The following day being Sunday, and the Reverend Warren Holbrook having
brought several prepared sermons with him, service was held in the new
church at the regular morning hour. The women gathered in great numbers,
and nearly filled the church; and the odd appearance of the little man,
as he took his place in the pulpit, was a subject of general remark.

His sermon, I may here state, was one of the most singular and
pyrotechnical ever preached in Nyack. He began by saying that Christ had
risen, and was with them in person. He had come to Nyack, he added, to
tell the truth and preach to sinners, for he understood the devil had
had things his own way for a long time in the town; and he understood
also there were sinners enough in Nyack to sink it. The world had
reached a stage of wickedness when it needed reforming. It must be
reformed, or it would sink under the weight of its wickedness. People
were getting rich, and with great riches there always came pride and
wickedness. He continued in this strain for nearly an hour, mixing up
transcendentalism, rationalism, unitarianism, and a number of other
isms, so unartistically as to astonish and confound his audience, and
give his hearers something to talk about for a week.

Then he suddenly broke away from his disputed points, as he called them,
and took up the subject of woman's wrongs. "My hearers," said he,
pausing and pointing upward with the fore-finger of his right hand,
"What would the world be without woman? From the very beginning of the
world she has been the victim of wrong, great wrong. Man has sinned
against her by making her his inferior. God never intended that she
should be the inferior of man. He never would have created her with a
form so beautiful, and a voice so soft and musical, if he had not
intended her for man's superior. And the day will come, and come soon,
too, when she will have her rights, and her voice will be heard in the