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^ 51 29 february 1896 letter. King asked at the start, “How then are we to account for this spectacle of white-headed women, most of whom are grandmothers and many of whom have been devoted all their lives to good and great objects,posing in the rôle of the Deists of the last century?” (Critic n.s. 25 [25 January 1896]: 63–64.) 4. ECS refers to an edition of the English Revised Version of the Bible published in 1888, originally published in 1885. 5. This story plays on an old standard that several generations learned in Protestant Sunday School; in the orthodox version, a traveling gentleman assumes that the child reading her Bible at the cottage door performed her required task. When questioned, she contradicted him; she read the book simply “‘Because, Sir, I love my Bible.’”“These few words,” the tale continued, “under God’s blessing, were the means of the gentleman’s conversion: though before he was an infidel, and openly opposed the truth as it is in Jesus.” But the authorship of this antithetical variant is not known.When incorporating a nearly identical version into an address in November 1896, Ida Trafford-Bell said nothing about her source. (Sunday School Teachers’ Magazine and Journal of Education 6 [January 1855]: 32; Medico-Legal Journal 14 [March 1897]: 527.) 6. ECS paraphrases her commentary on Genesis 3:1–24.See Film,33:803–4,902, and Woman’s Bible, Part I, 23–26. ••••••••• 14 • Grace Channing-Stetson1 to ECS Pasadena [Calif.] March 4th [1896] Dear Mrs Stanton: We all thank you for the “Pentateuch,” in which nothing, however, affords me so much satisfaction as the sex of Balaam’s ass.2 As for your question:—I fail to see how a religious bigot—man or woman—can possibly exercise a political influence favourable to the preservation of the secular nature of our government. But I’ve great hopes that the political exercise will be good for the bigot’s health! Whatever else men are, they are not apt to be religious bigots, and the cause is not far to seek. I quite agree with Jane Addam3 (the “Saint Jane,” of Hull House fame) that the exceeding narrowness of the average woman is a worse social evil than any the saloon can beget. (She defends the saloon as being the main thing which keeps the frequenters thereof from being as narrow as their wives at home—) I do not myself find any compensation in the manifold “feminine virtues” for the limitations of women, but I’ve great hopes that we shall get ourselves gradually unlimited, even if we shed our feminine 52 & virtues largely by the way. I, myself like men and “manly virtues”—which goes far to console me for your saying that I write like a man! Was that commendation or condemnation? Where is Mrs Blatch? I thought she was to be in America.My sister with her children are in Cambridge, and my brother in the Weather Bureau in town.4 I, with my husband and his little daughter (whose mother is one of your efficient workers, as Miss Anthony can tell you) are staying here with my parents,5 both of whom have been very ill and are too feeble for me to willingly leave at present. We expect a great campaign here this year. I hear much of it from the Sargents of San Francisco.6 We are very useless,being so wholly a hospital, but we don’t feel that even our prayers are needed. Substantially the cause is won, even if there must be more or less fighting still. Just think what a revolution I have seen, in even my life time. You must feel as richly contented as any one human soul can ever feel. With warmest affection from all our household, and my own— U Grace Ellery Channing-Stetson [in ECS hand] Did you know that Grace Channing married Mrs Stetson’s husband She was at the wedding & gave the little daughter to Grace! It may all be according to the laws of the Universe,but it seems strange to our unassisted common sense. Perhaps the National Suff. association, should at its next convention bring in a resolution denouncing Mrs Charlotte Perkins Stetsons lax ideas on the marriage & maternal relations!! They must clear their skirts of any responsibility for her action Y ALS, ECS Papers, DLC. 1. Grace Ellery Channing-Stetson (1862–1937), a writer, was a daughter of ECS...

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