read about how the women were treated in different places; how in some
countries they are sold and bartered for cattle or wool or cloth, and how
they belong to their husbands just as if they were furniture, and their
husbands can treat them just as they please, as we do cats or dogs. And in
some places, it said, a wife has to be burned when her husband dies,
because she is only a part of him and has no value of her own after his
death. Oh! how many strange things there are in the world, to be sure! I
became hungry and thirsty for knowledge. The doctor's wife lent me one
book after another, and in each there was something new and wonderful. I
learned how terrible the condition of women had been everywhere until our
own Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, and taught that one soul was
as much worth as another, all equal, man and woman, lord and servant; that
every individual must be free, one as well as another; and that two people
should be joined together only by love, and not as a matter of ownership.
But even now-a-days there are still countries and islands where men make
nothing of killing and eating each other, and the women are bought and
sold like goods. It is only where the influence of Christianity has
penetrated, that there is true equality of womanhood. You can imagine the
flood of new ideas that crowded in upon me as I read, and I assure you
that I was able to forget sometimes for many days that I was a hunchback,
and when I did remember it, the thought had lost its sting. I dwelt upon
the many privations and sufferings of others, till they seemed to outweigh
my own trouble so that it dwindled in my estimation; and gradually I began
to see the good side of my lot. How independently I could live supporting
myself; what a wealth of interest was opened to me through my reading, and
in fact how fortunate I was, and blessed beyond many another! Yes,
Veronica, I can assure you that I am now a happy woman, with a heart
filled with gratitude to the good God for the blessings he has sent me.
And so I say to you, my child, from the fulness of my own experience, that
you have no right to go about looking like a thunder-cloud; you with all