f this "mustard seed" of truth has become a "great
tree" whose branches overshadow continents, and the thought and active
moral forces of nations "dwell in the branches thereof."

If not from "Greenland's icy mountains," at least from the boundaries
of the United States and British America to "India's coral strand,"
the onsweeping wave of woman's elevation is steadily advancing.

Ramabai in India seeking the deliverance of the child widow, who has
no earthly existence, nor any hope of one beyond mortal life except as
a wife, and who, as a widow, is but an outcast, this woman missionary
from the opposite side of the globe has clasped hands and is in
heart-fellowship with her American sisters who are still seeking the
enlargement of woman's freedom and opportunities in this favored
country.

It was a logical position that besieged the ballot as the first agency
of deliverance in our land. The suffrage is, under our form of
government and constitutional rights, the badge of equality.

Everywhere, in Church and State, woman was discriminated against, and
the distinguishing disability imposed upon her by law and custom was
her suppressed opinion and will in the administration of affairs.

In the church she might contribute her labor, carry forward
enterprises to pay the minister's salary, furnish the edifice, support
social movements that would tend to increase membership, and sustain
the religious services; but, were she a machine, minus brains, choice,
or will, she could be no more completely a nonentity when the pastor
was to be chosen, the amount of his salary fixed, or any matters of
finance or administration decided upon.

The acceptance of her work for its support was the only recognition of
her individuality, or her common share in the institution. She was
cudgelled with Paul in the Church and with her inability to fight by
the State.

Muscular force having been, and still widely held to be, the bulwark
of civilization, and submission to the authority of man socially and
ecclesiastically the measure of her religious excellence, at least of
the excellence of the wifely portion of womanhood, woman has been a
cipher at the left-hand side of the unit man in both civil and
religious institutions.

But the evolution of brains, which is nature's method of human
development, has unsettled this standard of civilization and the
relation of the sexes. The woman who thinks has come, and the struggle
is no longer one of