one of the most distinguished literary women that this country has produced, told him she wanted to go and hear Lucy Stone. She said, "I am going on purpose to write up an amusing burlesque of it for one of the New York papers." Colonel Higginson took her in spite of the purpose for which she was going, and he gives the result as follows: “When we came out, she walked on in silence for a time; and I said, 'Well, have you plenty of material for a letter?' And she replied with her characteristic impetuosity, 'Do you suppose I would ever write a word against anything that a woman with such a voice as Lucy Stone's wants to have done? And before she died she had become, in some degree, a suffragist." She became a convert, not only to her personality, but largely to the opinions of the cause which she represented.

Many stories have been told of the wonderful power of Wendell Phillips over a mob. I do not know anything in his stormy and magnificent life that matches the conquest of a mob made by the gentleness of Lucy Stone. They were holding an anti-slavery meeting in a grove on Cape Cod. A good many Abolitionists were there. The mob showed at the very outset that it meant mischief. It was stormy and ugly in every direction. At last one after another began to be frightened, and slipped down the back way off the platform, and disappeared, till all of them were gone except Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone. It was evident that the mob would soon storm the platform. Then Lucy Stone said, "You had better run, Stephen: they are coming!" "But," he said, "who will take care of you?" Just then the leader of the mob, with a big club in his hand, leaped on to the edge of the platform. Whereupon Lucy Stone walked up beside him, laid her hand on his arm, and said quietly, "This gentleman will take care of me." And the man said, “Yes, I will." And while Mr. Foster escaped as best he could, and that was not very well, he took her under one arm, and with the cudgel under the other guarded her. While she was being led away, she talked to him so simply, so persua

sively, so humanly, that at last she won him over; and he placed her on a stump, and stood beside her with his club while she made a speech to the mob. And she so won them that it ended in their taking up a collection for a new coat for Mr. Foster, as his had been torn from top to bottom in trying to escape from the mob.

For quiet, womanly, winning power and fearlessness I do not know of anything like this in all the history of reform.

On another occasion, in New York, when the mob was so noisy that it would not let any one speak, she showed her wonderful power. If any one began to speak, they would howl him or her down. William Henry Channing said to Lucretia Mott, who was presiding, "I think you had better adjourn the meeting." "When the time fixed for adjournment comes, we will adjourn," said she. But no one was allowed to speak until Lucy Stone began, when they quieted down, and became like a congregation in church. The moment the next speaker began he was howled down. After the meeting was over she talked with the crowd, and tried to tell them what she thought of their conduct, when one of them exclaimed: "Oh, come, you needn't say anything. We kept still for you." I speak of these things as illustrating this peculiar, womanly, winning power of her sweet voice and her gentle ways.

There was in her- and it was the bed-rock on which her feet calmly rested - a sincere belief in what she called the Eternal Order. She had long since ceased to be orthodox in her religious opinions. Her husband told me that she was a broad Unitarian in her faith. She did not talk a great deal about God, but she often spoke of her trust in the Eternal Order. She believed that this Eternal Order was on the side of the right, of truth, of progress. And, as a part of that, she believed in the essential, deep-down reasonableness of men and women. And here is the secret of her successful appeal even to the roughest. She believed, if she could only get through the prejudice, if she could only get people to listen, that they were so constituted that they would see what was right, and, having seen it, would want it to be done.

One quality of her character, illustrated all through her life, was her patience, her persistence. She never thought of looking back or giving up. Defeat after defeat might come; but with the same quiet earnestness she marched up to the defences of the position, year after year, and quietly bombarded them with her gentle, sweetly reasonable words. One other quality I must mention,- the utter unselfishness of the woman, the utter lack of any slightest itch for praise. If the desire for fame is "the last infirmity of noble minds," as Milton calls it, then she was one of the few who are free from even the last infirmity of the noble-minded. She simply cared nothing for her own reputation. This she showed in a thousand ways. After she became famous and the work that she was doing had attracted attention all over the world, time and time again she was approached by newspaper men and publishers to give facts, that they might write her up as one of the famous women of the world; but she absolutely refused even to connive at anything of the sort being done. During her last illness one of her personal friends wrote a little item about her in the Woman's Journal. When she saw this friend, she thanked her for what she had said, but added that she was glad there was no more of it. She desired nothing for herself. When a few years ago she found that some of her friends were planning to publicly celebrate her seventieth birthday, she forbade it so absolutely that the plan had to be given up. She wished no public demonstrations in her honor, though she was delighted to share in such demonstrations when given in honor of her coworkers. This blessed trait of unselfishness made her always ready to sacrifice time and self, not only for the wide public good, but there was no needy girl or friendless woman for whom she was not ready to do all that lay in her power. Individual need was never forgotten by her great heart in working for the collective good.

And now I want to call your attention to one point before I close; and that is, that her work was something larger than merely the question of women's voting. She never dreamed

that the millennium would come when women had the ballot. She was fighting for a higher human civilization, for equal liberty for man and woman and child, for an opportunity to be and do the highest and finest possible. And, though she aimed specially at universal suffrage for women, she has achieved results in many directions that mean larger and finer human life for men as well as women.

I can only call your attention to two or three things concerning the sweetness and beauty of her leaving us. She died on the evening of the 18th of this month, seventy-five years old. I was talking with her husband the other day; and it seemed to me strange that he could have lived with her so many years, and yet have said what he did. He expressed to me his surprise to find at the last the strength of her faith in continued existence after death, he himself being a complete agnostic concerning this matter. But she met death as sweetly, as serenely, as beautifully, as anybody that I have ever known. I want to give you one or two illustrations.

She said once, "I have not the slightest apprehension: I know the Eternal Order, and I believe in it." To a friend who expressed the wish that she might have lived to see woman suffrage granted, she said: "Oh, I shall know it. I think I shall know it on the other side." She added contentedly, "And, if I do not, the people on this side will know it." Something being said about her possibly coming back to communicate with those she had left, she answered, "I expect to be too busy to come back." To another friend she said, "I look forward to the other side as the brighter side, and I expect to be busy for good things."

When the doctor, compelled by her questions to own that she could not recover, added, "We must keep as serene as we can," she answered in a tone of slight surprise, "There is nothing to be unserene about." Again she said, “I am glad to have lived, and to have lived at a time when I could work." And again: "I think I have done what I could. I certainly have tried. With one hand I made my family com

fortable with the other

And there her speech broke off, and the loving and admiring men and women of the world will complete that sentence, and tell what she has done.

And let me say right here, in all earnestness, if refutation was ever needed of the charge that interest in these things necessarily breaks up a woman's home, let me call your attention to the emphasis with which she said, "With one hand I made my family comfortable." I dare to say that never was there a more ideal home than hers.

And then, at the last, before she became unconscious, she uttered the words which I have used for my text. Her daughter, bending over her, put her ear close to her lips to catch the last utterance; and she heard the words, "Make the world better." She was not sure whether that was all she intended to say or whether it was a part of a longer sentence, but it is fit to stand alone; and I do not know of the last words of any of the greatest that are finer or better worth uttering than those. She did make the world better. There are few men or women, either, who have ever lived who have done more to make the world better.

Let us, as a part of our admiration for her memory, drag out of present laws and present customs the injustices and the cruelties that remain, and with them (as with the cannon captured from the enemy) build her a monument.

Father, we thank Thee for these bright souls that shine with a divine lustre and illumine our way. May we do what we can to follow them,- if we may, to surpass them,—at any rate, accomplish that which they leave undone, and so help to bring about that perfect kingdom of Thine when the world shall be all blessed! Amen.