MESSAGE AT THE FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION MEETING, MAY 31, 1872

"I want first to defend the apostle Paul a little. I do not think there was any prohibition of woman preaching in his words. So far from it, he gave express directions how woman should appear when she preached or prophesied, and spoke of her repeatedly in his Epistles as a helper with him, a ‘minister’ in the gospel, although the translators had changed the word ‘minister’ to ‘servant,’ in speaking of woman. Then, when he says, ‘I suffer no woman to speak,’ it is plain to see that he was speaking to the Corinthian Church of their quarrels, their difficulties, and their disagreements, and he recommended that women should not mingle in the controversy; but he had not the least reference to their preaching.

As regarded the relation of husband and wife, I think the Apostle was not perhaps so well qualified to speak on time subject as some others, from the fact that he was a bachelor, glorying in his celibacy, and preferring that all should be such as he was. Still, reading the writings of Paul rationally, not as infallible authority, but as the record of earnest religious thought and life, I feel there is great help and strength to be derived from them . . . .

"The kingdom of God is always nigh at hand. It was nigh at hand when Jesus declared it eighteen hundred years ago, and it has been entered many and many a time since then. I believe that it is very near us that it is with us,– although some have an idea that we are not to look for the entrance until after death, and pulpits mostly declare what shall be hereafter, forgetting what the Apostle says, that ‘now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.’

It is wrong to represent religion as a gloomy experience, opposed to true pleasure in this life. I want to say to those who have much to say about following Jesus, that they should remember to follow him in his non-conformity, in his obedience to the right, however much it might conflict with time popular beliefs and ceremonies of the day. I desire the full use of the intellectual and reasoning powers, while remembering that there are other faculties of human nature to be considered. True religion and freedom of thought seem to me so inseparable, that I cannot make the Comparison that it is better to be free than to be religious. Religion and freedom must go together. If the truth were obeyed, then should we be free indeed."

During the evening session of the same meeting, she referred to the pleasure with which she had listened to the essays and addresses made at the meetings year after year, and then spoke "of the great importance of carrying out in every-day life the principles of the true Natural Religion of Humanity, and of believing that the way of salvation does not lie through mystery or miracle, but through character and life. I believe there is a distinctive, intuitive sense of right in every breast, and that this is being recognized by both philosophy and science.

The Religion of Humanity is uniting all denominations; it is making them attach less value to their creeds, and is inducing them to make cheerful, practical schools for the children, rather than the dry, gloomy piety which was taught in the early days of the Sunday-schools. These are very encouraging signs and to me it seems that sectarian bigotry and intolerance are fast dying away, and we are coming to speak one language and one voice, and hastening the time when the kingdoms of this World shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his truth."

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