[p. 94] ‘visited’ by two Elders from the Meeting to which she belonged, a visit of criticism for something she had said on the previous First Day, ‘they couldn't quite remember, but it was something like ‘notions of Christ,’’ she repeated the whole sentence,‘Men are to be judged by their likeness to Christ, rather than by their notions of Christ,’ asking if that was what they objected to. On their saying it was she quietly informed them that it was a quotation from their honored William Penn, and the Elders went their way in silence!
It is painful to recur to this period of the life of Lucretia Mott—the period known as the ‘Separation’ among Friends. She discovered that her failure to cooperate with those who seemed to her to be taking a retrograde course met with coldness and unfriendly admonitions. Although the question of slavery had already engaged her attention, her chief interests so far had been within the limitations of the Society of Friends, but in the severe mental discipline of the Separation her whole spiritual visions widened, and she beheld directly before her extended fields of labor wherein honest workers were sorely needed.
She believed that there was yet other work for her to do; she must devote her life to the abolition of slavery, the elevation of woman, the cause of temperance, and the promotion of universal peace.
With her to see was to do. She said of herself, ‘I felt bound to plead the cause of the millions of downtrodden slaves in our land, in season and out of season, and to aid all in my power in every effort for their immediate emancipation.’ She attended the historical convention of 1833 in Philadelphia by invitation, as a ‘listener and spectator,’ and was stared and wondered at when she ventured to suggest an improvement in the words of the Declaration of Sentiment. The improvement was adopted, even if made by a woman. Soon after, though it was an unheard of thing, certainly in Pennsylvania, for women to have societies of their own,
