In January, 1885, my niece Mrs. Baldwin and I went to Washington to attend the Annual Convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association.  It was held in the Unitarian church on the 20th, 21st, and 22d days of that month, and went off with great success, as did the usual reception given by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House.  This dear friend, one of our most ardent coadjutors, always made the annual convention a time for many social enjoyments.  The main feature in this convention was the attempt to pass the following resolutions: 

“Whereas, The dogmas incorporated in religious creeds derived from Judaism, teaching that woman was an after-thought in the creation, her sex a misfortune, marriage a condition of subordination, and maternity a curse, are contrary to the law of God (as revealed in nature), and to the precepts of Christ, and,

     “Whereas, These dogmas are an insidious poison, sapping the
     vitality of our civilization, blighting woman, and, through her,
     paralyzing humanity; therefore be it

“Resolved, That we call on the Christian ministry, as leaders of thought, to teach and enforce the fundamental idea of creation, that man was made in the image of God, male and female, and given equal rights over the earth, but none over each other.  And, furthermore, we ask their recognition of the scriptural declaration that, in the Christian religion, there is neither male nor female, bond nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus.”

As chairman of the committee I presented a series of resolutions, impeaching the Christian theology—­as well as all other forms of religion, for their degrading teachings in regard to woman—­which the majority of the committee thought too strong and pointed, and, after much deliberation, they substituted the above, handing over to the Jews what I had laid at the door of the Christians.  They thought they had so sugar-coated my ideas that the resolutions would pass without discussion.  But some Jews in the convention promptly repudiated this impression of their faith and precipitated the very discussion I desired, but which our more politic friends would fain have avoided.

From the time of the decade meeting in Rochester, in 1878, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Edward M. Davis, and I had sedulously labored to rouse women to a realization of their degraded position in the Church, and presented resolutions at every annual convention for that purpose.  But they were either suppressed or so amended as to be meaningless.  The resolutions of the annual convention of 1885, tame as they are, got into print and roused the ire of the clergy, and upon the following Sunday, Dr. Patton of Howard University preached a sermon on “Woman and Skepticism,” in which he unequivocally took the ground that freedom for woman led to skepticism and immorality.  He illustrated his position by pointing to Hypatia, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, George Eliot, Harriet Martineau, Mme.