forms of intemperance and sexual disorder, the rage of brutal passions, breaking out into crime and blood-guiltiness,—all these prevail among us, little hindered by the influence of fifty thousand pulpits which disparage "mere morality" and assure men that salvation depends not on that personal righteousness and "truth in the inward part," which Jesus taught, but on their way of thought and feeling about the teacher; not on their loyal obedience to the will of God as revealed in the constitution of man, but on their allegiance to institutions which man has formed, and to books which man has written. Thus things which are good are perverted by abuse into evils; our God-given helps become hindrances; a profitless strife about words turns off the mind from realities; and respectable idols sit in the place of the highest.

Theologies and sects are many: Religion is one. We would "prove all things," in no conceit of superior wisdom, but in sincere desire to find and "hold fast that which is good." We seek not to destroy but to fulfil that perfect law of spiritual life, which prophets and apostles, Bibles and Churches, may hint, but which only the Spirit of Truth can clearly teach to our spirits, that law which alone can give liberty, by establishing the kingdom of heavenly order within us and among us.

The way of righteousness must be also the way of wisdom. We desire, therefore, to express our sense of the importance of true science, sound knowledge, pure reason, precise thinking, and the spread of general intelligence, as supplying a basis for religious conviction, a protection. against superstition and priestcraft, and a clearer understanding of what is right and good. We esteem practical knowledge, which is profitable to direct human life, as of the highest sanctity.

Confessing our own need and imperfection, we would join hands and hearts with "all who struggle and aspire "-of every name and of no name -in obeying that high calling which bids us forget the things that are behind-forget our poor little virtues and victories along with our sins and failures that we may reach forth unto the things that are before.

II.-WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

WOMANHOOD is a duty for women, as manhood is for men. We believe the ballot in the hands of women would conduce to greater freedom, and hence be a means to that desirable end. To us the ballot means power, protection, education, and opportunity. As the symbol, in our land, of political equality, we desire it for women that they may no longer be classed with criminals, lunatics, and idiots, and that they may have a voice in shaping the laws of the land. Women are daily helping to make its history. In a large measure, its destiny depends upon them, and while we would not have them less efficient in the home, we would secure to them, by the ballot, larger legitimate influence in the State. We believe, then, in agitating this subject continually in all proper places, and we believe in using all proper means to secure this instrument of great good. We commend,

therefore, all efforts through the press and by the platform to present this subject fairly before the people, so as to develop in favor of the object a public opinion too mighty to be resisted. We cannot say, grant it to them, because we think it a natural right, and in this Republican country indispensable to the pursuit of happiness, if not to liberty and life.

We are encouraged by the progress which women are making in the professions and in various branches of business, formerly exclusively occupied by men. The attitude of the church toward women as ministers is not as hostile as formerly. Women have always been gladly accepted as workers in obscure ways in all denominations, and this could not but be the case where the membership of the churches consisted more largely of women than men. But, until a recent period, the Friends have been the only large body of Christians who have admitted women to the ministry. At the present hour, women are admitted to preach the Gospel and perform what is called pastoral labor in the Unitarian and Universalist churches, on an equality with men; and in the Methodist and Congregational churches women are permitted to speak, where once silence alone was considered golden.

We think the signs of the times are favorable. The woman's hour has almost arrived. And in order that she may have full opportunity for her powers, and be protected in all her rights, we claim the ballot as the key to that problem of political purity, public safety, and national peace, which only the united action of men and women can solve, thus promoting the good of humanity, which is the true way of giving glory to God.

III.-DRESS REFORM.

WE call on American women to declare their independence of the tyrant fashion, which consigns them to a life of comparative weakness, helplessness, and frivolity; which robs them of leisure for nobler pursuits and freedom for healthful recreations; which diverts attention from the higher purposes of life, and does much to lower the moral tone, by making more of outward show than of the inward adornment of character.

We rejoice that numbers of our countrywomen are quietly consulting with each other, and with physicians and artists, hoping to secure a style of dress which shall combine the conditions of healthfulness, modesty, convenience, and reasonable expenditure, without sacrificing the noble element of beauty. Some such reform in woman's dress, we believe, is vitally connected with the larger question of her mental and political enfranchisement, and with the physical and moral well-being of the race.

IV.-RELATIONS OF THE SEXES.

A SOLEMN duty is laid upon us by the abounding and increasing impurity in the relations of the sexes. No false standard of delicacy must silence the voice of warning and reproof, for no sin so poisons life at its very foundations; none strikes deeper or more fatally at human welfare

and happiness; none allures with more subtle temptations; none spreads with such contagious power of corruption; none is so difficult of correction and cure. We learn with horror that systematic attempts are being made by unscrupulous publishers to introduce obscene books and pictures in schools and families; and we view with sorrow and alarm the propagation of a plausible philosophy of indulgence and general license, which strikes at the foundation of the family, and which makes virtue almost impossible, by giving loose rein and full excuse to lawless passion. We implore parents to put and keep themselves in confidential relations with their children, giving them, at an early age, and with gradual preparation, the needful physiological and moral instruction on these sacred subjects, that their own healthful nature may be prepared to control awakening passions and to counteract the influence of evil books and companions. And we urge on all husbands and wives, as well as all teachers and preachers, the importance of those general habits of self-control and self-denial which are our best guard against particular exposures and vices. There will be little danger of sensuality in any form to him who ruleth well his own spirit, and whose life is grounded in principles of purity.

V.-INTEMPERANCE.

IN dealing with the vice of intemperance, our counsel and our purpose is to strike the enemy at every possible point. Wherever a single man or child can be taught the lesson of abstinence from the first glass, or a drunkard can be reclaimed by kindness and reason, or social drinking customs can be discouraged, or a grog-shop closed by persuasion or by law, there is our opportunity. But an evil which is the growth of centuries is not to be destroyed merely by hacking at its limbs and sprouts. We must dig around it, and cut it up by the roots. The principle of temperance must be more largely interpreted; it must be applied to all human habits, as rigidly as to the use of intoxicating drinks. The law of total abstinence from all that hurts, and of reasonable use of all that helps, must be wrought into the education of the whole people. We must assert the supremacy of the soul over the appetites and propensities; we must awaken and cultivate in mankind a sense of the dignity and sanctity of their own bodily and mental faculties, so that self-respect may save them from base uses of themselves; and so that higher tastes and noble employments may protect them from low desires and morbid hankerings after sensual excitements.

But when 375,000,000 of gallons of intoxicating drinks are consumed in a year by the American people-when this broad river of misery, insanity, and death is flowing through the land-there is solemn reason for dealing with this particular evil. If ever the mass of the people become settled in the conviction that alcohol is a poison, that its use as a beverage can safely be dispensed with, but cannot safely be tolerated, and that to make or sell it as a drink is a crime against society, prohibition will be an accepted policy, easy of enforcement. But this must come rather as the

result of the triumph of temperance principles, than as the chief cause or instrument of that triumph.

Meanwhile, a practical point is gained by committing the people against the pernicious and fallacious system of licensing the liquor-traffic, and by pressing the repeal of all laws by which the evil is sheltered, legalized, emboldened, and made respectable. But while we hope for good results from wise legislation-especially in the more intelligent communities— we believe that for years to come our heavy work must be to create and guide opinion, and to form correct habits among the people, and especially the young.

VI.-CRIME AND ITS TREATMENT.

WE join in the general complaint that the laws against crime are so uncertain in their operation as to exert little restraint and afford little protection; and are also so administered as to confirm vicious propensities, and make him who is once a criminal a criminal forever. Perhaps a partial remedy can be found in a more careful selection of officers and keepers, that detection may be more sure, punishment more certain, and discipline more humane and reformatory. We must overcome evil with good. To this end, there must be an enlightened and purified public sentiment, so that society may regard the disturbers of its peace as a wise parent regards disorderly children—as evil-doers who cannot be neglected, who must be firmly dealt with, but who must be won back to virtue, not only by learning the bitter, wholesome lessons of pain and shame, but by being taught the more excellent way, by being assured of restoration to a place in the social family on evidence of repentance, and by finding open doors to honest employment.

We renew our testimony against the death penalty as barbarous and barbarizing, as affording less protection to society than imprisonment, and as tending to prevent the conviction of murderers and corrupt the integrity of juries.

VII.—THE LABOR QUESTION.

WE sympathize deeply with the demand which those called the laboring classes are now making for a fairer adjustment of their relations with their employers. While it is neither possible nor desirable to repeal or amend the natural laws which regulate demand and supply, it is still certain that justice and the golden rule are the highest laws of the world; and that, for all classes, there can be no enduring prosperity except on the basis of mutual good-will and helpfulness. The Spirit of Truth admonishes all employers to consider their hired men and hired women as their friends, and as equals before the laws and before God; and to organize and manage business on such principles as to make it a contribution to the welfare of all parties, and not a system in which many are sacrificed and degraded to aggrandize a few. At the same time, those who are employed are bound in duty to render cheerful and faithful service, to put themselves in train

ing for thorough and useful work, and to pluck the thorns from their own path by habits of industry, sobriety, and economy.

It seems important to consider how far the total amount of human labor may be lessened, by machinery, or by omitting those industries which are needless or harmful, or by limiting production to that point required by the highest happiness and health, so that by shortening the hours of toil there may be more time for useful recreation, domestic and social life, and general culture. Surely, the world is made for man, and not man for the world.

But let us honor all labor, whether of muscle or mind, which helps to supply the means of comfort, taste, intelligence, welfare, and progress; since such labor is the condition by which man receives and appropriates the generous bounty of Providence.

VIII.-CHURCH AND STATE.

WE call for a more perfect carrying out of the American principle of perfect separation of Church and State. We ask that religion may rest wholly on its merits, and on the reason and affection of its adherents, and not to any extent on the sword and purse of Cæsar. We condemn the exemption of Church property from taxation as an indirect way of compelling all the people to render pecuniary support to religious institutions. We ask that government employees, in the army and navy, and in all public institutions, may have free access to religious instruction and exercises of their own choice, but that there be no more chaplains in the pay of the Nation or State. We oppose all laws compelling the use of the Bible in public schools, not as enemies to its universal circulation, but as friends to impartial and unsectarian education, and to the rights of those who cannot accept its authority. We denounce the proposed theological amendment to the Constitution of the United States as an outrage on the free principles and traditions of the land, an invasion of the rights of conscience, as an intentional disfranchisement of many honest citizens, and as a long backward stride toward that accursed ecclesiastical despotism under which the nations of Europe have groaned for ages, and which they are now struggling to throw off.

IX. PEACE.

WE desire to renew, with solemn earnestness and emphasis, our oftrepeated testimony against war and in favor of peace, and to express our hearty concurrence in the efforts of good people everywhere to induce the nations of the earth to settle all their differences by fraternal discussion and impartial arbitration, according to the example recently set by the United States and Great Britain. War is ever inhuman and demoralizing, as well as destructive of the industry and wealth of nations, while peace is the necessary condition of moral and social advancement, and of physical growth and prosperity. War, however, can be prevented only by removing the causes from which it springs, and these are the selfishness,