f human rights by people's
interpretation of the Bible is never satisfactory. I hope we
shall not go back to that war. No two can ever interpret alike,
and discussion upon it is time wasted. We all know what we want,
and that is the recognition of woman's perfect equality--in the
Home, the Church and the State. We all know that such recognition
has never been granted her in the centuries of the past. But for
us to begin a discussion here as to who established these dogmas
would be anything but profitable. Let those who wish go back into
the history of the past, but I beg it shall not be done on our
platform.

Mrs. Mary E. McPherson (Ia.) insisted that the Bible did not ignore
women, although custom might do so. The Rev. Dr. McMurdy (D. C.)
declared that women were teachers under the old Jewish dispensation;
that the Catholic church set apart its women, ordained them and gave
them the title "reverend"; that the Episcopal church ordained
deaconesses. He hoped the convention would not take action on this
question. John B. Wolf upheld the resolution. Mrs. Shattuck thought
the church was coming around to a belief in woman suffrage and it
would be a mistake to antagonize it.

Mrs. Colby insisted the resolutions did not attack the Bible, but the
dogmas which grew out of man's interpretation of it, saying:

This dogma of woman's divinely appointed inferiority has sapped
the vitality of our civilization, blighted woman and palsied
humanity. As a Christian woman and a member of an orthodox
church, I stand on this resolution; on the divine plan of
creation as set forth in the first chapter of Genesis, where we
are told that man was created male and female and set over the
world to have equal dominion; and on the gospel of the new
dispensation, in which there is neither male nor female, bond nor
free, but all are one. This resolution avows our loyalty to what
we believe to be the true teachings of the Bible, and the
co-operation of the Christian ministry is invited in striving to
secure the application of the golden rule to women.

Edward M. Davis (Penn.) declared that, while individual members might
favor woman suffrage, not one religious body ever had declared for it,
and the convention ought to express itself on this subject. Mrs.
Gordon pointed out the difference between religion and theology. Mrs.
Stanton, being c