felt in the government. How is it that only the men are making the laws after they are twenty-one, when they owe all that they are to their mothers? Men should put themselves in the place of the women, and work for their enfranchisement as for themselves, and work as if they felt righteous indignation at being in subjection.

The liquor interest has long been against us, and we labor, too, under the disadvantage of having the press against us.

This is a question so deep and profound, that it makes me tremble to attempt to handle it, but it does not require very deep thought to see the justice of equal suffrage.

At the close of MRS. HOOKER'S address, HENRY B. BLACKWELL, of Boston, was introduced, and spoke in substance as follows:

The Quakers were the first who afforded equal suffrage to women in religion. Under the English law the women of New Jersey were allowed to vote provided they owned fifty pounds. These women helped to elect the first three Presidents of the United States. No class of people were ever enfranchised because they asked to be.

There are some States in the Union where they now elect women to the supervision of schools. It is wonderful, when we think that this has been a fight of less than half a century, that in twenty-two States of the Union women have school suffrage, in Kansas municipal suffrage, and in Wyoming full suffrage. I congratulate you that we have had woman suffrage in Wyoming for twenty-one years, and that that brave territory declared that she would stay out of the Union unless she could come in as a woman-suffrage State.

MR. BLACKWELL claimed that there was little to be hoped for in the way of help for woman-suffrage, from the Democratic party, and that the Republican party had in many cases proved to be its friend.

MRS. HOOKER said: Although neither party in Connecticut helps us much, it is to the Democratic party that we owe the most. A Democratic paper of Hartford publishes our work.

The Republicans have fought us tooth and nail every chance they had. I will help no party that does not do me justice.

MR. BLACKWELL said: Three years ago every Democratic Senator in Congress voted against woman suffrage, while twothirds of the Republicans voted for it.

LAURA JOHNSON thought King Alcohol governed this question, and that women should give their support to the party which opposes liquor.

MRS. CATHERINE HANNUM thought that women should assert their rights, think more of what other women achieving in the world, and be inspired by their example.

are

MR. HINCKLEY said: It is important to remember that every effect has a great many causes, and that no one measure, however vital, can accomplish all that is to be desired. The coming girl must stand for something, and we must recognize that the more she does for her best self, the more she does for woman suffrage, and the cause of human rights everywhere. There is great power in politics, but all power is not there; the greatest power is not there. Strong, welldeveloped character is a force which has no superior. Whoso has met a pure-minded, self-centred girl, just blossoming into womanhood, who has made him feel that she was in command of herself, and sure to make for herself a career, has met the strongest kind of argument for this reform. Behind the ballot lies the thought and power of character. The ballot is only a means of expressing character.

After remarks by GILES B. STEBBINS, and singing by the SWAYNE FAMILY, the meeting was adjourned until Seventh Day morning.

SEVENTH DAY.-Morning Session.

The meeting opened at ten o'clock and the audience joined in singing a hymn.

GILES B. STEBBINS was at once introduced and spoke in substance as follows:

THE PERMANENCE AND POWER OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS.

The interest of this meeting in practical reforms and daily duties gives it high value. We are best fitted for such useful work when we stand on sure foundation,-on primal and enduring religious ideas. Our thought shapes our life. Three great ideas are everywhere, in all times and lands and in all religions. Under various names, dim and confused or clear and full of light, growing through the ages as divine inspirations, we find God, duty, immortality. These will be the foundations for the philosophy and the natural religion which are to gain in the coming time. This spiritual philosophy of life, and not materialistic negation or agnostic doubt, is to come from the great debate now going on, which shakes and breaks in pieces the old creedal dogmas. Meanwhile all honest opinions of atheist or theist, materialist or spiritualist, are to be respected.

Emerson puts a whole body of divinity in a single verse:

"This wonderful creation,

A divine improvisation,

From the heart of God proceeds,

A single Will, a million deeds."

Here is the one indwelling soul of things, the unity of design. Lizzie Doten puts the thought in her noble verse:

"God of the granite and the rose,

Soul of the sparrow and the bee,

The mighty tide of being flows,

Through countless channels, Lord, from Thee."

Evolution shows an infinite purpose as well as an infinite plan. "Through all things an upward tendency irresistibly

streams" is its inspiring lesson. Let science recognize this supremacy of mind behind law, and it will gain immensely.

From the jealous wrath of the Jehovah of the Puritans to the divine Fatherhood and Motherhood of Theodore Parker is a great upward step, for which we may well be thankful.

When William Penn, obeying the "inner light," the sacred sense of duty, became a Friend, he was threatened with imprisonment, and his answer was, "Put me in your dungeons, if you wish, and, God helping me, my patience shall be greater than your strength." That same sustaining sense of duty was the granite rock on which Puritanism stood, with the solid strength of its nobler work, which we may well remember while we outgrow its fearful dogmas and dwarfing bigotry.

From Vedic ages and the days of the Pharaohs to our own time immortality has been the light of the world, clearer to-day than ever. If this hope of the ages is an illusion there is no divine justice. If there be no compensations, no scope for light and growth beyond the grave, millions had better never have been born. The soul's lasting hope is the deepest proof of the immortal life, but to soul and senses come today to millions the facts of spirit-presence and power, the proof positive of immortality. We are entering on an era of psychic science, the study of the wonders of our inner life and infinite relations, which will be full of light and inspiration.

He then related some remarkable facts of spirit-presence in his own experience, and closed by emphasizing the importance of these great primal ideas, and the truths which come from them, as deep and firm foundations for character, as basis for wise and loving thought, out of which must grow true life and practical work for humanity.

At the close of MR. STEBBINS's address, MRS. URSULA U. GESTEFELD, of Chicago, was introduced and spoke as follows:

THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLE.

The quotation from Paul's epistle, used by the previous speaker, "There is a natural body and a spiritual body," may also be used with reference to the Bible, particularly if the quotation be completed,-" Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural."

The Bible has both a natural and a spiritual body. For many long years the natural has been the only seen. This has been accepted as the substance, while its soul has been almost entirely overlooked. The fact that it has one, even,that the substance of the Bible is veiled by its surface,-has been unperceived in all but a few individual cases; while what has been offered us in ecclesiastical teachings has been a perversion of its meaning, due to the misconception of the natural body or surface of the Bible.

It may be, and has been said, that anything-this in the diffusive meaning of good, bad, and indifferent—can be proven from the Bible. But while this may be true, so far as what is superficially called proof is concerned, the reason for it does not seem to be recognized. It is because this book is a scientific book, is a statement of universal principles, universal in their application. It is a statement of the true in itself, of abstract truth, and, as such, is as truly scientific in its nature as an exhaustive mathematical work.

So long as it is looked upon as an historical record merely, or as an exceptional piece of ancient literature, so long does its soul wait for resurrection in the tomb of its letter. These are the views of those who have formed them under reactionary influence. They have been driven by the dogmatism of ecclesiastical theology, by the unproved and traditional assertion that every word of the Bible is inspired, has been written by the finger of God, to an equally extreme view in the opposite direction; and they need to take care that they, in their turn, do not hedge themselves about with limitations and