text:  It was reserved for religion to urge the weakness of woman as a reason for treating her not with tenderness only but with respect; it was reserved for religion to bring the charities that are lovely in private life into public service; to break down the barriers which had so long separated the husband from the citizen and to pour around the private hearth the light which up to the time of its revelation had been reflected almost exclusively from the school of the philosopher or the forum of the republic unless in a few rare and favoured instances when it had shed its radiance over the cell of the captive and the deathbed of the patriot