The effect of all this on Susan is the question of interest.  No doubt she early weighed the comparative moral effects of coats cut with capes and those cut without, of purely Quaker conjugal love and that deteriorated with Baptist affection.  Susan had an earnest soul and a conscience tending to morbidity; but a strong, well-balanced body and simple family life soothed her too active moral nature and gave the world, instead of a religious fanatic, a sincere, concentrated worker.  Every household art was taught her by her mother, and so great was her ability that the duty demanding especial care was always given into her hands.  But ever, amid school and household tasks, her day-dream was that, in time, she might be a “high-seat” Quaker.  Each Sunday, up to the time of the third disobedience, Mr. Anthony went to the Quaker meeting house, some thirteen miles from home, his wife and children usually accompanying him, though, as non-members, they were rigidly excluded from all business discussions.  Exclusion was very pleasant in the bright days of summer; but, on one occasion in December, decidedly unpleasant for the seven-year-old Susan.  When the blinds were drawn, at the close of the religious meeting, and non-members retired, Susan sat still.  Soon she saw a thin old lady with blue goggles come down from the “high seat.”  Approaching her, the Quakeress said softly, “Thee is not a member—­thee must go out.”  “No; my mother told me not to go out in the cold,” was the child’s firm response.  “Yes, but thee must go out—­thee is not a member.”  “But my father is a member.”  “Thee is not a member,” and Susan felt as if the spirit was moving her and soon found herself in outer coldness.  Fingers and toes becoming numb, and a bright fire in a cottage over the way beckoning warmly to her, the exile from the chapel resolved to seek secular shelter.  But alas! she was confronted by a huge dog, and just escaped with whole skin though capeless jacket.  We may be sure there was much talk, that night, at the home fireside, and the good Baptist wife declared that no child of hers should attend meeting again till made a member.  Thereafter, by request of her father, Susan became a member of the Quaker church.

Later, definite convictions took root in Miss Anthony’s heart.  Hers is, indeed, a sincerely religious nature.  To be a simple, earnest Quaker was the aspiration of her girlhood; but she shrank from adopting the formal language and plain dress.  Dark hours of conflict were spent over all this, and she interpreted her disinclination as evidence of unworthiness.  Poor little Susan!  As we look back with the knowledge of our later life, we translate the heart-burnings as unconscious protests against labeling your free soul, against testing your reasoning conviction of to-morrow by any shibboleth of to-day’s belief.  We hail this child-intuition as a prophecy of the uncompromising truthfulness of the mature woman.  Susan Anthony was taught simply that she must enter