Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/260

244 desire for yourself, grant it also to others, and help them to the best of your ability to procure it, especially the common rights of man. These are the principles according to which my children have been brought up,and four of them have become righteous, active and generally respected men, while the other three are lovable, good and happy women. But I myself look back upon the sixty-five years of my life as upon a cheerful, blooming, fertile landscape, which I myself have planted. How, on the other hand, have those of my acquaintances fared who have been brought up on praying and church-going? I do not know of a single one who has not either developed into a hypocrite or gone to the bad, and not one of them was happy. Three of them have married ministers, and of these three one died in an insane asylum, the other committed suicide by hanging herself, and the third could save herself from her pious surroundings only by eloping with the sexton to Australia. I should rather be here in America than in Australia. Let us remain here and gratefully decline the reverend gentleman's pious offer.

(Cries of "Question! Question!)

The offer of the clergyman is unanimously declined, whereupon he leaves the hall.

The President now requested the Committee on Resolutions to report, and Julie vom Berg, chairman of the committee, at last had an opportunity to read the following resolutions: