The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-06

 unfed Bouis. and whom the nations and Deop1es of the earth have worshiped as &he great Sky Father since time began. 70 begins the religious creed formulated 3oc herself by Isabella Beecher Hooker. 1Ae last survivor of Dr. Lyman Beecher's N3ovon children. the only one left of those 4am0us brothers and sisters known al- X4yB as ''the Beecher family" Irs. Hooker was member of the board of women managers of the Chi cago Worlds fair of 1893. For the ser- vices of Cities day at that fair she pre- pared and read before the audience as- uembled a Universal litany." as she manned it. It consisted of a series of quo- tnt1ons from the religious teachings of onc1ent and modern peoples, including Egyptian, Jewish, Chinese, Buddhist Christian and Moslem. The quotations began thus:
 Egyptian-He hath made all that is and without Him nothing that is hath been made.-From Book of the Dead.
 Christian.--An things are made by Him md without Him was not anything made that was made.-John i, B.
 x JeWiBh.-For thou lowest all things that ere and abhorrest nothing that Thou hast made; for never wouldst Thou have made Anything if Thou hadst hated it. But Thou sparest all, for they are Thine. o
 
 mon xi. 24
 On this interesting occasion Mrs. Hook CT read aloud the religious quotations from other peoples, and the mayors Of American cities, led by Carter Harrison the elder of Chicago. read in concert the Bible quotations. It was program worthy of a member of the Beecher family.
 Ms. Rockers reminiscence of her fa- nr T nf hood in the then far western town of Cincinnati and of the early manhood of her brother the great American preacher, Henry Ward Beecher are intensely in- forosting and of rare historic value. Some of these she, now at the age of eighty-one has written out in her own clear pen u1snship and perfect English. It is to be hoped they will soon be published. They read like an entertaining story book.
 Isabella Beecher was born on Wash angtcn's birthday. 1922, in Litchfield. Conn She was nine years younger than her brother Henry Ward. When she was four years old the family went to Boston and lived till she was eleven. Then, bag and baggage. they migrated to Cincinnati. That town was considered a promising held for missionary work, and to carry the gospel to its people Lyman Beecher was sent there.
 The family went from Boston to Phil ndelphia first, then from Philadelphia to Wheeling. W. Va. It seems scarcely con- cefvable to us that there ever was time when no railroad existed from Philadel- phia to Pittsburg, yet so late as 1883 the only route from the Penn city westward was still by stage. In a four horse stage the Beechers rode from Philadelphia to Wheeling and were more than week making the trip. They sang all the way, for, says Mrs Hooker, ''every member of our family. so far as I can remember began singing soon after birth"
 For these valuable reminiscences-now Catharfne and. Harriet Beecher opened a school for girls in Cincinnati; how, at Lane seminary. Dr. Lyman Beecher kept a loaded gun behind his study door to kill wild pigeons; how he. preached and taugkt and shot and daily drove white horse to Cincinnati. three miles away, and did the family marketing-for these there is no room here, and it is thousand pities.
 When Isabella was thirteen her mother died and at sixteen she herself was sent back to New England. to Hartford, to live with an older married sister, Mrs. Thomas c. Perkins. She writes: But l date my interest in public affairs from those few years between eleven and six teen when our family circle was ever fn discussion on the vital problems of hu- man existence, and United States con efitution. fuguti,ye slave law, and Mis- souri compromise alternated with free will, regeneration, heaven. hell and the destiny of man as John Fiske would have it,
 What must 1t not have been to be one of the Beecher family in those days!
 In Hartford Isabella, a beautiful girl with all the Beecher brain and magnet ism, met John Hooker, a young law stu dent. and became engaged to him before she was seventeen. It was her first love and his, also their last and only love When Isabella was nineteen they were married, and from that day till Johr Hooked passed from earth, in 1901, nearly sixty years later, they were an idea welded pair living the life of perfect accord and sympathy. When Mrs Hooker became interested in the enamel patton of her own sex and threw all the Beecher verve into the woman movement Mir. Hooker stood at her side and helped her throughout, Investigating knottJ points of law and suggesting constitu tfonal arguments. writing, speaking ant giving aid and comfort to those idealist. who worked and still work that woman may be a free, responsible citizen.
 The young wife became interested fl the woman movement in an odd way. He husband was a young attorney, waitin, for clients and meantime studying mor, law. While he waited he asked her ti come to his office and make the tim less long. She went taking her sewin! or knitting. While she worked he rea' law aloud to her. He came at last t the chapter in Blackstone on husband and wife, showing how the wife's yer! existence in law was merged in that O her husband, while she was nobody ex cept when it came to being ''bossed' ant chastised by the husband for her of lenses in his sight, and of these he va judge. The hw gave him the eXpres right even to beat her with whips ant cudgels." Mrs. Hooker writes:
 Looking up into my young lover's fac said, And this is your code that is { bring peace on earth and good will ( men and to harnonize the universe" !"
 From that day on she worked for wom an. In 1869 she called the first woman rights convention ever held in Connect cut and also organized state woma suffrage association, of which she Ina been president thirty years. She mad a special study of the United States con Rtitution and became convinced that already gives women citizens the righ to vote.
 Tn 1871 the suffragists presented a pet lion to Congress asking for enfranchs' ment on this ground. They were hayin a hearing before
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