misery they endure. She knows that there is no form of
slavery more bitter or arrogant than error, that truth alone can
make man free, and she longs to bring the heart of the world and
the heart of truth together, that the truth may exercise its
transforming power over the life of the world. The greatest test
of the reformer's courage comes when, with a warm, earnest
longing for humanity, she breaks for it the bread of truth and
the world turns from this life-giving power and asks instead of
bread a stone.

It is just here that so many of God's workmen fail, and
themselves need to turn back to the vision as it appeared to
them, and to gather fresh courage and new inspiration for the
future. This, my sisters, we all must do if we would succeed. The
reformer may be inconsistent, she may be stern or even impatient,
but if the world feels that she is in earnest she can not fail.
Let the truth which she desires to teach first take possession of
herself. Every woman who to-day goes out into the world with a
truth, who has not herself become possessed of that truth, had
far better stay at home.

Who would have dreamed, when at that great anti-slavery meeting
in London, some years ago, the arrogance and pride of men
excluded the women whom God had moved to lift up their voices in
behalf of the baby that was sold by the pound--who would have
dreamed that that very exclusion would be the keynote of woman's
freedom? That out of the prejudice of that hour God should be
able to flash upon the crushed hearts of those excluded the grand
vision which we see manifested here to-day? That out of a longing
for the liberty of a portion of the race, God should be able to
show to women the still larger vision of the freedom of all human
kind?

Grand as is this vision which meets us here, it is but the
dawning of a new day; and as the first beams of morning light
give promise of the radiance which shall envelop the earth when
the sun shall have arisen in all its splendor, so there comes to
us a prophecy of that glorious day when the vision which we are
now beholding, which is beaming in the soul of one, shall enter
the hearts and transfigure the lives of all.

The formal opening of the Council, Monday morning, March 25, was thus
described: "The vast auditorium,