of others. If they were not in a state of knowledge and virtue, they
were at least in one of comparative innocence.

You know how it was with the natives of this continent. A chief had
many wives, whom he maintained and who did his household work; those
women were but servants, still they enjoyed the respect of others and
their own. They lived together, in peace. They knew that a sin against
what was in their nation esteemed virtue, would be as strictly
punished in Man as in Woman.

Now pass to the countries where marriage is between one and one. I
will not speak of the Pagan nations, but come to those which own the
Christian rule. We all know what that enjoins; there is a standard to
appeal to.

See, now, not the mass of the people, for we all know that it is a
proverb and a bitter jest to speak of the "down-trodden million." We
know that, down to our own time, a principle never had so fair a
chance to pervade the mass of the people, but that we must solicit its
illustration from select examples.

Take the Paladin, take the Poet. Did _they_ believe purity more
impossible to Man than to Woman? Did they wish Woman to believe that
Man was less amenable to higher motives,--that pure aspirations would
not guard him against bad passions,--that honorable employments and
temperate habits would not keep him free from slavery to the body? O
no! Love was to them a part of heaven, and they could not even wish to
receive its happiness, unless assured of being worthy of it. Its
highest happiness to them was that it made them wish to be worthy.
They courted probation. They wished not the title of knight till the