sts all forms of cruelty and oppression,
but it is the action, not the person, that she censures, and she is most
charitable in excuses for the faults and failings of others. She bears
the ills of life with cheerful fortitude, and accepts the blessings with
fine humility. There is no need of comparison. She has her own strong
individuality, which has made its indelible impress upon history and
secured for her a place among the immortals. Now, in life's evening, her
world is illumined with the beauty of a sunset undimmed by clouds--and
as she contemplates the infinite, she takes no heed of the gathering
darkness of night, but looking into a clear sky beholds only the
ineffable glory of other spheres.

FOOTNOTES:

[132] Miss Laura Clay and Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, the national
auditors, were unable to be present.

[133] There were present also reporters from the New York Sun, New York
World, Springfield Republican, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and
other papers.

APPENDIX.

CHAPTER XIV--PAGE 229.

ADDRESS TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

_Adopted by the Women's National Loyal League, May 14, 1863._

... We ask not for ourselves or our friends redress of specific
grievances or posts of honor or emolument. We speak from no
considerations of mere material gain; but, inspired by true patriotism,
in this dark hour of our nation's destiny, we come to pledge the loyal
women of the Republic to freedom and our country. We come to strengthen
you with earnest words of sympathy and encouragement. We come to thank
you for your proclamation, in which the nineteenth century seems to echo
back the Declaration of Seventy-six. Our fathers had a vision of the
sublime idea of liberty, equality and fraternity; but they failed to
climb the heights which with anointed eyes they saw. To us, their
children, belongs the work to build up the living reality of what they
conceived and uttered. It is not our mission to criticise the past.
Nations, like individuals, must blunder and repent. It is not wise to
waste our energy in vain regret, but from each failure we should rise up
with renewed conscience and courage for nobler action. The follies and
faults of yesterday we cast aside as the old garments we have outgrown.
Born anew to freedom, slave creeds and codes and constitutions all now
must pass away. "For men do not put new wine into old bottles, else the
bottles break and the wine runneth out and the bottles perish; but they