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Those who ask for religious tests, in our rulers & party platforms would desire to frame such tests to suit their convictions, & thus the dogmas of a fraction of the people would disqualify the rest, for equal rights in the state, & equal joys in Heaven.
If the ignorance superstition & fanaticism of women, are to be met by crafty priests, either Protestant or Roman Catholic to this end, their enfranchisement will prove no blessing to themselves nor the nation.
The movement on the
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part of prohibitionists to introduce the name of God into our political platforms, our state & national constitutions, shows at least a very narrow idea of the essential elements of the central person in the Family. To the cultivated mind the Godhead embodies the cardinal virtues: justice mercy goodness & truth & it would be no special honor to the Supreme Being, to have his name in our party platforms as constituted at present, nor in our national constitution a document to human eyes still so imperfect, even
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after fifteen amendments as to need further improvement
When some form of government is evolved, approximating more nearly to the divine ideal than any we have yet seen, it will be time enough to stamp its Magna Charta with the seal of Jehovah.
Our imperative duty at this hour, is to see that all the citizens of this republic stand equal before the law & thus truly honor their Maker. "If ye love not man whom you have seen how can you love God whom you have not seen"
The Bible in our public schools, rigid Sunday laws
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the non-taxation of church property, religious tests in politics, are all questions to be settled perchance by the votes of women, & it is of vital consequence to know what their action will be.
One of the arguments the conservative party in England is now using for woman suffrage, is that women would favor the established church, the coercion of Ireland a royal family, a landed aristocracy & the Tory police in general It is said the Primrose Dames carried the last election.
We who understand the dangers threatened
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in the prohibition movement, as shown by Mrs Chandler in The Tribune of December 10th: "The rock ahead for woman suffrage." must not be dazzled by the promise of a hidden acquisition of numbers to our platform, with the wide spread influence of the church behind them, if with all this is coming a religious proscription, that will undermine the secular nature of our government.
One of our best speakers in a recent suffrage convention was
