and purest, and truest, and best young women of the world, endeavoring to unite all young women in simple but perfect obedience to the power of Almighty God, which union must produce a power too great to be measured by man's mind; a power to be felt in every department of life, the home, the church, the school, the State, ever growing and increasing until the ages of eternity roll by, and then "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

SERMON PREACHED BY REV. ANNA H. SHAW OF MICHIGAN, IN THE HALL OF WASHINGTON, ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 21ST.

The services on the morning of Sunday, May 21st, were of unique character. The entire programme, with the hymns sung on the occasion, will be found in Chapter II of Volume I.-[THE EDITOR.]

Mrs. May Wright Sewall introduced the presiding minister thus: It is with solemn joy in our hearts that we open the services of this morning. It is a matter for congratulation, suggestive of prophetic hopes, that there are seated upon the platform this morning eighteen ordained clergywomen, representing thirteen different denominations of the Christian church. I take great pleasure in presenting to you the Rev. Caroline J. Bartlett, pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Kalamazoo, Mich., who will conduct the services.

Rev. Anna H. Shaw said: I will read for our scripture. lesson from the words of Jesus.

"Ye are the light of the world." "A city that is set on a hill can not be hid."

"Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house."

"Let your light so shine before men that they may see

your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Now I have a little paragraph from the religion of the far east, from Zoroaster: "The man who has done good rather than evil, morally and physically, outwardly and inwardly, may fearlessly meet death, well assured that radiant spirits will lead him across into the paradise of eternal happiness. Souls risen from the grave will know each other and say, that is my father, or my brother, my wife, or my sister. The weak will say to the good, wherefore when I was on the world didst thou not teach me to know righteousness, O thou pure one? It is because you did not instruct me that I am excluded from the assembly of the blest."

And from Buddhist scripture we have: "There are treasures laid up in the heart, treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him beyond death when he leaves this world."

And we have from the Mohammedan scriptures this: "One hour of justice is worth seventy years of prayer."

And from the Chinese, from Confucius: "The good man loves all men. He loves to speak good of others. All within the four seas are his brothers. Love of man is chief of all the virtues. The mean man sows that some of his friends may be helped, but the love of the perfect man is universal."

And we have from St. Augustine these words: "I have read in Plato and Cicero. They are wise and very beautiful, but I never read in either of them, 'Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden.'"

"The multitude that published the tidings were a great host." In the new version it is changed, both in letter and in spirit, for instead of being a past word and past revelation, it is an ever present word, an ever present revelation. and the people who publish the tidings are a new class of people — they are our people. "The Lord giveth the word. The women that publish the tidings are a great host.”

The inspirations and aspirations which have been aroused by this remarkable conference will awaken in our hearts such thoughts of joy and blessedness that neither time nor distance shall ever be able to separate it from you until time shall be lost in eternity; and your journey up the steep and rugged heights where truth dwells will ever be made easier, and at the last be made surer because of our meetings here the last week. The women who have read various papers, who have discussed the various subjects which have been before you, have, in the undertone of all that has been uttered, voiced but one cry, the cry to be free; free to be; free to do; free to become that which is best and truest for God's people everywhere. Each has voiced the heartache and sadness which has come from woman who, in the past, has endeavored in any line of activity or research to lift herself or her sisters on a higher plane of life. Each has felt the cramping, crippling, and dwarfing power of prejudice and custom. Each has felt the terrible strain which the endeavor to fight against these barriers has put upon all the energies of her nature, and each has given voice to the vision revealed by him. who revealed all truth of the time when the struggle for freedom shall be over, and when men and women shall live in that true and nobler atmosphere, in which truth and not tradition shall be our guide; the time when each man and each woman will take as a sublime watchword that which was to her, one of our old leaders, the very tone of her entire life: Truth for authority, and not authority for truth." In the heartache which has followed this vision, as the darkness of the ever present has closed about the right, these women have turned to God, and lifting their eyes mutely to him have asked: "O! thou infinite One, give me freedom that I may help the world to find Thee." And then turning to men for guidance, they have asked the scholar: "Where shall freedom be found for the race?" And the scholar has answered: "The pathway to knowledge is the highway to freedom." But these women have

known that knowledge is not, and has not been, the power to free the race, and that many who have been the most learned have been not only the most oppressed but the greatest oppressors. Then they have turned to the statesman, and asked of him where freedom shall be found, and the statesmen have answered: "The highway to freedom leads through constitutions and laws. Governments will ultimately evolve such perfect systems of law that all men shall be free." But we have known that laws and constitutions have been used as instruments by which men have been enslaved and oppressed. They have turned to the church, and asked of the churchmen where freedom was found, and the churchman pointed to his creeds and to his rites and ceremonies, saying: "Believe and you shall be free." But we have known, not so much by our own experience as by the history of the past, that creeds have been cruel, ceremonies and rites have enslaved, and that they who are most bound by the creeds are least free. Then the soul has turned back again to the vision, and has asked Him who was able to reveal the future: "Shall freedom come?" And He has answered: "My child, neither in constitutions and laws, nor in knowledge, nor in creeds, shall you find the way to freedom, but the truth itself, and the truth alone, can make men and women free."

Grasping this thought, then, women have gone forth regardless of custom, regardless of prejudice, regardless of the reproach of the church, and in the words of him of old, have cried out: "Is it better to obey the law of man or to be directed by the spirit of God?" And helped by this thought these women who have gathered here together have been out in the world through the years that are passed, teaching and preaching in all realms of life, and in all spheres of activity, the truth which shall ultimately make us all free.

This gathering together of women has taught the world that women are learning that one lesson which is the hardest for the human race to know, that lesson of toler