d intemperance of their
husbands. I addressed the Legislature of New York a few years later when
a similar bill was pending, and also large audiences in several of our
chief cities, and for this I was severely denounced. To-day fugitives
from such unholy ties can secure freedom in many of the Western States,
and enlightened public sentiment sustains mothers in refusing to hand
down an appetite fraught with so many evil consequences. This, also
called a "mistake" in 1860, was regarded as a "step in progress" a few
years later.

Again, I urged my coadjutors by speeches, letters, and resolutions, as a
means of widespread agitation, to make the same demands of the Church
that we had already made of the State. They objected, saying, "That is
too revolutionary, an attack on the Church would injure the suffrage
movement." But I steadily made the demand, as opportunity offered, that
women be ordained to preach the Gospel and to fill the offices as
elders, deacons, and trustees. A few years later some of these
suggestions were accepted. Some churches did ordain women as pastors
over congregations of their own, others elected women deaconesses, and a
few churches allowed women, as delegates, to sit in their conferences.
Thus this demand was in a measure honored and another "step in
progress" taken.

In 1882 I tried to organize a committee to consider the status of women
in the Bible, and the claim that the Hebrew Writings were the result of
divine inspiration. It was thought very presumptuous for women not
learned in languages and ecclesiastical history to undertake such work.
But as we merely proposed to comment on what was said of women in plain
English, and found these texts composed only one-tenth of the Old and
New Testaments, it did not seem to me a difficult or dangerous
undertaking. However, when Part I. of "The Woman's Bible" was published,
again there was a general disapproval by press and pulpit, and even by
women themselves, expressed in resolutions in suffrage and temperance
conventions. Like other "mistakes," this too, in due time, will be
regarded as "a step in progress."

Such experiences have given me confidence in my judgment, and patience
with the opposition of my coadjutors, with whom on so many points I
disagree. It requires no courage now to demand the right of suffrage,
temperance legislation, liberal divorce laws, or for women to fill
church offices--these battles have been fought and won and the princi