s any other organization, civil, political,
military, or religious, in the land. Could you but read the many
earnest, thrilling letters we have received from simple men and
women, in their rural homes, you would have fresh hope for the
stability of our Republic; remembering that the life of a nation
depends on the virtue of its people, and not on the dignity of
its rulers.

One poor, infirm woman in Wisconsin, who had lost her husband and
all her sons in the war, traveled on foot over _one hundred
miles_ in gathering _two thousand names_. Her letter was filled
with joy that she, too, had been able to do something for the
cause of liberty. Follow her, in imagination, through sleet and
snow, from house to house; listen to her words--mark the pathos
of her voice, as she debates the question of freedom, or tells
some tale of horror in the land of slavery, or asks her neighbors
one by one, to give their names to end such wrongs. Aside from
all she says, the _fact_ that she comes in storm, on foot, is to
all an argument, that there is something wrong in the republic,
demanding haste and action from every citizen. You who, in
crowded towns, move masses by your eloquence, scorn not the
slower modes. Remember the seeds of enthusiasm you call forth
have been planted by humbler hands--by the fireside, the old
arm-chair in the workshop, at the plow--wherever man communes
alone with God.

Our work for the past year--and what must still be our
work--involves the vital question of the nation's life. For,
until the old Union with slavery be broken, and our Constitution
so amended as to secure the elective franchise to all its
citizens who are taxed, or who bear arms to support the
Government, we have no foundations on which to build a true
Republic. We urge our countrywomen who have shown so much
enthusiasm in the war--in Sanitary and Freedmen's
Associations--now to give themselves to the broader, deeper,
higher work of reconstruction. The new nation demands the highest
type of womanhood. It is a holy mission to minister to suffering
soldiers in camp and hospital, and on the battle-field; to hold
the heads and stanch the wounds of dying heroes; but holier
still, by the magic word of freedom, to speak a dying nation into
life.

Four years a