The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-02
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WOMEN AS THE0L0GIANS
SEVERAL LEARNED ADDRESSES
BEFORE THE COUNCIL.

Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Takes Science and Religious Truth"
as Text-Isabella Beecher Hooker
Declares Herselfa a Christian Spiritu-
alist-The South to be Organized.
WASHINGTON, April An invocation
by Mrs. John P. Newman and the singing
of hymn by the entire audience opened
the afternoon exercises Of the International
Council of Women to-day.
Matilda Joslyn Gage spoke on women
in the Early Church" and was followed by
Rev Antoinette Brown Blackwell, whose
text was "Science and Religious Truth"
She said that science shows that every
thing follows its own laws and tend
encies; that thus nature can go on
| prog ressively working out her own
destiny. Science has not shown that these
innate processes arose by chance or sponta-
neousy Did they begin with time itself,
as details of one rational scheme devised by
the original intelligencef This question she
answered in the affirmative. An absolute
being, she continued, could add nothing to
| itself; it might voluntarily forego unlimited
| use of some of its own power:
might establish for this power limited
and related methods in which it could be
exercised in jointly conditioned series OF
endless changes. Amy least group of such
| interiorly related changes, making one in
| divisible system of dependent, continuous
| motions and emotions, might constitute
persistent, created being. Such beipg must
| begin its first relative activity. IT is a
| group OF equal actions and reactions arising
| at once in space, time and sentence; its
| feelings, conscious or sub-conscious,
like its motions; in the very nature Of
| both as conditioned, is on-going double
| sided progress, which can only cease with
| annihilaton of its atomic constitution. On
| this theory endless personality, with its
steadily increasing experiences, remembered
! or not remembered may, when aided by
adopted outside co-workers, attain TO dis
! tinct circumstances. In conclusion Mrs.
| Blackwell claimed that this theory is veri-
| fled by the facts of sclence-that all known
| physical processes are more easily and COM
prehensively explained and are much more
slmplitied and reduced to a common syste m
Of activities by this hypothesis than by
any other yet proposed.
CHRISTIAN sPIRITUALIsT.
Addresses were also made by Elizabeth
Boynton Harbert and Isabella Beecher
Hooker. The latter stated her faith as that
OF Christian spirituaist and her creed,
briefly, as belonging: First, in the first great
cause.-the Creator; secondly, that the pains
OF the lie 10 come are to be abbreviated or
heightened according to the deeds done in
this body In her plan of salvation she
took in Jew, Christian, Pagan and Gentle
alike.
The next speaker, Elizabeth G. Stuart,
announced herself humanitarian, and her
text was, "The power of thought in its re-
lation to the body"
Addresses by Ednah Cheney and Miss
| Francis Willard and the singing af hymn
| closed the afternoon exercises.
| MRS BRIGGS GIFT.
The evening and closing session of the
| Council opened with prayer by Mary II.
| Hunt, of Boston.
Miss Anthony announced that Mrs Olivia
| Briggs had given a square Of ground known
| as Maple square for the foundation of an
institution FOR the highest spiritual, moral,
| industrial and political education of girls.
| Mrs. Fuelda Wallace made an address,
and was folio ed by Mrs. Stanton, who
made the closing address. She said the
| Council had been great success
and showed that women were ready for
| concerted faction. She said the letters re-
| ceved from different countries showed uni
versal interest in the council. She COM
| pared the great interest taken by the press
| in the present council with that Of forty
| years ago, and said the result must be of
lasting Importance. A plan of action is to
be devised for suffrage work in the South
ern States, which have as yet had neither
conventions nor lectures.