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, Oct. 14.—With the exception of an international gathering in while the  was in progress, the first National assembly in  for the discussion of  and moral questions opened here to-night. Aaron Macy Powell, who has been a reformer all his life, called the meeting to order.

The American Purity Alliance in its present form was incorporated under the laws of New-York State a few months ago for the purpose of fighting a bill to regulate vice, which was before the. Being successful therein, the membership was increased, and now includes persons actively interested in purity questions in many States.

Between 200 and 300 delegates gathered in the Friends' Meeting House on Park Avenue to-night to take part in the congress, which will continue Tuesday and Wednesday. All social purity associations,, , and , , , and other religious bodies and organisations were represented. The congress includes many of the same women who will attend the National Convention of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which will begin Friday.

Conspicuous among the early arrivals at to-night's meeting were the Rev., the first woman in the world to be ordained as a minister of the Gospel; Mrs. Charlton Edholm of the ; Mrs. , around-the-world missionary; Dr. Mary Wood Allen, National Purity Superintendent of Michigan; Mrs. Dora Webb of Ohio, and Mrs. Isabel Wing Lake of Chicago. Miss, Mrs. , Mrs. , , , and are expected to appear to-morrow.

After devotional exercises, the congress was formally opened by President Aaron Macy Powell. During the course of his address Mr. Powell said:

The speaker particularized the efforts made in American cities, and notably in, , and , where fines were collected from houses of evil repute to be appropriated to the support of schools, as though any use of such a fund, notwithstanding it might prove to be of a repressive and restrictive character, could justify those municipalities in entering into a copartnership with vice and crime. Fortunately for their good names, those efforts have been judicially abandoned. In, and even in Puritan , similar laws have been attempted within a year or two, but, thanks to the efforts and influence of this society, they have failed to become laws.

He declared, further, that this society had urgent need to pronounce itself on the subject of the so-called laws. Girls are deemed capable of controlling property only at their majority, but States decide not so with their persons. In four States the age of consent is fixed at the shockingly low age of ten years, in four others at twelve, in three at thirteen, and so on, increasing, except in, where the original statute pertaining to the crime of rape is still unrepealed, fixing the age at seven years. These so-called age of consent statutes, which discriminate against girlhood and favor immoral men, are a disgrace to the several States of the Union.

Another work which this congress, it is hoped, will do much to aid, is the greatly needed rescue work among the victims of vice; rescue work among fallen men, as well as fallen women. But even more important is preventive educational purity work among the young, which shall ultimately make rescue work no longer a necessity."Unmatched quotation mark [sic]

He praised the White Cross movement, which is especially for men, and whose motto is "Keep Thyself Pure," and hoped that the outcome of this congress would be an emphasis upon the necessity for one moral standard for both sexes.