years have rolled by since then, and a new generation of visitors and guides may have left no trace of our work behind them.  But we whispered our hopes and aspirations to the trees, to be wafted to the powers above, and we left them indelibly pictured on the walls of the little chapel, and for more mortal eyes we scattered leaflets wherever we went, and made all our pleasure trips so many propaganda for woman’s enfranchisement.

Returning from California I made the journey straight through from San Francisco to New York.  Though a long trip to make without a break, yet I enjoyed every moment, as I found most charming companions in Bishop Janes and his daughter.  The Bishop being very liberal in his ideas, we discussed the various theologies, and all phases of the woman question.  I shall never forget those pleasant conversations as we sat outside on the platform, day after day, and in the soft moonlight late at night.  We took up the thread of our debate each morning where we had dropped it the night before.  The Bishop told me about the resolution to take the word “obey” from the marriage ceremony which he introduced, two years before, into the Methodist General Conference and carried with but little opposition.  All praise to the Methodist Church!  When our girls are educated into a proper self-respect and laudable pride of sex, they will scout all these old barbarisms of the past that point in any way to the subject condition of women in either the State, the Church, or the home.  Until the other sects follow her example, I hope our girls will insist on having their conjugal knots all tied by Methodist bishops.

The Episcopal marriage service not only still clings to the word “obey,” but it has a most humiliating ceremony in giving the bride away.  I was never more struck with its odious and ludicrous features than on once seeing a tall, queenly-looking woman, magnificently arrayed, married by one of the tiniest priests that ever donned a surplice and gown, given away by the smallest guardian that ever watched a woman’s fortunes, to the feeblest, bluest-looking little groom that ever placed a wedding ring on bridal finger.  Seeing these Lilliputians around her, I thought, when the little priest said, “Who gives this woman to this man,” that she would take the responsibility and say, “I do,” but no! there she stood, calm, serene, as if it were no affair of hers, while the little guardian, placing her hand in that of the little groom, said, “I do.”  Thus was this stately woman bandied about by these three puny men, all of whom she might have gathered up in her arms and borne off to their respective places of abode.