final arrangements for the approaching
National Convention. It met in Lincoln Hall, January 23, 24 and 25,
1883, and she presided over its deliberations.

In response to many urgent letters written by Mrs. Stanton from England,
and encouraged by friends at home who felt that she needed a long rest
after more than thirty years of uninterrupted public work, Miss Anthony
decided to make a trip abroad. As Rachel Foster contemplated a few
years' study in Europe, the pleasant arrangement was made that she
should undertake the financial management of the journey, act as
interpreter and give Miss Anthony the care and attention her loving
heart would suggest.[12] Miss Anthony's sixty-third birthday being near
at hand, the friends in Philadelphia, led by the Citizens' Suffrage
Association, Edward M. Davis, president, tendered her a reception, which
circumstances rendered it necessary to hold on the 19th instead of the
15th of February. The Philadelphia Times gave this account:

The parlor of the Unitarian church was filled to overflowing on the
occasion of the farewell reception to Miss Susan B. Anthony. After
prayer by Rev. Charles G. Ames, Robert Purvis, who presided, said
in a brief and earnest address: "I have the honor, on behalf of the
National Suffrage Association, to present to you these resolutions
testifying to their high regard, confidence, and affection." After
the applause which the resolutions evoked, Mr. Purvis continued: "I
present these with feelings which I can not express in words, for
my thoughts take me back in vivid recollection to those stormy
periods of persecution and outrage when you, Miss Anthony, with the
foremost in the ranks of the Abolitionists, battled for the freedom
and rights of the enslaved race. You have lived, with many
compeers, to see the glorious result of your labors in redeeming
from the infamy and degradation of chattelism 4,000,000 slaves.
That done, your attention was turned to the greater question--in
view of numbers--of woman's emancipation from civil and political
debasement."

Upon rising to reply Miss Anthony received an ovation. She said: "I
feel that I must speak, because if I should hear all these words of
praise and remain silent, I should seem to assent to tributes which
I do not wholly deserve. My kind friends have spoken almost as if I
had done the work, or the g