no price at all to those who sought to stimulate a love of knowledge for its own sake,—­men like Socrates, for example, who walked barefooted, and lived on fifty dollars a year, and who at last was killed out of pure hatred for the truths he told and the manner in which he told them,—­this martyrdom occurring in the most intellectual city of the world.  In both Greece and Rome there was an intellectual training for men bent on utilitarian ends; even as we endow schools of science and technology to enable us to conquer nature, and to become strong and rich and comfortable; but there were no schools for women, whose intellects were disdained, and who were valued only as servants or animals,—­either to drudge, or to please the senses.

But even if there were some women in Paganism of high mental education,—­if women sometimes rose above their servile condition by pure intellect, and amused men by their wit and humor,—­still their souls were little thought of.  Now, it is the soul of woman—­not her mind, and still less her body—­which elevates her, and makes her, in some important respects, the superior of man himself.  He has dominion over her by force of will, intellect, and physical power.  When she has dominion over him, it is by those qualities which come from her soul,—­her superior nature, greater than both mind and body.  Paganism never recognized the superior nature, especially in woman,—­that which must be fed, even in this world, or there will be constant unrest and discontent.  And inasmuch as Paganism did not feed it, women were unhappy, especially those who had great capacities.  They may have been comfortable, but they were not contented.

Hence, women made no great advance either in happiness or in power, until Christianity revealed the greatness of the soul, its perpetual longings, its infinite capacities, and its future satisfactions.  The spiritual exercises of the soul then became the greatest source of comfort amid those evils which once ended in despair.  With every true believer, the salvation of so precious a thing necessarily became the end of life, for Christianity taught that the soul might be lost.  In view of the soul’s transcendent value, therefore, the pleasures of the body became of but little account in comparison.  Riches are good, power is desirable; eating and drinking are very pleasant; praise, flattery, admiration,—­all these things delight us, and under Paganism were sought and prized.  But Christianity said, “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Christianity, then, set about in earnest to rescue this soul which Paganism had disregarded.  In consequence of this, women began to rise, and shine in a new light.  They gained a new charm, even moral beauty,—­yea, a new power, so that they could laugh at ancient foes, and say triumphantly, when those foes sought to crush them, “O Grave, where is thy victory?  O Death, where is thy sting?” There is no beauty among women like this moral beauty,