November and December.

She did not fail, however, to look carefully after the interests of the
Seventeenth National Convention which met as usual in Washington,
January 20, 1885. A letter from Clarina Howard Nichols was sent to be
read at this meeting, but the hand which penned it was stilled in death
before it was received. Of all the pioneer workers with whom Miss
Anthony had been associated in the early days so full of scorn, ridicule
and abuse, Mrs. Nichols was among the nearest and dearest, a forceful
speaker and writer, a tender, loving woman. It was in this convention
that the resolution denouncing dogmas and creeds was introduced by Mrs.
Stanton, and caused much commotion and heated argument. Miss Anthony
opposed it, saying:

I object to the words "derived from Judaism." It does not matter
where the dogma came from. I was on the old Garrison platform, and
found long ago that the settling of any question of human rights by
people's interpretation of the Bible is utterly impossible. I hope
we shall not go back to that war. We all know what we want, and
that is the recognition of woman's perfect equality. We all admit
that such recognition never has been granted in the centuries of
the past; but for us to begin a discussion here as to who
established this injustice would be anything but profitable. Let
those who wish go back into their history, but I beg it shall not
be done on our platform.[24]

The public, which always longed for a sensation at these suffrage
conventions and was disappointed if it did not come, seized upon this
resolution, and press and pulpit made it a text. The following Sunday W.
W. Patton, D. D., president of Howard University, preached in the
Congregational church of Washington a sermon entitled, "Woman and
Skepticism." He took the ground that as soon as women depart from their
natural sphere they become skeptical if not immoral. He gave as examples
Hypatia, Madame Roland, Harriet Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe and
George Eliot! Then turning his attention to America he said that "the
recent convention of woman suffragists gave evidence of atheism and
immorality," and that "Victoria Woodhull was the representative of the
movement in this country"[25]. And this when Mrs. Woodhull had not been
on the suffrage platform for thirteen years! Miss Anthony and Mrs.
Stanton occupied front seats and at the close of the sermon went
forward, shoo