where she found herself among friends, and as wherever two or three were gathered together in those days they always decided to hold a woman’s rights meeting, James Mott sallied forth to arrange for one in the Quaker city, and she comments in her diary:  “O, how good it seems to have some one take the burden off my shoulders!” They visited, made excursions, attended anti-slavery meetings and also spiritual seances, which were then attracting great attention.  Of the many discussions which arose as to existence or non-existence after death, she writes:  “The negative had reason on their side; not an argument could one of us bring, except an intuitive feeling that we should not cease to exist.  If it be true that we die like the flower, what a delusion has the race suffered, what a vain dream is life!”

Miss Anthony went from here to New York, Brooklyn and Albany, and then to her old home at Battenville, stopping with relatives and friends at each place and speaking in the interest of the petitions.  An example of the courage required to go into a strange town and arrange for a meeting may be given by an extract from one of many similar letters: 

I speak in this village to-morrow night; had written a gentleman but he was away, so I had all the work to do myself.  I first called on the Methodist minister to get his church.  I stated my business and he asked:  “What are you driving at?  Do you want to vote and be President?” I answered that I did not personally aspire to the presidency, but when the nation decided a woman was most competent for that office, I would be willing she should fill it.  “Well,” said he, “if the Bible teaches anything, it is that women should be quiet keepers at home and not go gadding round the country;” and much more.  In all my traveling, in short or long skirts, I have never been treated so contemptuously, so insultingly, as by this same wretch of a minister.  He is void of the first spark of reverence for humanity, therefore must be equally so for God.  Just now his pious church bell is ringing for prayer-meeting; I have half a mind to go, to see if he warns his flock to beware of my heresies.  From him I went to the Wesleyan Methodist minister, and what a contrast!  He thought I wanted the church for to-night and said:  “We have our prayer-meeting, but will adjourn it for you.”  This kindness made me so weak, the tears came in spite of me, and I explained the rowdy treatment of the other minister.  I have had a varied experience ever since I left Easton.  Verily, I am embarked in an unpopular cause and must be content to row up stream.

In May she went to the great Anti-Slavery Anniversary in New York.  In August she attended the State Teachers’ Convention at Oswego.  Victor M. Rice, of Buffalo, was president and accorded her every courtesy and encouragement.  The question of woman’s right to speak had been settled at the Rochester convention the previous year and never again was disputed, so