IT is one of the glittering fictions of the Church that to her civilization is due,* and that it is to her benign influence and direction alone that woman has been advanced to her present position in the social scale; that without the Bible and the Church the status of woman in Christian countries would be lower and her lot harder.

1st. To prove this claim she directs attention to the status of woman in several non-Christian countries, and compares the degradation and hardship she there endures to the position of woman to-day in America, England, and France.

2d. The Church claims the credit of originating and sustaining the various steps of progress by which woman has been elevated. She claims to have originated and to sustain the idea that woman is man's equal, and to recognize her as such in the Church.

3d. She points with pride to the superior education and intelligence of the women of Christian countries, and contrasts this intellectual altitude with that of women elsewhere. She says that women owe their superior opportunities of education and advancement to their religion.

4th. But above all the clergy attempt to silence those who ask questions, by calling attention to the superior legal status of woman in Christian countries, and asserting that the Church secured this, and that it made marriage honorable and home a possibility.

5th. The clergy claim that the Bible is woman's best friend and staunchest defender, and that it is the originator of morality.