se you have wealth and knowledge and loving
parents, or a faithful husband, or kind brothers, and you feel no
pressure of need, do you feel no inward pressure of humanity for
others? Is there no part of God's great work in providence that
should lead you to be discontented with your ease and privileges
until you are enfranchised? You ought to vote; and when your
understanding and intellect are convinced that you ought to do
it, you will have the power to do it; and you never will till
then.

I. Woman has more interest than man in the promotion of virtue
and purity and humanity. Half, shall I say?--Half does not half
measure the proportion of those sorrows that come upon woman by
reason of her want of influence and power. All the young men
that, breaking down, break fathers' and mothers' hearts; all
those that struggle near to the grave, weeping piteous tears of
blood, it might almost be said, and that at last, under paroxysms
of despair, sin against nature, and are swept out of misery into
damnation; the spectacles that fill our cities, and afflict and
torment villages--what are these but reasons that summon woman to
have a part in that regenerating of thought and that regenerating
of legislation which shall make vice a crime, and vice-makers
criminals? Do you suppose that, if it were to turn on the votes
of women to-day whether rum should be sold in every shop in this
city, there would be one moment's delay in settling the
question? What to the oak lightning is that marks it and descends
swiftly upon it, that woman's vote would be to miscreant vices in
these great cities. [Applause]. Ah, I speak that which I do know.
As a physician speaks from that which he sees in the hospital
where he ministers, so I speak from that which I behold in my
professional position and place, where I see the undercurrent of
life. I hear groans that come from smiling faces. I witness tears
that when others look upon the face are all swept away, as the
rain is when one comes after a storm. Not most vocal are our
deepest sorrows. Oh, the sufferings of wives for husbands untrue!
Oh, the sufferings of mothers for sons led astray! Oh, the
sufferings of sisters for sisters gone! Oh, the sufferings of
companions for companion-women desecrated! And I hold it to be a