the new
movement with theories that claim unlimited indulgence for
appetite or passion, the world should recognize in this the only
radical cure.... No statement could better define this movement
than Tennyson's beautiful stanzas:

The woman's cause is man's; they sink or rise
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free,
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall man grow?
The woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse.

Yet in the long years, _liker_ must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man:
_He_ gain in sweetness and in moral height--
_She_ mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind.

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time
Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
Self-reverent each, and reverencing each;
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other, as are those who love.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to man;
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of humankind.

And we who are privileged with the poet to foresee this better
Eden; we who have

The Future grand and great,--
The safe appeal of Truth to Time,--

adopting the victorious cry of the Crusaders, "God wills it!" may
listen to hear above the present din and discord, the stern
mandate of His laws, bidding the world "Onward! onward!" and
catch the rhythmical reply of all its movements, "We advance."

Mrs. Severance then read an appropriate poem from the pen of Mrs.
Sarah Nowell, in which she eulogizes Florence Nightingale, Rosa
Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, and asserts the equality of man and woman in
the creation.

Dr. Harriot K. Hunt made some pointed remarks on the education of
woman.

The Rev. James Freeman Clarke was then introduced. He said:

I understand the cause advocated on this platform to be an
unpopular one. It is a feeble cause, a misunderstood cause, a
misrepresented cause. Hence, it seems to me, if any one is asked
to say anything in behalf of it, and if he really believes it is
a good cause, he should speak; and so I have come.

Certainly any interest which concerns one-half the human race is
an important one