“Will man ever be pure, noble and strong enough to protect woman, in or out of legal marriage, against his own passion? Must woman always put herself on the defensive, to protect herself against man? Will man never see the fact as it is, that all that is manly, true, great and noble in his nature, must be preserved and perpetuated only by the protection of woman against being victimized to his sensual gratification? O man! thou art all noble and God-like, to the loving and trusting heart of woman! She longs to come to thee, to save thee, and to be saved by thee. But thou mayest be assured that thy heaven, in time and eternity, can be secured only by saving woman from prostitution. While she is regarded by thee as the means of sensual gratification, rather than as the vitalizing, redeeming power of thy manhood, she will bring desolation and death to thy soul, and thou to hers. To man, woman looks for strength. How she longs to rest in him,—how she longs to give herself to him in a self-abandoning trust,—and how she longs that he may ever be worthy such a trust, the heart of the true woman and wife alone can ever know. But when woman trusts and man proves weak, and betrays her longing and trusting heart, no words can express her sickening, crushing disappointment and anguish. Often do women prefer to die a lingering and loathsome death, rather than confess themselves mistaken and disappointed in those whom they have trusted.” The following extract from a private letter speaks the thought and feeling of every true woman. Weigh well what the writer says of woman’s right to protect herself against the reckless passion of man. Also, what she says of woman’s power over man, and of man’s readiness to yield to that power, when woman has the courage to appeal to his love: “I cannot conceive of a woman, who has willingly and joyfully received into her own being the germ of a new existence, with the noble design of rendering that existence happy, ever committing this foul deed [abortion]. The cause of it must always be, the previous submission to an unwelcome maternity. If this can be justified, if the laws of man and of God oblige woman thus to degrade and violate the sacredness of her own person, it follows that she, being thus outlawed, placed outside the protection of all law, human and divine, has a right to protect herself from further evil, and even avenge herself for the past, as she best can; and that whether by taking the life of her husband or of his child. Can this be denied as a necessary consequence? and does not the bare statement of it disprove the monstrous assertion that God, either by Nature or Revelation, has thus placed her at the disposal of man’s will? No living creature is created without some means of self-protection; and in woman, that weapon is _Self-Respect_.