Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/357

 movement offers the broadest field for contact with life. It offers cooperation of the most effective kind with others; it offers responsibility in the life of the community and the nation; it offers opportunity for the most varied and far-reaching service. To come into contact with this movement means to some individuals to enter a larger world of thought than they had known before; to others it means approaching the same world in a more real and effective way. To all it gives a wider horizon in the recognition of one fact—that the broadest human aims and the highest human ideals are an integral part of the lives of women."

The report of the Committee on Church Work by its chairman, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, (N. Y.) began: "It is estimated: that there is in the United States a total church membership of 34,517,317 persons. It would mean a great deal to the woman suffrage cause if this great organized force, representing the most thoughtful and influential men and women of every community, could be brought to endorse it and work for it. The experiences of this committee seem to prove that in the transition taking place in the world of religious thought this is the most propitious time to obtain such support." She gave a résumé of the splendid work that had been done by the branch committees in the various States, the religious gatherings that had been addressed, often resulting in the adoption of a resolution for woman suffrage, and the hundreds of letters sent to ministers asking for sermons favorable to the cause, which were many times complied with. She closed by saying: "It needs neither figures nor argument to establish the fact that church attendance and church worship are in a condition of decline. It is a critical period in the history of the church, which is changing from the exercise of power to the employment of influence, and the appeals that are coming to the churches are for service from the men and women who are their real strength. The church is not appreciating the resources that are lying dormant, when two-thirds of its membership—the women—are left powerless to carry on the moral and social reform work, because, as a disfranchised class having no political status, they are not counted as a potential force."

Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates (R. I.), chairman, made the report on Presidential suffrage. The report of the Committee