68 WESTERN AFRICA. 
getting wife when he was first man, and 
keep getting wife yet, for there one he get 
last week/ 5 pointing to a girl of about four- 
teen or fifteen years of age. 
And now ladies and mothers of America, 
why are you in a happier condition than 
your sex in Africa ? Why are your rights 
respected, and your position in society made 
honorable? Why are you not oppressed 
and brutalized as women are ill Africa ? 
Why are you not bought and sold ? Simply, 
because the Bible of God is among you. 
Where that Book is not, women suffer cruel 
injustice. 
But we would also ask, what would you 
take to exchange your condition with the 
condition of those spoken of in this chapter? 
What would you take, mothers, to have 
your daughters in the condition of young 
women in Africa, exposed to the hellish 
cruelties, and the soul and body polluting 
influences of heathenism? Aside from the 
refining influences of Christianity, neither 
you, your children, nor your husbands, pos- 
sess any more moral excellence, or sympathy 
for the happiness, and rights of others, than 
