mperfect sketch may give some idea of the mode of life of
one who has found it "good to be always zealously affected in a
good thing."

When, as an enthusiastic Abolitionist, Mrs. Mott crossed the ocean to
take part in the deliberations of the World's Anti-Slavery
Convention, the last drop in her cup of sorrow was the humiliation she
was called to suffer on account of sex. The vote by which this
injustice was perpetrated, was due to the overwhelming majority of the
clergy, who, with Bible in hand, swept all before them. No man can
fathom the depths of rebellion in woman's soul when insult is heaped
upon her sex, and this is intensified when done under the hypocritical
assumption of divine authority. This fresh baptism into woman's
degradation impelled the current of her thoughts into a new channel,
and returning home, she, with a few friends as rebellious as herself,
called the first Woman's Rights Convention. To this cause she brought
a zeal unknown before, as here she could see the wrongs of a class
from a purely subjective point of view.

There are often periods in the lives of earnest, imaginative beings,
when some new book or acquaintance comes to them like an added sun in
the heavens, lighting the darkest recesses and chasing every shadow
away. Thus came Lucretia Mott to me, at a period in my young days when
all life's problems seemed inextricably tangled; when, like Noah's
dove on the waters, my soul found no solid resting-place in the whole
world of thought. The misery of the multitude was too boundless for
comprehension, too hopeless for tender feeling; despair supplanted all
other emotions, and the appalling views of the future threw their dark
shadows over the sweetest and most innocent pleasures of life. Before
meeting Mrs. Mott, I had heard a few men of liberal opinions discuss
various political, religious, and social theories, but with my first
doubt of my father's absolute wisdom, came a distrust of all men's
opinions on the character and sphere of woman; and I naturally
inferred that if their judgments were unsound on a question I was sure
I did understand, they were quite likely to be so on those I did not.
Hence, I often longed to meet some woman who had sufficient confidence
in herself to frame and hold an opinion in the face of opposition, a
woman who understood the deep significance of life to whom I could
talk freely; my longings were answered at last.

In June, 1840, I met Mrs. Mott f