sufferers, the most oppressed class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in season and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their soul’s stead, and to aid, all in my power, in every right effort for their immediate emancipation.”  When in 1833, Wm. Lloyd Garrison took the ground of immediate emancipation and urged the duty of unconditional liberty without expatriation, Mrs. Mott took an active part in the movement.  She was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1834.  “Being actively associated in the efforts for the slave’s redemption,” she says, “I have traveled thousands of miles in this country, holding meetings in some of the slave states, have been in the midst of mobs and violence, and have shared abundantly in the odium attached to the name of an uncompromising modern abolitionist, as well as partaken richly of the sweet return of peace attendant on those who would ’undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke.’” In 1840 she attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London.  Because she was a woman she was not admitted as a delegate.  All the female delegates, however, were treated with courtesy, though not with justice.  Mrs. Mott spoke frequently in the liberal churches of England, and her influence outside of the Convention had great effect on the Anti-Slavery movement in Great Britain.

But the value of Mrs. Mott’s anti-slavery work is not limited to what she individually did, great as that labor was.  Her influence over others, and especially the young, was extraordinary.  She made many converts, who went forth to spread the great ideas of freedom throughout the land.  No one can of himself accomplish great good.  He must labor through others, he must inspire them, convince the unbelieving, kindle the fires of faith in doubting souls, and in the unequal fight of Right with Wrong make Hope take the place of despair.  This Lucretia Mott has done.  Her example was an inspiration.

In the Temperance reform Mrs. Mott took an early interest, and for many years she has practiced total abstinence from intoxicating drinks.  In the cause of Peace she has been ever active, believing in the “ultra non-resistance ground, that no Christian can consistently uphold and actively engage in and support a government based on the sword.”  Yet this, we believe, did not prevent her from taking a profound interest in the great war for the Union; though she deplored the means, her soul must have exulted in the result.  Through anguish and tears, blood and death America wrought out her salvation.  Do we not believe that the United States leads the cause of human freedom?  It follows then that the abolition of the gigantic system of human slavery in this country is the grandest event in modern history.  Mrs. Mott has also been earnestly engaged in aid of the working classes, and has labored effectively for “a radical change in the system which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer.”  In the Woman’s Rights question she was early interested, and with Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she organized, in 1848, a Woman’s Rights’ Convention at Seneca Falls, New York.  At the proceedings of this meeting, “the nation was convulsed with laughter.”  But who laughs now at this irresistible reform?