IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
67 
dan chief, who was very old and frail, was still get- 
ting wives. When visiting in his town I asked his 
son how many wives his father had. He replied, 
know not ; but he have plenty, for he commence 
getting wife when he was first man, and he keep 
getting wife yet, for there one he get last week,” 
pointing to a girl of about fourteen 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 in 
Africa? Why are you not bought and sold, and 
cruelly flogged and mistreated generally ? 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 happy condition with the one 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 pol- 
luting infiuences of heathenism? Aside from the 
refining infiuences of Christianity, neither you, 
your children, nor your husbands possess any 
more moral excellence or regard for the happiness 
