constitute a large part of politics; but not so large a portion
as hitherto. We are coming to a period when it is not merely to
be a scramble of fierce and belluine passions in the strife for
power and ambition. Human society is yet to discuss questions of
work and the workman. Down below privilege lie the masses of men.
More men, a thousand times, feel every night the ground, which is
their mother, than feel the stars and the moon far up in the
atmosphere of favor. As when Christ came the great mass carpeted
the earth, instead of lifting themselves up like trees of
Lebanon, so now and here the great mass of men are men that have
nothing but their hands, their heads, and their good stalwart
hearts, as their capital. The millions that come from abroad come
that they may have light and power, and lift their children up
out of ignorance, to where they themselves could not reach with
the tips of their fingers. And the great question of to-day is,
How shall work find leisure, and in leisure knowledge and
refinement? And this question is knocking at the door of
legislation. And is there a man who does not know, that when
questions of justice and humanity are blended, woman's instinct
is better than man's judgment? From the moment a woman takes the
child into her arms, God makes her the love-magistrate of the
family; and her instincts and moral nature fit her to adjudicate
questions of weakness and want. And when society is on the eve of
adjudicating such questions as these, it is a monstrous fatuity
to exclude from them the very ones that, by nature, and training,
and instinct, are best fitted to legislate and to judge.

For the sake, then, of such questions as these, that have come to
their birth, I feel it to be woman's _duty_ to act in public
affairs. I do not stand here to plead for your _rights_. Rights
compared with duties, are insignificant--are mere baubles--are as
the bow on your bonnet. It seems to me that the voice of God's
providence to you to-day is, "Oh messenger of mine, where are the
words that I sent you to speak? Whose dull, dead ear has been
raised to life by that vocalization of heaven, that was given to
you more than to any other one?" Man is sub-base. A thirty-two
feet six-inch pipe is he. But what is an organ played with the