New Gospel
When Stopes had sufficiently recovered she returned to work in 1920, engaged in public speaking, responding to letters seeking advice on marriage, sex and birth control. She sent Mrs. E.B. Mayne to disseminate the Letter to Working Mothers with its message of birth control to the slums of East London and, while Mrs. Mayne approached 20 families a day, after several months she brought back the observation that the working class was just too mistrustful of well-intentioned meddlers (see the Settlement movement, which peaked at about that time).
It may be that this lack of success brought her to contemplate a different approach to bringing her message to the poor. A conference of Anglican bishops was to be held in June and at home not long before the conference she had a vision: she called in her secretary and dictated a message addressed to the bishops which begins as follows:
"My Lords, I speak to you in the name of God. You are his priests. I am his prophet. I speak to you of the mysteries of man and woman."
The New Gospel to All Peoples seemed to be that the time was now ripe for the Stopes message of wholesome sexual relations between husband and wife. The bishops' response was not receptive. Among the resolutions carried during the conference one was aimed against "the deliberate cultivation of sexual union" and another against "indecent literature, suggestive plays and films the open or secret sale of contraceptives". The Catholic Church's reaction was more strident, marking the start of an open conflict that lasted the rest of her life.
Read more about this topic: Marie Stopes
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