stated. Some of our most efficient
members had been removed by death, some by unavoidable circumstances.
But more than this, the demands made upon the time and strength of women
by the women's clubs, which are now numerous and universal, had come to
occupy the attention of many who in other times had leisure to interest
themselves in our work. The biennial conventions of the general
federation of women's clubs no doubt appear to many to fill the place
which we have honorably held, and may in some degree answer the ends
which we have always had in view. Yet a number of us still hold
together, united in heart and in hand. Although we have sadly missed our
departed friends, I have never felt that the interest or value of our
meetings suffered any decline. The spirit of those dear ones has seemed,
on the contrary, to abide among us, holding us pledged to undertake the
greater effort made necessary by their absence. We still count among our
members many who keep the inspiration under which we first took the
field. We feel, moreover, that our happy experience of many years has
brought us lessons too precious to hide or to neglect.

The coming together either of men or of women from regions widely
separate from each other naturally gives occasion for comparison. So far
as I have known, the comparisons elicited by our meetings have more and
more tended to resolve imagined discords into prevailing harmony. The
sympathy of feeling aroused by our unity of object has always risen
above the distinctions of section and belonging. Honest differences of
opinion, honestly and temperately expressed, tend rather to develop good
feeling than to disturb it. I am glad to be able to say that sectional
prejudice has appeared very little, if at all, in the long course of our
congresses, and that self-glorification, whether of State or individual,
has never had any place with us, while the great instruction of meeting
with earnest and thoughtful workers from every part of our country's
vast domain has been greatly appreciated by us and by those who, in
various places, have met with us.

We have presented at our meetings reports on a variety of important
topics. Our congress of three days usually concluding on Saturday, such
of our speakers as are accustomed to the pulpit have often been invited
to hold forth in one or more of the churches. In Knoxville, Tenn., for
example, I was cordially bidden to lift up my voice in an orthodox
Presbyterian c