Dretful upliftin’ to my sect it wuz to look on them pictures, all on ’em.

Wall, if I’d spent a month I couldn’t begin to tell all the contents of them rooms—­the paintin’s and statuary, laces, embroidery, tapestry, and etc., and etc., and everything under the sun, moon, and stars, and so forth, and so on.

All the works of wimmen from the present age of the world back to that wonderful book writ by the Abbess Herrard in the twelfth century, which contains about all the knowledge of that date.

And tapestries wrought by hands that have been dust for hundreds and hundreds of years.  But the work them hands wrought still remains, giving the best descriptions of them times we have now, of the manners and customs of that fur back time.

They show off the part wimmin have took in philanthropy in all ages.  They show that all through time that wimmen have been a help-meet.  And you can see the tender, strong faces of them that have helped the world.

One of the most interestin’ things in the hull buildin’ wuz the exhibit of the Beneficent Societies formed by wimmen all over the world—­what they have done in war, pestilence, and famine, what they have done in wrestlin’ with that deadly serpent, whose folds encompass the earth—­the foulest serpent of Intemperance.  What my sect have done banded together to promote liberty, to establish religion, and all good works.

The decoration of the big room set apart for the association and organizations are strikin’.

Fifty-four organizations of Christian wimmen and workers for righteousness in different ways have their headquarters here.

The Wimmen’s Christian Temperance Union makes a big display; from post to post is extended long links of pledge cards signed by boys and girls of forty-four countries—­France, Africa, Japan, China, etc., etc., etc.

What links them wuz that bound them children to a future of temperance and usefulness!  Strong cords a-spreadin’ out to the very ends of the earth, and a-bringin’ them all together and tyin’ ’em up to the ramparts of Heaven.

Denmark has a display of seven little wimmen a-wearin’ the white ribbon.

In the Japanese department hangs a large bell all made of pipes, and Josiah sez—­

“It’s curious that wimmen, who run smokin’ so, should have such a lot of pipes to sell.”  Sez he, “I’m most a-mind to buy one, smokin’ is gittin’ so fashionable, and lady-like.  Mebby you’d better have one, Samantha.”

I looked at him witherin’ly, but he didn’t seem to wither any.

But a bystander spoke up and sez, “These are the pipes of opium-smokers, who have given up the vile habit.  They wuz collected in Japan and presented to that noble worker, Mary Allen West.”

And the bell rung for the first time at her funeral in way-off Japan, where she laid down her sickle on her ripe sheaves, and rested from her labors.