Indians
roamed the wild, wide hunting-grounds, and claimed them as their
own. They must be met and subdued. The savage beasts howled
defiance from every hill-top, and in every glen. They must be
destroyed. Did the hearts of our fathers fail? No; they entered
upon their new life, their new world, with a strong faith and a
mighty will. For they saw in the prospection a great and
incalculable good. It was not the work of an hour, nor of a day;
not of weeks or months, but of long struggling, toiling, painful
years. If they failed at one point, they took hold at another. If
their paths through the wilderness were at first crooked, rough,
and dangerous, by little and little they improved them. The
forest faded away, the savage disappeared, the wild beasts were
destroyed, and the hopes and prophetic visions of their
far-seeing powers in the new and untried country, were more than
realized.

Permit me to draw a comparison between the situation of our
forefathers in the wilderness, without even so much as a
bridle-path through its dark depths, and our present position.
The old land of moral, social, and political privilege, seems too
narrow for our wants; its soil answers not to our growing, and we
feel that we see clearly a better country that we might inhabit.
But there are mountains of established law and custom to
overcome; a wilderness of prejudice to be subdued; a powerful foe
of selfishness and self-interest to overthrow; wild beasts of
pride, envy, malice, and hate to destroy. But for the sake of our
children and our children's children, we have entered upon the
work, hoping and praying that we may be guided by wisdom,
sustained by love, and led and cheered by the earnest hope of
doing good.

I shall enter into no labored argument to prove that woman does
not occupy the position in society to which her capacity justly
entitles her. The rights of mankind emanate from their natural
wants and emotions. Are not the natural wants and emotions of
humanity common to, and shared equally by, both sexes? Does man
hunger and thirst, suffer cold and heat more than woman? Does he
love and hate, hope and fear, joy and sorrow more than woman?
Does his heart thrill with a deeper pleasure in doing good? Can
his soul writhe in more bitter agony und