Sin killed by sin. Woman’s inferiority taught from the pulpit today. A Pastoral letter. The See trial. Modern sermons on women. Lenten lectures of Rev. Morgan A. Dix. The Methodist General Conference of 1880, reject Miss Oliver’s petition for ordination on the plea that woman already has all the rights that are good for her. Resolves itself into a political convention. The General Conference of 1888, rejects women delegates. The Catholic Plenary Council of 1884. Mazzini’s prophecy. The opposition of the church to woman’s education has killed off the inhabitants of the world with greater rapidity than war, famine or pestilence. The present forms of religion and governments essentially masculine. 208 _Chapter Ten_—+Past, Present, Future+ The most important struggle in the history of the church. Not self-sacrifice, but self-development woman’s first duty in life. The protective spirit; its injury to woman. Christianity of little value to civilization. Looking backward through history; looking forward. 237 +Notes+ 249 +Index+ 289 [Illustration: Matilda Joslyn Gage, 1880] WOMAN, CHURCH & STATE The Original Exposé of Male Collaboration Against the Female Sex by Matilda Joslyn Gage Copyright 1893 By Matilda Joslyn Gage This Book is _Inscribed_ to the Memory of my Mother, who was at once mother, sister, friend: _Dedicated_ to all Christian women and men, of whatever creed or name who, bound by Church or State, have not dared to Think for Themselves: _Addressed_ to all Persons, who, breaking away from custom and the usage of ages, dare seek Truth for the sake of Truth. To all such it will be welcome; to all others aggressive and educational. Preface This work explains itself and is given to the world because it is needed. Tired of the obtuseness of Church and State; indignant at the injustice of both towards woman; at the wrongs inflicted upon one-half of humanity by the other half in the name of religion; finding appeal and argument alike met by the assertion that God designed the subjection of woman, and yet that her position had been higher under Christianity than ever before: Continually hearing these statements, and knowing them to be false, I refuted them in a slight _resumé_ the subject at the annual convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D.C., 1878.