into the holy of holies of her own self, meet herself, and be true to the revelation.  She first found words to express her convictions in listening to Rev. William Henry Channing, whose teaching had a lasting spiritual influence upon her.  To-day Miss Anthony is an agnostic.  As to the nature of the Godhead and of the life beyond her horizon she does not profess to know anything.  Every energy of her soul is centered upon the needs of this world.  To her, work is worship.  She has not stood aside, shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty, but has moved on with the whirling world, has done the good given her to do, and thus, in darkest hours, has been sustained by an unfaltering faith in the final perfection of all things.  Her belief is not orthodox, but it is religious.  In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic; in the era of the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles’ time, a Puritan; but in this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a Reformer.

For the arduous work that awaited Miss Anthony her years of young womanhood had given preparation.  Her father, though a man of wealth, made it a matter of conscience to train his girls, as well as his boys, to self-support.  Accordingly Susan chose the profession of teacher, and made her first essay during a summer vacation in a school her father had established for the children of his employes.  Her success was so marked, not only in imparting knowledge, but also as a disciplinarian, that she followed this career steadily for fifteen years, with the exception of some months given in Philadelphia to her own training.  Of the many school rebellions which she overcame, one rises before me, prominent in its ludicrous aspect.  This was in the district school at Center Falls, in the year 1839.  Bad reports were current there of male teachers driven out by a certain strapping lad.  Rumor next told of a Quaker maiden coming to teach—­a Quaker maiden of peace principles.  The anticipated day and Susan arrived.  She looked very meek to the barbarian of fifteen, so he soon began his antics.  He was called to the platform, told to lay aside his jacket, and, thereupon, with much astonishment received from the mild Quaker maiden, with a birch rod applied calmly but with precision, an exposition of the argumentum ad hominem based on the a posteriori method of reasoning.  Thus Susan departed from her principles, but not from the school.

But, before long, conflicts in the outside world disturbed our young teacher.  The multiplication table and spelling book no longer enchained her thoughts; larger questions began to fill her mind.  About the year 1850 Susan B. Anthony hid her ferule away.  Temperance, anti-slavery, woman suffrage,—­three pregnant questions,—­presented themselves, demanding her consideration.  Higher, ever higher, rose their appeals, until she resolved to dedicate her energy and thought to the burning needs of the hour.  Owing to early experience of the disabilities of her