[Footnote 25: The Bangor Jeffersonian said: "Miss Anthony is far from being an impracticable enthusiast. Dignity, conscientiousness and regard for the highest welfare of her sex, are the impressions which one receives of her. Doubtless all (if any there were) who went to scoff, remained to pray for the success of the doctrine she advocated. Personally she is good-looking, of symmetrical figure and modest and ladylike demeanor." The Bangor Whig was equally favorable. The Ellsworth American said: "Her enunciation is very clear and remarkably distinct, yet there is nothing in it of the unfeminine character and tone which people had been led to expect from the usual criticisms of the press. The lecture itself, as an intellectual effort, was satisfactory as well to those who dissented as to those who sympathized with its positions and arguments. It was fruitful in ideas and suggestions and we doubt not many a woman, and man too, went home that night, with the germ of more active ideas in their heads than had gathered there for a twelvemonth before."] CHAPTER XI. CONDITIONS PRIOR TO THE WAR. 1859. Among Miss Anthony's many schemes for regenerating the world was one to have a Free church in Rochester, after the manner of Theodore Parker's in Boston, similar to an ethical society, where no doctrines should be preached and all should be welcome, contributing what they chose. This was in her mind for years, and at the beginning of 1859 she engaged Corinthian Hall for Sunday evenings, her good friend, William A. Reynolds, as usual making her a reduced rate; and here Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Parker Pillsbury each preached for a month. She tried to engage Mrs. Stanton for a year and also Aaron M. Powell, but the financial support was too uncertain and the project had to be abandoned. All her life, however, Miss Anthony cherished the hope of seeing this Free church established and sustained. She arranged a series of lectures for this winter. George William Curtis accepted her invitation in this characteristic letter: I think of no title for your course, but why have any? Why not say simply, "A Course of Independent Lectures?" To call them woman's rights would damn them in advance, so strong is prejudice. The only one I have at all suited to your purpose is "Fair Play for Women."[26] I hate the words "woman's rights," nor do they properly describe my treatment of the question which, in my mind, is not one of sex but of humanity. My lecture is a plea for the recognition of the equal humanity of women and an assertion that they have rights not as women but as human beings. In respect to terms, I leave it with you. I usually receive $50, but you will understand that I should prefer to pay the expenses myself rather than that you or any one interested should expend a penny; so if you can not justly give me anything, I shall be content. [Autograph: