elt and prayed, pouring forth
a solemn Jeremiad against the apostasy and infidelity of the day in
language so pointed and personal, that we all felt that Mrs. Mott was
the special subject of her petition. She accepted the intercession
with all due humility, and fortunately for the harmony of the occasion
was not moved to pray for Mrs. Fry, that she might have more love and
charity for those who honestly differed with her on unimportant points
of theology. How hateful such bigotry looks to those capable of
getting outside their own educational prejudices. How pitiable, that
even good people should thus allow themselves to ostracise and
persecute those who hold different opinions from their own. Elizabeth
Fry was not afraid to mingle in Newgate prison with the scum of the
earth, but she was afraid to touch the hem of Lucretia Mott's garment.
If Mrs. Fry felt that she had a higher truth, how did she know that
she might not influence Mrs. Mott for good? Lucretia was never afraid
of anybody. Nothing would have pleased her better than to compare her
pearls of thought and faith with Elizabeth Fry.

Visiting in many Quaker families during our travels in England, I was
amazed to hear Mrs. Mott spoken of as a most dangerous woman. Again
and again I was warned against her influence. She was spoken of as an
infidel, a heretic, a disturber, who had destroyed the peace in the
Friends Society in Pennsylvania, and thrown a firebrand into the
World's Convention, and that in a recent speech in London she quoted
sentiments from Mary Wollstonecroft and Thomas Paine. Having just
learned to worship Lucretia Mott as the embodiment of all that was
noble and charming in womanhood, the terrible fear that she inspired
among English "Friends" filled me with sorrow and surprise. I never
ventured to mention her name in their homes unless they first
introduced it.

Sitting in the World's Convention one day after half the world had
been voted out, when Joseph Sturge, a wealthy Quaker, occupied the
chair, I suggested to Mrs. Mott a dangerous contingency. Said I,
"Suppose in spite of the vote of excommunication the Spirit should
move you to speak, what could the chairman do, and which would you
obey? the Spirit or the Convention?" She promptly replied, "Where the
Spirit of God is, there is liberty."

Many anecdotes are told of Mrs. Mott's rigid economy, such as sewing
together the smallest rags to be woven into carpets, and writing
letters on infini