say, and I have seen something of
all classes, that there is not in the whole civilized world a
body of women to be found of the same numbers, who exhibit more
modesty of manner and delicacy of mind than the ladies of the
Society of Friends; and few who equal them in sound sense and
dignity of character. There can be no question that the
recognition of the moral and intellectual equality of the most
lovely and interesting portion of our Society has tended, and
that very materially, to raise them greatly in value as wives, as
bosom friends and domestic counselors, whose inestimable worth is
only discovered in times of trial and perplexity.

And here have gone the little men of the present day, and have
knocked down in the face of the world all that their ancestors,
in this respect, had built up! If they are at all consistent they
must carry out their new principle and sweep it through the
ancient constitution of their own Society. They must at once put
down meetings of discipline among their women; they must call
home such as are in distant countries, or are traversing this,
preaching and visiting families. There must be no appointments of
women to meet committees of men to deliberate on matters of great
importance to the Society. But the fact is, my dear friend, that
bigotry is never consistent except that is always narrow, always
ungracious, and always under plea of uniting God's people,
scattering them one from another, and rendering them weak as
water.

I want to know what religious opinions have to do with a "World's
Convention." Did you meet to settle doctrines, or to conspire
against slavery? Many an august council has attempted to settle
doctrines, and in vain; and you had before you a subject so vast,
so pressing, so momentous, that in presence of its sublimity, any
petty jealousy and fancied idea of superiority ought to have
fallen as dust from the boughs of a cedar. You as delegates, had
to meet this awful fact in the face, and to consider how it
should be grappled with; how the united power of civilized
nations should be brought to bear upon it! The fact that after
nearly a century of gradually growing and accumulating efforts to
put down slavery and the slave trade, little has been done; that
there are now more slaves in th