Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/1042

Rh one of his campaign meetings. In the course of his remarks he mentioned with evident favor as one of the coming measures the disestablishment of the church, and was greeted with loud applause. Soon after he spoke of woman suffrage as another question demanding consideration, but this was received with laughter and jeers, although the platform was crowded with advocates of the measure, among whom were the wife of the speaker and her sister, Dr. Garrett Anderson, who sat just behind him. The audience were evidently in favor of releasing themselves from being taxed to support the church, forgetting that women were taxed also not only to support the church, in which they had no voice, but the State, too, with its army and navy. Mr. Fawcett was not an orator, but a simple, straightforward speaker. He made but one gesture, striking his right clenched fist into the palm of the left hand at the close of all his strongest assertions; but being sound and liberal, he was a great favorite with his constituents.

A pleasant trip southward through Bath to Bristol brought us to the home of the Misses Priestman and Mrs. Tanner, sisters-in-law of John Bright. I had stayed at their father's house forty years before, so we felt like old friends. I found them all charming, liberal women, and we enjoyed a few days together, talking over our mutual struggles, and admiring the beautiful scenery for which that part of the country is quite celebrated. The women of England were just then organizing political clubs, and I was invited to speak before the one in Bristol. They are composed of men and women alike, for the discussion of all political questions. The next day I spoke to women alone in the church on the Bible view of woman's creation and destiny. It is strange that those who pretend to be well-versed in Scripture do not see that the simultaneous creation of man and woman and the complete equality of the sexes are as clearly taught in the first chapter of Genesis as the reverse is in the allegorical garden-scene in the second. The drive over the suspension-bridge by moonlight to dine with Mrs. Garnet, a sister of John Thomasson, M. P., was a pleasant episode to public speaking and more serious conversation. There, too, we had an evening reception. There is an earnestness of purpose among English women that is very encouraging under the prolonged disappointments reformers inevitably suffer, There is something so determined and heroic in what Mary Priestman does and says that one would readily fol-