the public ministry of women was an act of faith. It was a step that followed from a central belief in the universality of the inner light. It was taken in the face of difficulties. It hampered the Quakers enormously in relation to the outside world. It was the occasion of profound disturbance within the body. Heart-searching and hesitation rose here and there to an opposition so convinced as to form part of the programme of the first schismatics.[22] Fox had to fight valiantly. His central belief once clear, he cut clean through the Pauline tangle of irreconcilable propositions, and forged from the depths of his conviction phrases that would, were they but known, do yeoman service in the present agitation for the release of the artificially inhibited responsibilities of women. He is never tired of reminding those who cling to the story of the Fall that the restoration of humanity in the appearance of Christ took the reproach from woman. He rallies men, often with delicious humour, on their desire to rule over women, and exhorts those who despise "the spirit of prophecy in the daughters" to be "ashamed for ever." But although faith won, it is probable that the majority took the step only under the urgency of deep-seated consciousness, the surface intelligence still loudly asserting the necessary pre-eminence of masculine standards. Even amongst the most determined advocates of the recognition of a woman's spiritual identity, amongst those who condemned its suppression as blasphemous, we meet the suggestion that this recognition need not in any way interfere with her proper subjection to her husband. Nevertheless, Fox succeeded in equalizing the marriage covenant. [Footnote 22: The Perrot Schism, 1661.] The government of the society, therefore, was for many years carried on by men alone, a women's meeting coming into existence, as we have seen, only when obviously imperative--in relation to the care of the women and children suffering under persecution--and persisting only for special purposes quite apart from the business of the society as a whole. Men and women, however, occasionally visited each other's meetings, and joint sittings were sometimes held. It was the experience coming to the support of dawning theory, of the superior working of these joint meetings, that finally enfranchised Quaker womanhood. It is interesting to note that one of the most striking features of the technique of Quaker meetings, whether for business or worship, is the working out of the distinctive characteristics of the sexes. Their contradiction, and the tendency psychology has roughly summarized of women, as a class, to control thought by feeling, and of men, as a class, to allow "reason" the first place, is here at its height.