During the recent war the women of our country had been as ministering angels to our armies, forsaking homes of ease and luxury to bring succor and comfort to the camp-hospital and battlefield. Those who tarried at home had labored incessantly to supply the needs of those at the front. Should they not be counted among the citizens of the great Republic? Moreover, we women had year after year worked to build, maintain, and fill the churches throughout the land with a patient industry akin to that of coral insects. Surely we should be invited to pass in with our brothers to the larger liberty now shown to be our just due.
We often spoke in country towns, where our morning meetings could be but poorly attended, for the reason that the women of the place were busy with the preparation of the noonday meal. Our evening sessions in such places were precious to school-teachers and factory hands.
Ministers opened to us their churches, and the women of their congregations worked together to provide for us places of refreshment and repose. We met the real people face to face and hand to hand. It was a period of awakened thought, of quickened and enlarged sympathy.
