THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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Webster, Clay and Calhoun. A century that has had its Stephen Douglas and its Horatio Seymour. A century that has known its Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose verses wedded together Italy and England. A century that has had its Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin ” has been read only less widely than the Bible. A century that has had its George Eliot, who took the name of a man that she might reap a man’s reward. A century that has known an Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a Lucy Stone, a Frances Willard, a Florence Nightingale, a Clara Barton, and hosts of other grand women, will stand out to the ages as a century pre-eminent for women of vigorous thought and strong minds, who waged without bloodshed the greatest battle of all time, and whose victories will usher in the dawn of the twentieth century. When the historian shall make up the record of the nineteenth century, these noble men and women will be found on the roll of the illustrious ones who have adorned and ennobled the world. «
The late lamented William Hunt of Boston has two paintings in the Assembly Chamber of the State of New York. One is entitled “The Discoverer.” It represents a man in a little boat on the trackless deep. He stands with folded arms looking calmly and fearlessly into the future, for a woman is at the helm and safely guides the little craft. Another woman is partly in the water with her head bowed on her arms which clasp the side of the boat, the very embodiment of despair. That picture fitly represents the nineteenth century. The companion picture is called “Darkness Fleeing Before the Dawn.” The darkness is represented by wild horses that plunge and throw themselves madly about as if to escape the approach of light, and that inspired, that immortal artist painted that dawning as a woman. The picture is ever before me and I leave it with you. Superstition, ignorance, injustice, intemperance, impurity, all fleeing before the coming of women. My friends, that picture represents the dawning of the twentieth century. Then in the effulgence of our nation’s triumphant and glorious career, the noble and the true representatives of fifty millions of women gathering from the North and South, the East and West will meet in the beautiful capitol of our republic and with one loud acclaim shout, “ Daughters of America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, arise and shine, for thy light has come and the glory of the Lord is arisen upon thee.”
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