out settling some domestic questions. Marriage is
a partnership between two; no third person to give the casting
vote. Then they must "take turns"; the wife yielding to the
husband in those cases where he is best qualified to judge, and
the husband yielding to the wife in those matters which most
concern her, or concerning which she can best judge. Yet man is
the senior partner of the firm: his name comes first. Few women
would be pleased to see the firm styled in print as "Mrs.
So-and-So and Husband."

Woman wants more self-reliance. Has she not always been taught
that it is very proper to faint at the sight of toads and spiders
and fresh blood, and whenever a gentleman pops the question? Has
she not always been taught that man was the strong, towering oak,
and she the graceful, clinging vine, sure to collapse like an
empty bag whenever his mighty support was withdrawn? Until all
this folly is unlearned, how can she be self-dependent and truly
womanly?

Women are afraid to claim their rights; and not timidity only,
but laziness--the love of ease--keeps them back from the great
duty of self-assertion. True, it is a good deal like work to
summon up the soul to such a conflict with an opposing and
corrupt public opinion. But woman must do that work for herself,
or it will never be done.

Woman's _rights_ we talk of. There is a grandeur about these
great questions of right, which makes them the glory of our age;
and it is the shame of our age, that right and rights in every
form get so generally sneered at. What use have I for my
conscience, what remains of my noble manhood, if, when half the
human race complain that I am doing them a wrong, I only reply
with a scoff? A man without a conscience to make him quick and
sensitive to right and duty, is neither fit for heaven nor for
hell. He is an outsider, a monster!

Conservatism says, "Let the world be as it is"; but Christianity
says, "Make it what it should be." No man need call himself a
Christian, who admits that a wrong exists, and yet wishes it to
continue, or is indifferent to its removal. Let us

"Strike for that which ought to be,
And God will bless the blows."

[Illustration: PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS (with autograph).]

The speaker spoke of the abuse and inju