one.

JUDGE WESTBROOK said:-I have been trying to get Miss ANTHONY to tell us something of her views of religion, for I knew she would be sure to tell us that it is a part of religion to enfranchise woman, and I believe every word of that. I have been trying to think where, how, and in what connection the word religion occurs in ancient literature, and the earliest I can think of is where the word is used by Cicero, a good while before the commencement of the Christian Era. He derived the word from the Latin "religio," which means "to look into, to investigate, to turn over and over, to study, to meditate upon," and this, I think, is the true definition of religion, the carnest, honest effort to form the purest, highest conception of moral excellence, to turn the subject over and over and study it in all its aspects, and then strive to live up to it ourselves and to bring everybody else up to our standard. I was trying to think how many times the word "religion" occurs in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and could only think of There may be others, but at present I can only think of one instance in which the word religion occurs in our Bible, and it is the definition that is attributed to one St. James. Pure religion before God and the Father is this:—to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Pure religion, according to this definition, is a pure life of practical beneficence, and if I could add a sentence or two to this definition of religion, I would say this:-"Do all the good you can, to all the persons you can ;" and that is not only the best way to benefit mankind, but the best way to benefit yourself. You become more religious and better yourself as you labor for the welfare of others. Now, according to this definition, the era in which we live is pre-eminently religious, and it manifests it in a thousand ways to those who seek to elevate humanity, and my idea is, the man who serves man best, serves God best. I believe in the religion of humanity. When STEPHEN GIRARD who is called a Deist, founded that College for orphan boys, in which there are fourteen hundred boys, he performed a great

act of religion for the fatherless, and when the late Prof. WAGNER—and I am speaking as an authority on this subject, for I have the honor of being one of his executors-when he had spent sixty years and accumulated five hundred thousand dollars to found the " Wagner Free Institute of Science," where boys and girls and men and women may come freely into the lecture-room and hear the lectures, he performed a great act of religion. I believe in the God of reason and the God of Science and the God of Nature, and so when a man performs a great act or work, for the benefit of his race, he is performing a work of religion. When my friend DAVIS labors so faithfully to get the people to extend the true'idea of money, with the view of benefitting himself and the people, he is performing a great act of religion; and when SUSAN B. ANTHONY spends a whole life-time traversing the globe, for the enfranchisement of her sex, she is doing a great act of religion.

Miss EASTMAN:-If I hesitated at all to accept the beautiful definition which Mr. REYNOLDS gave of religion, that it is being bound to the Highest, it was simply that it did not bind us quite enough. I like better to think that we are bound to the Universe, that we are bound on all sides, that it is simply a kinship to the Universe. Religious aspiration, I think is no worldly ambition. We are a good deal on stilts, we want to go up, we want to rise. Now it seems to me that when we look at people about us, we find that they are not doing the best service, who are aspiring to some great office, or to some great service, who are even struggling for unseen heights, who are ever trying with strains of feeling for a closer relation to God, but they are truly most religious who are reaching out in all directions to the right, as well as to the left, and down as well as up, and not merely living to self. I always recoil from songs like, "Jesus loves me, even me," they are too self-centred. There is much to do all around us, and he is most religious who does this work faithfully and well.

Remarks on the subject of the session were also made by EDWIN M. DAVIS and the Chairman. E. M. STONER, PHOEBE

WAY and EDITH PENNOCK, were added to the Business Committee.

After singing the meeting adjourned.

SIXTH-DAY AFTERNOON.

The meeting opened with singing, at 2 o'clock, by Miss TURNER, "God of Mercy," after which the Chairman announced the subject for consideration to be "Prison Reform," and introduced Rev. Wм. L. BULL who spoke as follows:

"The

Friends I have to ask your attention in opening, while I read some statistics from a paper of EUGENE Smith. subject of Prison Reform is apt to be regarded as only within the sphere of philanthropy, and as appealing wholly to humane and sympathetic sentiment in behalf of the prisoner. There are many enthusiasts who have been so deeply moved by a sense of these abuses of prison management and the cruelties inflicted upon prisoners, and have been so elated at the possibilities of reformation even in characters appearing most vicious, that they have come to regard the whole system of penal administration from the stand-point of the prisoner; their ideal prison is a beneficent institution established for the humane purpose of promoting the reformation and well-being of the convict. They have declared that the reformation of the prisoner is the primary aim and object of imprisonment; some have even announced that it is the sole aim and object; their philosophy in the treatment of criminals is not tempered, but saturated with mercy toward the wrong-doer. This enthusiasm for the prisoner, as a subject for benevolent effort, often degenerates into a kind of sentimental philanthropy, that would seek by coddling to entice the criminal into reformation. The cause of Prison Reform has suffered in the public mind from the advocacy of such zealots crusading as its champions. This fact accounts, in large measure, for the lack of general enlightened interest in the topic. There is little popular sympathy in behalf of the convict, and it is hopeless, even if it were desirable, to attempt to arouse any such sympathy as a basis of popular agitation for Prison Reform."

"The criminal classes are the enemies of mankind; and when there is presented to the public a plea for radical improvements in our prisons and in our methods of treating criminals, on the ground that these improvements will benefit the prisoner, men are sure to turn an unwilling or deaf ear. The public looks upon its convicts with aversion and terror, recoils from them; pure philanthropic effort to reclaim the criminal will proceed, as it always has done only from those of exalted and exceptional character. The public at large cannot be brought into active and earnest co-operation in the enterprise of reform when appealed to on the score of humane sentiment. The criminal classes cannot be exalted as objects of popular sympathy without irretrievably lowering the moral tone and quality of public sentiment. If the demand for reform is to be made the subject of popular agitation it is necessary to demonstrate the practical utility and necessity of such reform, and to appeal to other, and less heroic and more substantial motives than benevolent pity for the prisoner."

"Prison Reform owed its origin, indeed, to a charitable zeal for the interest of the prisoner; but it has outgrown the conditions of its birth, and it is no longer a merely benevolent movement. The bearing of this reform on the well-being of the prisoner is one of its narrowest relations; it is only when viewed in its broader bearings, not on the prisoner alone, but upon the community as a whole, that it assumes its true proportions of importance. It is in this phase that the subject ceases to present a field merely for voluntary benevolent effort. And in this country where all governmental reform is the result of popular agitation the success of Prison Reform can only be brought about by popularizing the science of prison management; by presenting to the public the subject not only in its philanthropic relation to the prisoner, but by proving that the integrity and moral tone of any society are in a large measure affected by its methods of administering penal laws. In this light, the reforms which are so urgently needed in our prison systems and in the public treatment of the criminal

classes, present imperative demands upon every intelligent citizen for his carnest co-operation and advocacy; demands which appeal, not to the benevolent sympathies, but to the duties of good citizenship, to the enlightened self-interest of every member of the body politic in its general prosperity and moral elevation. What the people are asked to favor as a political measure must be supported on political grounds and for political reasons."

"The State imprisons a criminal, not at all for the purpose of punishing him, not at all for the purpose of reforming him, but solely for the purpose of protecting society against him. True, the imprisonment does produce the effect of punishing the prisoner, but that is merely incidental; true, the imprisonment may produce the effect of reforming the prisoner, but that is subordinate and secondary. The safety and well-being of the community require protection against the offending criminal. The same considerations of public utility that caused the apprehension of the criminal are the cardinal ones that must determine the treatment which should be applied to him while in prison. The existence of a prison exerts an impressive, moral and restraining influence over the community, and its administration should be so conducted as to heighten that influence; it should be made a place of nameless dread; it should be stripped of every adjunct that may render it in any sense attractive, even to the poorest artisan or the homeless pauper; the public estimation should hold it to be the cheerless abode of hardship and disgrace. The power exerted by a well-ordered prison in restraining the innocent when tempted to commit their first crime is, doubtless, far greater than in saving discharged convicts from relapse. The disgrace and the unknown horrors of imprisonment have preserved many a man from crime when his moral principle unaided would have been altogether too weak to resist temptation. To foster this salutary influence of the prison upon society is an object of grave importance; and for its attainment it is necessary that the prison regime should be severely rigorous; it is imperative