ask if I am a friend of such a 'New Organization' as I find an account of in your last paper. (This was the organization formed by the members of the Anti-Slavery Society who objected to any public work by women.) No, brother, I am not. If that is the spirit of the N. O., I am far enough from being its friend. There seems to be no feeling of Liberty about it. Its great object seems to be to crush Garrison and the women. While it pretends to endeavor to remove the yoke of bondage on account of color, it is actually summoning all its energies to rivet more firmly the chains that have always been fastened upon the neck of women. Look at the ridiculous conduct of H. G. Ludlow, at the anniversary of the Anti-Slavery Society of New Haven. If a woman would 'open her mouth for the dumb', she sha'n't. If she would let her voice speak, the cry is raised again, 'It shall not be allowed.' Thus the inalienable right that God had given is wrested from her, and the talent, or, if you please, half talent entrusted to her keeping for improvement, is violently taken away; and H. G. L., becoming the keeper of her conscience, must also answer for her at the Day of Judgment. Hear him answering to ' Where is the half talent I gave her?" Lord, thinking I knew better than Thou didst, and believing that might gave right, I violently took it from her, though she strove hard to maintain it. Lo, here Thou hast ', etc. Must he not have an answer similar to one of whom we read, who hid his Lord's money? Yet he says, ' I have the spirit of God. I am a Christian.'
"I admire the calm and noble bearing of Abby Kelley on that occasion, and cannot but wish there were more kindred spirits.
"Only let females be educated in the same manner and with the same advantages that males have, and, as everything in nature seeks its own level, I would risk that we would find out our 'appropriate sphere.'
"I am well, and am doing well in my studies.
"Miss Adams and I walked out to Springfield last Saturday, and back again, the whole distance being nearly twenty-five miles. We do not feel any inconvenience from it.
"I have been examining the doctrine of Christian Perfection, and I cannot avoid the conclusion that it is attainable in this life.
"Will you, when you can, consistently with your other duties, write me what you think about the immortality of the spirit of beasts, and, if you think they are not, tell me how the justice of God can be reconciled with the abuse they often suffer?
"I am glad your prayer-meetings are good. Warren needs a revival. I hope you may have one. My own heart is cold as clay. I often think that I have never been a Christian, for how can one who has ever known the love of God go so far away? Will brother sometimes pray for me?
"It was decided in our Literary Society the other day that ladies ought to mingle in politics, go to Congress, etc., etc. What do you think of that?"
Lucy often said that, if women could secure education and the right to speak, they could win everything else for themselves.
She finally accumulated money enough to enter Mount Holyoke Seminary. That institution was much interested in foreign missions, and many of the teachers and students kept mite boxes in which they collected money for that work. Lucy kept, instead, one of the mite boxes of the Anti-Slavery Society, which bore a picture of a kneeling slave holding up manacled hands, with the motto, "Am I not a man and a brother?" Bowman sent her the Liberator, and, after reading it, she used to place it in the reading room of the Seminary. No one knew who put it there, but Lucy was suspected, because of her strong antislavery views, and, when questioned, she frankly admitted it. Mary Lyon summoned her to a private interview and talked to her very seriously. She said, "You must remember that the slavery question is a very grave question, and one upon which the best people are divided."
Lucy spent only three months at Mount Holyoke. Then her sister Rhoda died. Her mother was so heart-broken that her health failed, and Lucy went home to comfort and help her.
Meanwhile the struggle for the right of women to speak and to take part with men in antislavery work kept on. It is easy to imagine the feelings with which Lucy must have read the report of the World's Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. The Call had invited delegates from all antislavery organizations. A number of the societies in America elected women among their delegates. Despite the efforts of Wendell Phillips and many others, the convention refused to accept their credentials. Garrison had been delayed at sea. When he arrived and found that the women delegates had been rejected, he refused to take his own seat in the convention, and during the ten days of its discussions and votes upon a subject so dear to his heart, he sat in silence in the gallery, with the excluded women.
One of the delegates was the distinguished Quakeress, Lucretia Mott. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was also present, not as a delegate, but as the young wife of a delegate, Henry B. Stanton. Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton took long walks together, mingling their indignation; and they determined that some day, after their return to America, they would hold a convention for woman's rights. Eight years later they carried out their plan.
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