can not be heard. I am not aware that the audience finds any
difficulty in hearing us from this platform. All Europe and
America have listened to the voice of Madam Rachel and Jenny
Lind. The capacity to speak indicates the right to do so, and the
noblest, highest, and best thing that any one can accomplish, is
what that person ought to do, and what God holds him or her
accountable for doing, nor should we be deterred by the senseless
cry, "It is not our proper sphere."

As regards woman's voting, I read a letter from a lady traveling
in the British provinces, who says that by a provincial law of
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, women were actually voters for
members of Parliament; and still the seasons come and go,
children are born, and fish flock to that shore. The voting there
is _viva voce_. In Canada it is well known that women vote on the
question of schools. A friend told me when the law was first
passed giving women who owned a certain amount of property, or
who paid a given rental, a right to vote, he went trembling to
the polls to see the result. The first woman who came was a large
property holder in Toronto; with marked respect the crowd gave
way as she advanced. She spoke her vote and walked quietly away,
sheltered by her womanhood. It was all the protection she needed.
In face of all the arguments in favor of the incapacity of woman
to be associated in government, stood the fact that women had sat
on thrones and governed as successfully as men. England owes more
to Queen Elizabeth than to any other sovereign except Alfred the
Great. We must not always be looking for precedents. New ideas
are born and old ones die. Ideas that have prevailed a thousand
years have been at last exploded. Every new truth has its
birth-place in a manger, lives thirty years, is crucified, and
then deified. Columbus argued through long years that there must
be a western world. All Europe laughed at him. Five crowned heads
rejected him, and it was a woman at last who sold her jewels and
fitted out his ships. So, too, the first idea of applying steam
to machinery was met with the world's derision. But its triumphs
are recognized now. What we need is to open our minds wide and
give hospitality to every new thought, and prove its truth.

I want to say a w