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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
cators, actresses, novelists and brilliant authors. Well known to all readers are such names as Margaret Fuller, Lydia Maria Child, Fanny Fern (or Mrs. Parton), Gail Hamilton (or Miss Dodge), Louisa May Alcott, Pansy (or Mrs. R. G. Alden), Josiah Allen’s wife (or Miss Marietta Holly), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Kate Field, Mrs. Helen Hinsdale Rich, the poet of the Adirondacks, and last, but not least, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, There is about their writings and addresses a sterling sense, a short-handed reasoning, that is not only charming but oracular. They are giving literature a healthy, fireside tone. These women, and many unnamed by me, are among the leaders of thought today.
Religion to them is the divinest reality. They believe in God, and so feel that man and woman must grow into mutual greatness and goodness together, and that the ages have never yet seen the regal men and women that are to illustrate God’s ideal of humanity.