Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/565

Rh the obedient, servile tool, implicitly to obey and minister to the passions and follies of man; "and as he could not rob himself of these inexpressible benefits, therefore he said, No."

The speech of Antoinette Brown, and the resolution she presented opened the question of authority as against individual judgment, and roused a prolonged and somewhat bitter discussion, to which Mrs. Stanton's letter, read in a most emphatic manner by Susan B. Anthony, added intensity. It continued at intervals for two days, calling out great diversity of sentiment. Rev. Junius Hatch, a Congregational minister from Massachusetts, questioned the officers of the Convention as to their belief in the paramount authority of the Bible, saying the impression had gone abroad that the Convention was infidel in character. The President ruled that question not before the Convention.

Thomas McClintock said, to go back to a particular era for a standard of religion and morality, is to adopt an imperfect standard and impede the progress of truth. The best minds of to-day surely understand the vital issues of this hour better than those possibly could who have slumbered in their graves for centuries. Mrs. Nichols, whom the city press spoke of as wielding a trenchant blade, announced herself as having been a member of a Baptist church since the age of eight years, thus sufficiently proving her orthodoxy. Mrs. Rose, expressing the conviction that belief does not depend upon voluntary inclination, deemed it right to interpret the Bible as he or she thought best, but objected to any such interpretation going forth as the doctrine of the Convention, as, at best, it was but mere opinion and not. authority.

The debate upon Miss Brown's resolution was renewed in the afternoon, during which the Rev. Junius Hatch made so coarse a speech that the President was obliged to call him to order. Paying