slavery, the abolition of slavery, and other topics. Lucretia Mott, the mistress of the house, wife of James Mott, is sensible and lively, and an abolitionist of the most intrepid school." The day following this interview the first midnight assault was made on Bailey's anti-slavery press in Cincinnati.

In 1837 Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, and in 1838 Pennsylvania Hall, dedicated to free discussion, was burned the fourth day after its opening with the co-operation of the city authorities of Philadelphia. It was on the day before that Lucretia Mott addressed an audience of women, with stones and brickbats pouring through the windows. Men were excluded from these meetings on the ground of delicacy and the fitness of things. And it did not take Lucretia Mott long to express the "hope that such false notions of delicacy and propriety would not long obtain in this enlightened country."

In 1840 the question of women speaking before promiscuous assemblies became "the sensitive bone" of contention in the organization of abolitionists. Their unity on the sub

ject of slavery did not evolve a like unity on the dictum of St. Paul, and the fact of women "speaking in meeting." The irreconcilable question divided the society in two bodies. And the old organization, as the first abolitionists called themselves, appointed "our beloved friends, William L. Garrison, N. P. Rogers, C. L. Kennard, and Lucretia Mott delegates to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, held in London in June, 1840, with Thomas Clarkson as president."

It never occurred to the single mind of the gentle Friend who then had been preaching the gospel of justice and love for more than thirty years, who was always thinking of the truth, never of herself, that she would be denied the privilege of sitting with her fellow delegates, not from any unfitness of character or lack of mental power, but solely because she was a woman. She was denied for this cause alone. In the history of human progression there could scarcely be more interesting reading than her own account of the reception of the women delegates at this convention. In her notes she

writes: "In 1840 a World's Anti-Slavery Convention was called in London. Women from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were delegates to that convention. I was one of the number, but on our arrival in England our credentials were not accepted because we were women. . . This brought the woman question more into view, and an increase of interest on the subject has been the result. In this work, too, I have been engaged, heart and hand, as my labors, travels, and public discourses evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule, and abuse heaped upon this as well as other reforms do not in the least deter me from my duty. To those whose name is cast out as evil for the truth's sake, it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgment."

We must look far to find a human declaration more disinterested, larger, or nobler than this.

Born a Friend, educated from babyhood in a Friends' meeting, where woman's equality was unquestioned, freedom of speech was as natural to her as the air she breathed. Where women differently trained would have assumed to speak in public places, Lucretia Mott spake as the bird sings, and thus carrying her freedom of being, thinking, and speaking everywhere, with no consciousness of it as something she had taken up, whose possession might be questioned, she never assumed anything or aroused any personal antagonism even in those who differed from her. Her very gentleness and freedom from self-consciousness half-veiled and softened her great ethical force and unconquerable courage. That which would have been audacity in others was delightful unconsciousness in herself; thus all her life without knowing it she was the incarnation in herself of woman's cause at its best.

Though denied her place as a delegate in the World's Convention, she had a pleasant seat given her as a lady in the gallery - which at that date was much for English enlightenment to give, - and more than it gives to-day to women in the gallery of the House of Parliament. While sitting in this seat "after half the world had been voted out," Elizabeth

Cady Stanton, then a vivacious and beautiful bride, writes:. "Said I, 'Suppose in spite of the vote of excommunication the spirit should move you to speak, what would the chairman do, and which would you obey, the spirit or the convention?' She promptly replied: Where the spirit of God is, there is liberty.'"

Though the English reformers of 1840 could tolerate no innovation so aggressive as a woman delegate, nevertheless they were sufficiently gentlemen to treat her politely, and she was invited to breakfast with people of high rank. Unconventionally enough, as every English man and woman knew, at the breakfast-table she found the opportunity denied her at the convention, and without parley, she arose and addressed the brilliant assembly. Sitting at that table were those who voted against her admission as a delegate.

Amazement filled every feature at her daring-but by a very natural process to the British mind—when they saw Zukes and duchesses listening with profound attention, and sometimes bowing their heads in assent—even the British reformer found it easy to listen also. Through genuine esprit de corps, perhaps the peer knew her best, so proving the assertion of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"I don't wonder Lady Byron liked her," said Emerson. "She belongs to the aristocracy."

Notwithstanding the brethren prevented her speaking in meeting, two very tangible and important results followed Lucretia Mott's presence in the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. The first was the introduction it afforded to a younger woman, to whom Lucretia Mott at once became an inspiration and an oracle. Elizabeth Cady Stanton has done more than any other one woman, with her clear reasoning and fine eloquence, to move the minds of thoughtful lawgivers, and to change unjust laws to just ones in behalf of women in legislatures. At the time of this World's Convention, which she visited with her young husband, she stood eagerly questioning on the border-land of her unknown, undreamed-of future. Instinctively she sat down at the feet of

a priestess who had so long inhaled hallowed air that she gave it back in every breath in exalted prophecy and promise for womanhood. Mrs. Stanton says: "I had always regarded a Quaker-woman as one does a Sister of Charity — a being above ordinary mortals, ready to be translated at any moment. I had never spoken to one before nor been near enough to touch the hem of a garment. Mrs. Mott was to me an entire new revelation of womanhood. I sought every opportunity to be at her side, and continually plied her with questions, and I shall never cease to be grateful for the patience and seeming pleasure with which she fed my hungering soul. . . . I found in this new friend a woman emancipated from all faith in man-creeds, from all fear of his denunciations. Nothing was too sacred for her to question, as to its rightfulness in principle and practice. It seemed to me like meeting some being from a larger planet, to find a woman who dared to question the opinion of popes, kings, synods, parliaments, with the same freedom that she would criticise an editorial in the London Times.' . . . When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox had, I felt at once a new-born sense of dignity and freedom; it was like suddenly coming into the rays of the noonday sun after wandering with a rushlight in the caves of the earth. . . .

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"There are often periods in the lives of earnest, imaginative beings when some new book or acquaintance comes to them like an added sun in the heavens, chasing every shadow away. Thus came Lucretia Mott to me at a period in my young days when all life's problems seemed inextricably tangled. When, like Noah's dove on the waters, my soul found no solid resting-place in the whole world of thought.

.. Before meeting Mrs. Mott I had heard a few men of liberal opinions discuss various political, social, and religious theories, but with my first doubt of my father's absolute wisdom came a distrust of all men's opinions on the character and sphere of women. . . . Hence I often longed to meet

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some woman who had sufficient confidence in herself to frame and hold an opinion in the face of opposition - a woman who understood the deep significance of life, to whom I could talk freely; my longings were answered at last."

The second result of the meeting in London of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the call for the first Woman's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19 and 20, 1848. After Lucretia Mott, Sarah Pugh, Abby Kimble, Elizabeth Neal, Mary Grew,—all Friends from Philadelphia-and Abby Southwick and Emily Winslow of Boston, had travelled three thousand miles to take their seats as delegates in the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, only to be refused them. Lucretia Mott and her newly-found lover, Elizabeth Stanton, walked arm-in-arm down Great Queen street, discussing with their musical voices the great indignity that to their minds that day had been cast on womanhood. They then and there resolved on their return to America to hold a Woman's Rights Convention. They kept their word. And from that gathering of earnest, brave, but inexperienced women, who made written additions to the Declaration of Independence to meet their own special demands, wrongs, and needs, more than forty years ago, have evolved by a natural law the great, splendidly-organized, wisely-regulated yearly conventions of women of to-day, projected and directed by a force of women whose zeal and devotion in their work can only be measured and equalled by the experience which directs and the wisdom that comprehends human life in all its bearings, human nature in all its needs, and, beyond all, the unity of humanity in its essence and in its aspirations.

So much space has been given to the public life and work of Lucretia Mott one might naturally suppose that there could be but little inclination, time, or strength left to her for purely personal domestic life. Yet the potent fact remains, that the sweetness and fulness of her life as a woman cannot be measured or told in words, though the placid narrative of its gentle deeds would of itself fill a large volume. While her