to view; if she is to fear to
exercise her reason, and her noblest powers, lest she should be
thought to "attempt to act the man," and not "acknowledge his
supremacy"; if she is to be satisfied with the narrow sphere
assigned her by man, nor aspire to a higher, lest she should
transcend the bounds of female delicacy; truly it is a mournful
prospect for woman. We would admit all the difference, that our
great and beneficent Creator has made, in the relation of man and
woman, nor would we seek to disturb this relation; but we deny
that the present position of woman is her true sphere of
usefulness; nor will she attain to this sphere, until the
disabilities and disadvantages, religious, civil, and social,
which impede her progress, are removed out of her way. These
restrictions have enervated her mind and paralyzed her powers.
While man assumes that the present is the original state designed
for woman, that the existing "differences are not arbitrary nor
the result of accident," but grounded in nature; she will not
make the necessary effort to obtain her just rights, lest it
should subject her to the kind of scorn and contemptuous manner
in which she has been spoken of.

So far from her "ambition leading her to attempt to act the man,"
she needs all the encouragement she can receive, by the removal
of obstacles from her path, in order that she may become the
"true woman." As it is desirable that man should act a manly and
generous part, not "mannish," so let woman be urged to exercise a
dignified and womanly bearing, not womanish. Let her cultivate
all the graces and proper accomplishments of her sex, but let not
these degenerate into a kind of effeminacy, in which she is
satisfied to be the mere plaything or toy of society, content
with her outward adornings, and the flattery and fulsome
adulation too often addressed to her.

[Illustration: LUCRETIA MOTT (with autograph).]

Did Elizabeth Fry lose any of her feminine qualities by the
public walk into which she was called? Having performed the
duties of a mother to a large family, feeling that she owed a
labor of love to the poor prisoner, she was empowered by Him who
sent her forth, to go to kings and crowned heads of the earth,
and ask audience of these, and it was granted her. Did she lose