications in the proper quarters for information concerning it, but have received nothing in return. CHAP. 164.--AN ACT CONCERNING THE PROVISIONS FOR WIDOWS IN CERTAIN CASES. _Be it enacted, &c., as follows_:--