September 6, 1869 — Piatt Hall, San Francisco CA
November 19, 1869 — Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn NY
December 22, 1869 — Steinway Hall, New York City
January 6, 1870 — Quincy MA
March 4, 1870 — Corinthian Hall, St. Louis MO

“See Naples and die.” So runs the old proverb. See Salt Lake and live — live to work.

At the close of a lovely day in June last summer, I first saw this city of Salt Lake — this city of the Saints; a great stretch of lovely plain beyond an inland sea of sapphire reflecting a sapphire sky; about it range after range of lofty mountains, glowing through the marvelously clear air, masses of purple and gold, a range of diamonds bright with eternal walls of snow. In the midst of such surroundings and fair things and wonderful things of God’s handiwork lays this whited sepulchre.

Fair indeed to the eye, pleasant to the traveler who knoweth not that the dead are here also, and that her inhabitants are in the depth of hell; white, clean, cool streets and dashing mountain streams, flowing through broad avenues — a land which needs but little work to produce the richest crops in the world; houses, poor adobe huts, but most of them charming in a wilderness of greenery that surrounds them; bushes and trees laden with flowers and alive with fruit; cleanliness, order, quiet; drinking no doubt — yet no drinking visible, and no licensed drinking saloons, no gambling saloons; all outward decency preserved; as safely for a woman to walk the streets at night as at noonday — which, doubtless, is vastly more than can be said for some other, more reputable cities, nearer home. Cleanliness, order, quiet — too quiet, in fact, since a stagnant pool is slower than the running brook, but can be scarcely considered more wholesome.

“I love the noise of a free nation,” said De Gasparin. He would be blessed by no such sounds here. Utah is the most absolute tyranny, the most unmitigated despotism, on which the sun shines to-day. Utah and Mormonism is.

No intelligent person can go into that Territory with eyes to see and ears to hear and comprehension to understand, without realizing that the magnet that holds this people together, and the chain that binds them fast, is this one man; this one man, who possesses that rarest of commodities — brains, and that infinitely rarer faculty, a knowledge of how to use them; the head of the church, the head of the State, absolute in power is Brigham Young, president and city magistrate. True, some command may be pronounced, some order given to which his faithful followers are inclined to complain, and at once Brigham Young, seer, prophet, inspirer of the church, has a revelation direct from Heaven, which he announces on the next Sabbath afternoon from his high place in the temple, and his people not only bow to it in submission, but accept it with delight, though it be as was his final revelation in the matter of co-operation and the taking of one-fifth of their worldly gains each year. The Territory is districted — the city also. At the head of each one of those most intelligent fools, who at the same time has a position as a civil magistrate, a judge of elections, and a military officer and bishop in the church — as thoroughly well informed, as absolute in spiritual matters as any Catholic priest at the confessional; a civil magistrate, a judge of election. Under this man’s eye lies what is known as the book of the district. Therein is entered the name of each man, woman and child in the district in which he has control, besides, the names and numbers. It is for use and reference in a score of ways, so as to keep every inhabitant in the district continually under the supervision of his spiritual chief, and principally of service at election time.

In Utah everybody votes; but so far as any good or benefit is to be derived therefrom, every individual man or woman might as well forever be deprived of the ballot. The vote is cast by ballot, but with the rest of the defects of an open vote; one candidate, that of Brigham Young; the ballot — stamped; within, one word “for,” or “against;” without, the number of the man who casts it. This ballot is taken from the box, and with the number on the ballot corresponding with the number of the voter; the number of the voter, the judge on the instant knows who cast it; he opens it, and finds whether it be for or against; he knows on the instant whether the man is faithful and trusty, and to be rewarded in time to come, or whether a malcontent, to be punished with dislike and suspicion. If discontent grows into open rebellion, to be pursued to the death; for Brigham Young and Brigham Young’s apostles have a speedy and effectual method in settling discontent in this domain. Man after man — hundreds in the aggregate at one time, as in the Mountain Meadow massacre — have died within the length and breadth of this territory — in no sense by the visitation of God.

Many an emigrant train that has passed through this domain, and has dared to give shelter to the men and women fleeing from this spiritual despotism, has found its fair proportions curtailed ere it crossed the boundary line of the territory.

One of their own leaders said to me in conversation with him: “There are crimes against religion” — that is against the Mormon church, for that is the only religion they profess. “We believe there are crimes against religion, the only punishment for which is death, and for the good of the community we think this punishment should be executed secretly and in silence,” and elsewhere, among honorable people, punishment which is death, in secrecy and in silence is termed assassination. Man after man has died in this Territory — to use a perfectly well known case — as Dr. Robinson died; a man whose only crimes were that he protested against enormities where they were committed; that he dared to claim United States land in the midst of a United States territory. These people, so far as they can, have claimed and pre-empted every square foot of ground in that territory. It is necessary to get a permit from their President, Brigham Young, in order to occupy land. The result is, it is almost impossible for a loyal citizen of the republic — a Gentile — to gain a foothold there.

Dr. Robinson ventured to take from a Mormon’s home to the wedding altar a young girl, and then tried to make her his honorable wife. For all this he was threatened and assaulted and finally brutally murdered on the street. The United States authorities took no note of it; his friends investigated the case thereafter, and proved this deed to have been, like many others — enacted by these very respectable Mormons — a deed done at the command of those in authority, who had the right to order it; for every police officer had been withdrawn from his beat in that district for the night. Orders had manifestly been given that no note should be taken of any sound, shout or cry, that might be heard without, for the shouts and sounds and cries of death, heard for blocks around, not a window was raised, not a door was opened, not a hand of help was extended, when this deed was done. Dr. Robinson’s body was found lying where it fell; it was carried out to the camp on the hill and was buried by his comrades and friends, and over it could be written, as over hundreds of other graves in that territory, “Assassinated by the Mormons.”

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord;” and the United States authorities are quite satisfied that the Judge of all the earth will certainly do right. The life and death of such a man will no doubt be vindicated in His own good time, but the government at Washington is altogether too busy about other and more important matters to interfere in behalf of anything so insignificant as the protection of the lives and liberties of these faithful citizens.

A military organization — each man is trained to arms, and is ready in their use, and twice as ready to use them as any soldier in the kingdom. A sermon is delivered on an average of at least once a month by their historian, George Smith, at the capital of the territory, in which is recounted all the grievances with which they charge the United States Government. This is done in order that the gospel of hatred may be as fully comprehended by the latest comer as by the oldest inhabitants. The obedience taught to them, and the only authority they recognize is that of Brigham Young. This man’s power is strictly absolute, no crowned head of Europe has more power. You need to go beyond the worst and oldest despotisms of the ancients to find what power this man holds over the consciences and destinies and the lives of his people.

He possesses that rare power which seemingly attends genius alone, of fully comprehending human nature. He never makes a mistake; he always puts his hand on his man, and places that man where he can do the best for himself and the church. He has about him a few hundred intelligent fools, who have brains enough to comprehend his plans, supple hands, and dead consciences to execute them. Of these men, a few exceptions you may count upon your fingers and thumbs, who are Americans, but the great rank and files of the people there are in no sense Americans. They are not Americans by birth, by habit, or by training, or by principle, or by anything. They are Swedes, Danes, Swiss, Germans, French — two thirds English and Welsh, of the lowest and most degraded of the agricultural peasant class of Europe. They know nothing [of us at home. They see] nothing of us as they are hurried through our midst to reach their destination, and upon gaining their destination they are taught nothing but to despise and hate us. These are the sheep to be shorn. The shearers are Americans, with American brains. These few occupy the hives, and enjoy dignities, emoluments and wives.

It is the universal belief, and a natural one, that the women of the territory far outnumber the men, but it is a mistake, nevertheless. The testimony of the people living along the line of the road, the condition of affairs inside of the city, and even their own testimony, show that the balance is about even, and if it swings on either side it is or the side of the men. Polygamy is the corner stone of their particular edifice, but the practice of polygamy, for reasons manifest, in a great many cases is impossible.

What are they? Cleanliness order, quiet and outer decency, a wonderful patience, a marvelous industry in overcoming the natural obstacles, and fanatical devotion to their leader and their faith. This on the one hand. On the other hand, no free schools, no common schools, no general school system. Schools there are, but they are family schools and private schools, and there is little money or inclination on the part of the people of the Territory to send their children thereto. There is no reading room, no library, no mental light, for the man in authority there comprehends human nature sufficiently well to understand that the only basis whereon such a structure as his can be reared is that of utter and abject ignorance. None of the strength and rich superfluity of humor on the streets and in the indifferently conducted theatre, where the sole amusement is furnished, and in the Temple. Wherever you meet the people, the thought and utterance breaks in upon you, what somber and sober countenances they wear!

Sad! No homes! For how, in any right, sense of the word, can there be any home or home spirit in that place? Where, when you suggest that love and respect, tenderness and regard are the only things that should hold a man and woman together for a life time, you are laughed at as a fool and a sentimentalist by men and women who herd together as the beasts that perish! How, in the right sense of the word, can there be any home spirit in a place where the father scarcely knows the face of his child, and spends his time in half a dozen houses among half a dozen or a dozen women, who hate one another, and who strive each, in their poor fashion, to supplant the others — the man’s power being the utter, abject degradation of body and soul together!

Into this city I came, and through these streets I rode or walked, and had pointed out to me, here and there, houses in which lived the so-called wives of one man. I passed along by the low adobe houses and counted from the number of doors without, the number of wives within. One low adobe hut. One mud room facing the door and street. One wife, with her children gathered around her. Then another mud room, and another door facing the street, and another family gathered therein, and so on to the end of the pitiable and loathsome chapter.

I went into this man’s house, and was met by the master of the establishment, for a man in Utah is indeed lord of his own household. There would come into this room another and another, who would be presented as “my wife,” “my wife,” “my wife.” These women came into the room, not as you might enter your parlor, as one who had a right to receive her guest, but they sat down in the room with an air of abject humility, as a slave or a dog may come into the presence of his master! One of these women there in speaking to me said: “I have had a dozen children. Buried six.” Another said: “I have had ten children. Buried eight.” The record of mortality wherever this disgusting system of polygamy prevails being found frightful among these little ones. But as I looked at those that remained — little, pale, puny, stunted creatures, and remembered the fate awaiting them, I said to myself, “Would that these too, were in their graves!” I saw them running wild, ignorant uncultured little animals on the streets. I saw ignorant, innocent-faced young girls, growing to womanhood, but how growing? Approaching a life of misery, degradation and shame. I heard on all sides of me cursing, vulgarity, indecency, and obscenity, dressed in the garb of piety, under the cloak and cover of religion. And seeing, and hearing, and comprehending this, such an awful sense of degradation and despair took possession of me as a woman, that I covered my face and cried: “My God let me die!” And then I bethought me; “No, no, that would be a coward’s prayer; let me live to work; there is need of me.” Need indeed.

The United States Government has a law whereby it virtually declares that polygamy is illegal, and asserts that one man can lawfully claim but one woman for his wife, and one woman can call but one man her husband. The other day there died in the Territory of Utah, a man by the name of Heber Kimball, leaving two hundred widows. The United States officials recognize no such institution as polygamy. The woman that he married first is his widow. These one hundred and ninety-nine others are nothing. The case was carried to Washington to be decided — not as to whether this man had a right to will his money to these two hundred women, or any other two hundred women, but as to the rights of each one of these two hundred women as the widows of this man. The authorities at Washington declare to one branch that polygamy in some sense is illegal; to another branch it declares that each one of these two hundred widows shall be recognized in every sense. The government at Washington outrages decency and Christianity alike, by indirectly tolerating and supporting this abomination.

Need, indeed! Far as I went toward this city of sin, the men with whom I traveled — not the roughest, not the rudest, not “lewd fellows of the baser sort” from the saloons or street corners — oh no, none of these, but men of education, gentlemen of culture, lifted by the ballots of their fellow citizens into offices the highest in the land — these men, having most faithfully abstained from touching upon this matter as subject to criticism, as men talking of it by the way, found the whole affair marvelously funny — a capital joke. “Utah was not such a bad place,” said No. 1. “No, not a bad place at all,” said No. 2. “As good as Chicago,” said No. 3. “You can get a divorce there for five dollars,” said No 4. “A precious set of fellows.”The only respectable talk, I believe, done by the men of the party, was done by the two unmarried members thereof. Do you say they did not mean, it, that they were only chaffing? What, I ask, would be thought of the wives of these men, middle-aged matrons, who talked over this matter in this wise — mothers of grown up daughters? What must be thought of the tendency of these women if they dared to discuss the relation of man and woman and marriage after that wise? So said I to one of those honorable gentleman, who thereupon responded, “I wish you would not drag your hateful theories in on every occasion; you cannot judge a man as a woman; you must not talk after that wise.” “Can’t I?” said I “Must not I?” “Well, being a woman and not a man, I will, nevertheless, and I give you fair warning it shall be done here and elsewhere.”

Passing by the thousand minor offenders, there are such men as Bishop Johnson, we will say, who has four sisters, his own nieces, for his wives; there is George D. Watt, the church reporter and correspondent of the Alta California, respectable in society, conspicuous in entertaining members of Congress and others, yet married, in addition to others, to his own half sister, and there is Curtis Bolt, who has a mother and daughter for his wives, the daughter a child of thirteen. On the face of such enormities as these, can a Christian leader of souls, with God’s own spirit thrust into him, deliberately put God’s own commandments under his foot and strike hands with these people as one of them? No. Why, indeed not, for barring the loathsome features of the case, their theory in regard to the proper subordination of the women of the world is so remarkably exemplified at Salt Lake that he might well feel at home there.

Looking at all this and listening to all this, I said, “Why? Why such speech and such action here, why such speech and such action elsewhere?” Scarcely a public man has gone to Salt Lake City this last summer (and you know how many have been there), scarcely one has gone, with the prominent and honorable exception of our gallant Vice-President, but has gone down into the mud and filth of this place and struck hands with its leaders.

There is Brigham Young, we will say; the great pillar of this whole system, a man without whom it would drop out of sight in twelve months; who carries the consciences of his followers about with him, and the crimes manifold, directly due and instigated by him, who has entered under his name a list of forty three women, whom he claims as his wives and lives with as such — a robber, an adulterer, a murderer; this man goes to Washington, and Senators and Representatives and Cabinet members call upon him and pay their respects to him, and invite him to their houses; and women — wives and mothers, too — give him a seat at their table and a place beside their daughters. Reverse the case: Suppose it was a woman who stood in Brigham Young’s place — nay, suppose it were even one of the forty-three wretched dupes whom he has gathered in his home — suppose that. “Not a supposable case,” say you: “quite another thing, a very different matter.” No, it is not. God recognize no sexes, whatever paltry and infamous distinctions you or I may see fit to draw.

. . . Looking at all this, I said, “Why meet it with such silence?” The papers have lately been filled with discussions of a deed, done yonder in the city of New York: ministers have preached their sermons of denunciation; editors have written their articles of denunciation; society has spoken its speech of denunciation upon this matter. Good men and bad men, good women and bad men [saying] . . .

“But, I have been told these women are contented; they are satisfied; and if they are contented and satisfied, what business is it of yours?”

Contented! Why, good friends, you who say that, and think the whole matter closed, and the argument settled — I can take you out of this land into Persia, and I will show you that the women bought and sold in the shackles in the market places are contented! I can take you to India or Turkey, and point out to you a long line of faces gathered behind the prison bars of harems, and show that they are contented. I can take you to the plains of South America and Mexico, and show you the Indian woman, performing all the drudgery of her lord and master, and I will show you she is contented; or I can take you to country after country in Europe, and point out to you a peasant woman harnessed to a dog or donkey, dragging a cart, and show you that she is contented.

Nay, I can take you here in this, the afternoon of the nineteenth century, and the civilization of America, to this city on the Alkaline plains, deserted of decency, forsaken of goodness, abandoned of God Himself, if there be such a spot under the sun, and I will show you beings there, who are most defrauded and outraged by this system, who are its most uncompromising adherents and its warmest supporters. That is what I heard on all sides when I went into this Territory. Contented? more than contented! Satisfied? more than satisfied! Happy? They wouldn’t change their condition if they could. They would that Mormonism was the religion of the world, and polygamy accepted by all humanity. That is what I heard repeated wherever I went, until at last I cried, “This is simply monstrous! It is no woman. It is a bigot. It is no wife or mother. It is a mad enthusiast.” But, talking to them in such wise, and looking at them in such fashion, that they could comprehend what I had to say, and that it came from no idle or indifferent curiosity, but from the depths of a heart sad and sore for them and their cause, and one woman, and another, and another, spoke after these words:

Said I to one, “Were you married in England?” No,” was the reply, “I was married here — no, I was married in St. Jo.” “Doubtless you knew of polygamy when you left England “No.” “You learned of it when?” “When my husband brought me to this city, and took me to his home. I found there a woman who had a prior claim. A woman, who had been lost to family and friends for fourteen years, who had been my second mother through my babyhood and while I was a young girl. I stood face to face with my aunt.” “No doubt she was quite contented, satisfied?” “No,” she replied, “she was not.” “Did she learn to be at any time?” “She died soon.” Something in the woman’s voice caught my ear, and turning quickly I said: “What did she die of?” The woman answered as quickly: “She died of a broken heart.”

Then I said to another woman: “doubtless it is nothing in the world but my imagination, but it does seem to me that the women here carry the most sad and sorrowful faces that I ever beheld. They seem to consider their life worth very little. Now, am I wrong?” “No,” was the reply, “you are right. There is not one in ten of us but would be glad to die to-morrow. Then we will be through with all this. “Then, if I rightly understood your faith you are here as Mormons and not as women?” “I do not understand you.” “What I mean is, you receive this as the only faith whereby you can save you souls and make sure of heaven. Is that what you believe?” Answer — “Yes.” “Then you are here because your faith compels you to be here, and not because as women you like to be here?” “What do you take us for?” she answered. And then she went on to say, “If you ask me if I like this system of polygamy, I answer for every woman in the city when I tell you that I hate it, but I cannot take that part of the faith which pleases and, throw away that which is distasteful.”

And then said I to another of these women, a fine, fair-faced English woman, “How long have you been in the country?” Seventeen years,” she said. “You were married at home?” “No, I married here. — No, I was married at Independence.” “You knew of polygamy when you left your home?” “No,” and here she gave the answer which was given in almost every case, “the missionaries said very little about polygamy in England.” “You knew of it when you were married?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, “You were not afraid?” said I “No, I was not afraid. I thought my husband never would care for any body else, and if he did I must meet it,” for this religion with the exquisite nicety of torture, with the refinement of culture, compels the last wife not only to submit to her own degradation, but to present with her own hand as her free will gift and offering the next wife of her husband at the altar. I inquired, “You were called upon to do that?” “Yes,” she replied. ”Could you?” “I fought against it. I struggled against it, I prayed against it, but I submitted. Do not misunderstand me. I am not complaining. I am perfectly happy and satisfied, I would not change my condition if I could. I would rather my husband had twenty wives than two. I wish polygamy was accepted every where. You understand me?” “Yes,” I replied, “I see you are perfectly happy, and have no complaint to make. “We will drop the subject now. “We’ll say no more about it.”

I got up and looked about the room, looked at the pictures and flowers and discoursed upon different subjects, letting the time slip by, and the matter slip out of her mind, if indeed it ever does. Then, sitting by her, I dropped my hand on hers, that was resting on the elbow of the chair, and said: “How long did you tell me you had been in this country, my friend?” “Seventeen years.” “What church did you go to before you came here? I inquired. “I was a Methodist.” “By-the-by, did you know your husband then?” “Oh, yes; I knew him quite well; he was my sweetheart then; he was a Methodist too.” Then I said: “My friend, suppose yourself back again in England, a young and happy bright-faced girl once more, and your husband, then your lover, came to see you time and again, as doubtless he did, and by and by he laid bare his heart to you, and told you he loved you, and asked you to be his wife, and you consented, and went to the little village church with him, and from there to his own home, where you were all the world to him, and he all the world to you, and there was no shadow to fear, nothing to molest you or make you afraid. Wouldn’t that be better than this? Wouldn’t you be a happier woman than you are now? Answer me.” “Don’t ask me such a question! Don’t, for God’s sake, if you are a woman!” Contented! How can they be contented, since they are women, and not fiends? Piercing through ignorance, and bigotry, and superstition, and false faith, every woman there is sad and sore and discontented to her heart’s core.

Neither are women elsewhere, to whom fortune has assigned a kinder portion, quite contented with what has been given to them. And this discontent is becoming so universal that the world concedes it, to support it or to tight it. It springs from no woman’s rights conventions. It springs from no so-called strong-minded appeals nor harangues; from no discussion of legal rights or legal wrongs, legal powers, or legal disabilities. What lies at the bottom of [the so-called woman movement of to-day is simply the spirit of to-day; — a day wherein men are crying, “Precedent to the wall” when liberty crosses its track; a day wherein men are tearing down the old, to build afresh, and better the new.]

What this movement really signifies is, that the woman of to-day is trying to keep step with the man of to-day; to march with the onward march of the race; trying to go hand in hand with you, brain with brain, heart with heart, up to the heights you are clambering; desiring not to be abandoned in the valleys you are deserting and leaving behind. That is all this movement really signifies; that is what the future will recognize it to signify; and when stripped of all extraneous issues, it stands, as it will stand, crowned triumphant. It is not true that the masses of women desire “the applause of listening Senates to command,” nor yet reading their history in a nation’s eyes; it is not true that the masses of women desire to see their names shouted by the applause of the populace, or seek the goal of all men — fame; but it is true that that these women, left to themselves, would select home, wifehood and motherhood for their portion; it is equally true that what society needs to-day is wifehood and motherhood; else why the growing charges against marriages in America; else why the declarations against this or that avenue to honorable independence, that it must be shut against woman because she chooses to undertake to do anything that man does. Do you, then, have faith in your own theories and still believe in the omnipotence of God? Why, then, do the press and the pulpit, science and religion, join in entering protest, solemn and awful, against the growing frequency of homes in America, that are silent, darkened, desolate, without the sunshine of the baby’s face, the music of the baby’s voice — silent, darkened, stricken out, oh pitiable perversion of humanity by a mother’s hand! “Why all this? It is simply that, while it is natural for a woman to accept wifehood and motherhood for her portion, it is unnatural for her to accept such wifehood and motherhood, as in too many cases is offered her to-day.

It is while society constantly advises motherhood with its lips, it as constantly degrades and stifles the advice with its acts. I see the young girl, clear-eyed, with unworn face, without experience, looking on life, and what does she see and hear. She hears the statement constantly heard, that it is not wit, brilliancy; intellectual power in woman that draws a man and holds a man to her side. “Quite the reverse, my dear,” says society; “you should carefully steer clear of any such idea, to begin with, and having steered clear of it, it is that you should be an indefatigable housekeeper and home-keeper, an immaculate house-keeper.” I desire to include the whole list — to cook the steak, wash the baby face, have dinner ready in five seconds, and when tired and weary she should always have a smile of tender sympathy and a word of gentleness for the poor dear when he comes home from his daily toil. Grant that the woman’s work is in the kitchen, nursery and parlor — conceded. It is no more her work than a man’s work is back of the counter, in the physician’s office, in the editor’s sanctum, in the lawyer’s office or at the reporter’s table.

That is his work, but utterly outside of his work if a man has not grown, quickened, deepened and widened with his opportunities and experiences, society says that his life is a failure. A man may do his work as well at twenty as at forty-two. He may hold his pencil and do the work, at this reporter’s table, and be a reporter and perform his work just as well and as admirably at twenty-two as at forty-two; but if outside of the work, knowing nothing at all beyond, as a reporter or as a man, if he is not more of a man at forty-two than at thirty-two society says, that life is a failure, however well the work may be done, however liberal the bank amount may be. On the other hand, a woman may do her work as well at twenty as at forty; she may sweep her carpets as clean, she may set as nice a table and be as intelligent and as successful at the one age as at the other, but she has not grown at home; she has not quickened her brain, deepened her thought and intellect one iota; but society says “Well done;” the less of that the better; the less strength of mind and courage: the less of independence; the less of brain power, you have the more seemingly, the more certain — for mark you, there is a pivot on which it all turns — the more certain are you to keep your husband’s affections at your side. This is what the girl hears and what does she see? She sees the young man of twenty-two is very fond of being with his girl of twenty; he likes to talk with her; to make her a confident of his plans; to discuss with her hundreds of things besides the soft, sweet experiences of love; she finds this man of twenty-two all devotion and attention.

She finds the man of forty-two as different as may be; he is not at home at night; wanders down street to the saloon or the hotel office, seeking the latest news by cable, or the society of the fellows of his club. When he stays at home he is vastly more interested in some, powerful editorial than in the baby, ribbons and the rest of it, and she finds that he goes to his neighbor’s house to talk with his neighbor’s sister, or his neighbor’s daughter, who is a witty, brilliant, cultivated woman. “Ah, indeed! not the sort of woman I want for a wife, you know, but then, such a charming companion,” and society, looking on, says: “There is no harm intended, not the slightest. Poor fellow, you can not be too hard on him; he is such a splendid fellow. “What a pity it is that he is tied to that silly, ridiculous old thing!” and society says woman should be as near a fool as she can be, What else does this girl see and hear? She stands by the young man of her own selection, whose admiration she wishes to win; whose love she desires to gain. This young man, this very young man who twirls his moustache in embryo, announces magnificently then, “Save me from ever marrying a strong-minded woman,” and, looking at the style of young men who are educated to say so, one might devoutly answer, “Save the strong-minded woman from ever marrying you.”

To the girl of fifteen or sixteen society says, You are ready to assume a most solemn and awful responsibility, and yet society knows this man’s work is to this woman’s work as starlight to sunlight. Just because woman’s work is greater, finer, larger than anything that can be given to man to do, she should have every opportunity to qualify herself for responbilities awaitinig her; to acquire character, dignity, self-respect, not because, as some plead, she would do men’s work in the world, but because she is a woman, and as such, intrusted with a work greater and finer by the Creator, than any given to man. ”But she does not want it,” you say, if she wants to be weak, vain, silly, society should force this training upon her, because the work of her hands is to stand in blessings or cursings here at the great day and throughout all eternity. In how few, how rare cases, seemingly, is this matter comprehended — the greatness, the dignity, the majesty of this work, in to which she is called. How many mothers here to-night know the truth of what I say when I assert that in nine cases out of ten the children of widowed mothers have a profounder respect for womanhood and motherhood than where both this parents are living.

Ah, friends, I bethink me of one who stands for me an ideal of things sweet and things strong; things tender and brave in womanhood; and, thinking of her, I say woman should be a mother to be elevated, to be superior, to be reverenced, to be adored by her children. That is what God meant her to be.

Thinking of that, I recollect a scene witnessed last summer in the world-famous Yo-Semite Valley. One day, after a long and wearisome tramp, as, indeed, any tramp there may be, I reached tha descent to the falls when it was in, deep shadow; and what a descent! — A vast wall of rock on the one hand, a weird gleaming fall of four hundred feet on the other, an abyss beneath, the thundering roar — a filling of the air with spray and mist, flying wild and white through the night; below me Egyptian darkness; all about the somber mountains and inaccessible steeps — their tops three, four, five thousand feet high. Peaks and points, and towers and pinnacles and domes; shapes of beauty, shapes of grace, shapes of majesty and power; these carved in the whitest of granite, and those alone above the vast sea of darkness tipped by the rising glory of the moon, and fairly glittering in its light. Marvelous scene! I stood still and let it penetrate me; I was not crushed by it. Something within me, in heart or brain; swelled and swelled till the walls felt as though they might give way; something that cried: “I am greater than this; before them my essence was; above them, beyond them, can I now soar; when these shall go: when the heavens above them shall roll together like a scroll, and all the earth, beneath them shall melt with fervent heat, and these vanish into nothingness, I shall live and grow, and go on from height to height, conquering and to conquer; for the spirit of God has created me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life.”

Since these things are so, since He has made us in His own image, but a little lower than the angels, and crowned us with honor and glory, see to it, women who listen to me, as God himself hath commanded, that no man take your crown.

Source: Titusville Morning Herald (Pennsylvania), March 24, 1870, Vol. VII, No. 96.

Also: Daily Missouri Democrat (St. Louis), March 5, 1870.

Also: The New York Times, November 20, 1869.