saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh:  and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy.”  “The last days” evidently means the Gospel dispensation; and this text alone, twice given by inspiration, even if there were no other, would establish the right of women to all the immunities and ordinances of the Christian Church.

I Cor. xiv, 34, 35, is always presented by the opponents of women’s privileges as positive proof that women should not take a public part in religious worship:  “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.  And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the Church.”

In the passage first quoted in this chapter, Paul gives explicit directions for the manner in which women should be arrayed while speaking in the Church.  Since, then, there can be no contradiction in the Word of God, and we have positive proof that women did speak in public assemblies by permission of the apostles, nothing remains but to reconcile the two texts so apparently contradictory, by ascertaining to what kind of a public assembly the apostle had reference in the text last quoted.  By reference to the verses preceding this text in the fourteenth chapter of First Corinthians, it will be seen that the apostle is pointing out the impropriety and unprofitableness of speaking in unknown tongues; and of the contention and disorder that then existed at Corinth.  False teachers had caused dissension and tumults in the Church; and, besides, the whole system of Christianity was violently assailed by both the Jews and the pagans.  The disciples at Corinth were in the midst of a great controversy.  According to Eastern ideas, it was an outrage upon propriety and decency, not only for a woman to take part by publicly asking questions, or teaching in any such disorderly assembly, but even for her to be present therein.  To avoid the very appearance of evil, they were to absent themselves from these contentious meetings because it was a shame for a woman to speak or contend in such riotous assemblies.  It is more than probable that Christian women had done so prior to this; and therefore Paul warns them against such improprieties; not, however, forbidding them to pray or prophesy in the Church, providing they “covered their heads.”  The Gospel proclaims an equal freedom to all; Paul earnestly asserting (Gal. in, 28), that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”  Nevertheless, lest the cause of God should be hindered by women asserting their Christian liberty, by speech or action, he desired them to comply with the common