ersevered
in our holy cause amidst difficulties and dangers, with the zeal
of confessors and the firmness of martyrs; and, therefore,
emphatically they should not be disparaged or discouraged by any
slight or contumely offered to their rights. Neither are this
slight and contumely much diminished by the fact that it was not
intended to offer any slight or to convey any contumely. Both
results inevitably follow from the fact of rejection. This OUGHT
NOT to be.
_Thirdly._ Even in England, with all our fastidiousness, women
vote upon the great regulation of the Bank of England; in the
nomination of its directors and governors, and in all other
details equally with men; that is, they assist in the most
awfully important business--the regulation of the currency of
this mighty Empire--influencing the fortunes of all commercial
nations.
_Fourthly._ Our women in like manner vote at the India House;
that is, in the regulation of the government of more than one
hundred millions of human beings.
_Fifthly._ Mind has no sex; and in the peaceable struggle to
abolish slavery all over the world, it is the basis of the
present Convention to seek success by peaceable, moral, and
intellectual means alone, to the utter exclusion of armed
violence. We are engaged in a strife not of strength, but of
argument. Our warfare is not military; it is Christian. We wield
not the weapons of destruction or injury to our adversaries. We
rely entirely on reason and persuasion common to both sexes, and
on the emotions of benevolence and charity, which are more lovely
and permanent amongst women than amongst men.
In the Church to which I belong the female sex are devoted by as
strict rules and with as much, if not more, unceasing austerity
to the performance (and that to the exclusion of all worldly or
temporal joys and pleasures) of all works of humanity, of
education, of benevolence, and of charity, in all its holy and
sacred branches, as the men. The great work in which we are now
engaged embraces all these charitable categories; and the women
have the same duties, and should, therefore, enjoy the same
rights with men in the performance of their duties.
I have a consciousness that I have not done _my_ duty in not
sooner urging these considerations o
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