THE ROCK OF AGES

Although more quietly than before, the fight for woman's rights is still going on. Getting the vote was not the only thing, even in Lucy Stone's day. Those who had hoped to silence the eternal feminine with such concessions as the cigarette, the subway strap, and Radcliffe are doomed to disappointment. While militant ladies in Washington are insisting on laws to do away with all laws discriminating between the sexes, the Presbyterian General Council has gone on record as favoring the elimination of such inequality as exists between the sexes within the church.

Woman and religion have always been closely related from the Vestal Virgins right down to Amie Temple McPherson. If the General Assembly approves the recommendation of its General Council and allows woman the right to sit within the church in full equality with man, to serve as elder, evangelist, or minister, it will merely be granting its womankind rights long enjoyed in other walks of life. Where would Queen Cleopatra, or that financial wizard and presidential candidate. Victoria Woodhull, or even "Captain Victor Barker", who deceived her valet and for six years masqueraded in London as a war hero, have got under the present Presbyterian law?

This fight, for equality within the church will bear some watching. The quieting influence of religion should prevent any strenuous demonstration, but mankind can rest assured that, having gotten into Congress, the weaker sex cannot be kept from the pulpit. If precedent means anything, a definite attempt to deny this right always carries with it the danger of a well wrapped brick being hurled through priceless stained glass.