The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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day," he was getting tired of silence. One "first day" he went to his meeting expecting nothing as usual, and pretty sure he would not be disappointed. Nor was he for a time. But presently a young woman arose in the high seat he had never seen before, whose presence touched him with strange new expectations. She looked, he said, as one who had no great hold on life, and began to speak in low tones, with just a touch of hesitation as of one feeling after her thought, and there was a tremor in her voice as if she felt the burden of the spirit. But she soon found her way out of this, and then he said he began to hold his breath. He had never heard such speaking in all his life, so born of conviction, so radiant with that inward light for which he had been waiting, that he went home feeling as he supposed they must have felt in the olden time who thought they had heard an angel.
I once heard such an outpouring. It was at a woods-meeting up among the hills where quite a number of us had our say, and then my friend's turn came. She was well on in years then, but the old fire still burned clear, and God's breath touched her out of heaven and she prophesied. I suppose she spoke for two hours, but after the first moment she never faltered or failed to hold the multitude spell-bound, and waiting on her words. Yet there was not the least hint of premeditation, while there was boundless wealth of meditation in her deep, pregnant thoughts. I have said she prophesied, no other term would answer to her speech. Her eyes had seen the coming glory of the Lord, and she testified that she had seen; and this was all the more wonderful to me, because it was the habit of her mind in later years to reason, as President McCosh does, from premise to conclusion. But she had seen a vision there sitting in the August splendor with the voice of God's presence whispering in the trees, and the vision had set the heart high above the brain. These were care-worn and work-worn folks she saw about her with knotted hands resting on the staff, or folded quietly on the lap. They had nearly done the good day's work, and now preacher and prophet were needed to tell them what that day's work meant, where they keep the books for us, and so it was not a speech, but a psalm of life.
Mrs. Mott was safe at all points in taking Elias Hicks for a teacher of morals, as he was pronounced on every reform. On the question of woman's rights, he says:
If Paul said of women preachers what we find in Corinthians and Timothy, I judge that he had no allusion at all to their preaching or prophesying in the churches; and if he had, we have no right to admit it as sound doctrine, as it contradicts a number of his own declarations (and the general testimony of Scripture), which are more rational and clear, as in the fourteenth chapter of Romans; and in Philippians where he speaks of the women who labored with him in the Gospel; and in 1st Corinthians where he speaks of women praying and prophesying; and Paul assures us that male and female are one in Christ. Also under the law there were prophetesses as well as prophets, and the effusion of the Spirit in the latter days as prophesied by Joel was to be equally on sons and daughters, servants and handmaids. To believe otherwise is irrational and inconsistent with the divine attributes, and would charge the Almighty with partiality and injustice to one-half of His rational creation. Therefore I believe it would be wrong to admit it, although asserted in the most plain and positive manner by men or angels.
In our last conflict with Great Britain, Elias Hicks called the attention of "Friends" to a faithful support of their testimony against war and injustice, desiring them to maintain their Christian liberties against encroachment of the secular powers, laws having been enacted levying taxes for the support of the war. At one meeting there was considerable altercation; as some Friends who refused payment had been distrained some three or four fold more than the tax demanded, while others complied, paid the tax, and justified themselves in so doing. On this point his mind was deeply exercised and he labored to encourage Friends to faithfulness to exalt their testimonies for the Prince of Peace.
Elias Hicks preached against slavery both in Maryland and Virginia. He says of a meeting in Baltimore that he especially addressed slave-holders. Further, he opposed the use of slave-grown goods. At a meeting in Providence, R. I., he said he was moved to show the great and essential difference there is between the righteousness of man comprehended in his laws, customs, and traditions, and the righteousness of God which is comprehended in pure, impartial, unchangeable justice. They who continue this traffic, and enrich themselves, by the labor of these deeply oppressed Africans, violate these plain principles of justice, and no cunning sophistical reasoning in the wisdom of this world can justify them, or silence the convictions of conscience.
Some other Friends were much opposed to the use of slave products, but the Society in general "had no concern" on this point. Lucretia Mott used "free goods," and thought that Elias' preaching such extreme doctrines on all these practical reforms, had their effect in the division. To refuse to pay taxes, or to use any "slave produce," involved more immediate and serious difficulties, than any theoretical views of the hereafter, and even Friends may be pardoned for feeling some interest in their own pecuniary independence. To see their furniture, cattle, houses, lands, all swept away for exorbitant taxes, seemed worse than paying a moderate one to start with. From these quotations from the great reformer and religious leader, we see how fully Mrs. Mott accepted his principles; not because they were his principles, for she called no man master, but because she felt them to be true. In her diary she says:
My sympathy was early enlisted for the poor slave by the class-books read in our schools, and the pictures of the slave-ship, as published by Clarkson. The ministry of Elias Hicks and others on the subject of the unrequited labor of slaves, and their example in refusing the products of slave labor, all had effect in awakening a strong feeling in their behalf.
The unequal condition of woman in society, also early impressed my mind. Learning while at school that the charge for the education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that when they became teachers women received but half as much as men for their services, the injustice of this was so apparent, that I early resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator has bestowed.
The Temperance reform too engaged my attention; and for more than forty years I have practiced total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks.
The cause of Peace has had a share of my efforts; leading to the ultra non-resistance ground; that no Christian can consistently uphold a government based on the sword, or relying on that as an ultimate resort.
The oppression of the working classes by existing monopolies, and the lowness of wages often engaged my attention; and I have held many meetings with them, and heard their appeals with compassion, and a great desire for a radical change in the system which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The various associations and communities, tending to greater equality of condition, have had from me a hearty God-speed.
But the millions of down-trodden slaves in our land being the most oppressed class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in season and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their souls' stead, and to aid in every right effort for their immediate emancipation. This duty was impressed upon me at the time I consecrated myself to that Gospel which anoints to "preach deliverance to the captive," to "set at liberty them that are bruised." From that time the duty of abstinence, as far as practicable, from slave-grown products was so clear that I resolved to make the effort "to provide things honest" in this respect. Since then, our family has been supplied with free labor, groceries, and to some extent, with cotton goods unstained by slavery.
The labors of the devoted Benjamin Lundy, and his "Genius of Universal Emancipation," published in Baltimore, added to the untiring exertions of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others in England, including Elizabeth Heyrick, whose work on slavery aroused them to a change in their mode of action; and of William Lloyd Garrison, in Boston, prepared the way for a Convention in Philadelphia, to take the ground of immediate, not gradual emancipation, and to impress the duty of unconditional liberty without expatriation.
December 3, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in Philadelphia. Among the sixty-two people present were Lucretia Mott, Lydia White, and Esther Moore, Rev. Beriah Green in the chair. In reading and discussing their Declaration of Sentiments, Mrs. Mott wishing to make some suggestions, asked the chairman in her modest way if she might speak. Mr. Green promptly and enthusiastically responded, "Certainly, certainly, say all you are moved to say." She at once proposed to strike out two words from one sentence in the Declaration, "We may be personally defeated, but our principles