"'This National Council is composed of twenty organizations; these and all other societies interested are invited to co-operate in grateful recognition of the debt the present generation owes to the pioneers of the past. From their interest in the enfranchisement of women, the influence of Mrs. Stanton and her coadjutor, Miss Anthony, has permeated all departments of progress and made them a common center round which all interested in woman's higher development may gather.'
"To this invitation came responses, from the Old World and the New, expressing sympathy with the proposed celebration, which was intended to emphasize a great principle by showing the loftiness of character that had resulted from its embodiment in a unique personality. The world naturally thinks of the personality before it thinks of the principle. It has, at least, so much unconscious courtesy left as to honor a noble woman, even when failing to rightly apprehend a noble cause. To afford this feeling its proper expression, to render more tangible all vague sympathy, to crystallize the growing sentiment in favor of human freedom, to give youth the opportunity to reverence the glory of age, to give hearts their utterances in word and song was perhaps the most popular purpose of the reunion. In other words, it gave an opportunity for those who revered Mrs. Stanton as a queen among women to show their reverence, and to recognize the work her life had wrought, and to see in it an epitome of the progress of a century.
"The celebration was also an illustration of the distinctive idea of the National Council of Women, which aims to give recognition to all human effort without demanding uniformity of opinion as a basis of co-operation. It claims to act upon a unity of service, notwithstanding differences of creed and methods. The things that separate, shrank back into the shadows where they belong, and all hearts brave enough to think, and tender enough to feel, found it easy to unite in homage to a life which had known a half century of struggle to lift humanity from bondage and womanhood from shame.
"This reunion was the first general recognition of the debt the present owes to the past. It was the first effort to show the extent to which later development has been inspired and made possible by the freedom to think and work claimed in that earlier time by women like Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Stanton, and many others whose names stand as synonyms of noble service for the race. To those who looked at the reunion from this point of view it could not fail of inspiration.
"For the followers in lines of philanthropic work to look in the faces and hear the voices of women like Clara Barton and Mary Livermore; for the multitude enlisted in the crowded ranks of literature to feel in the living presence, what literature owes to women like Julia Ward Howe; for the white ribbon army to turn from its one great leader of to-day whose light, spreading to the horizon, does not obscure or dim the glory of the crusade leaders of the past; for art lovers and art students to call to mind sculptors like Harriet Hosmer and Anna Whitney, and remember the days when art was a sealed book to women; for the followers of the truly divine art of healing to honor the Blackwell sisters and the memory of Mme. Clemence Lozier; for the mercy of surgery to reveal itself in the face of Dr. Cushier, who has proved for us that heart of pity and hand of skill need never be divorced; for women lifting their eyes to meet the face of Phebe A. Hanaford and Anna Shaw and other women who to-day in the pulpit, as well as out of it, may use a woman's right to minister to needy souls; for the ofttime sufferers from unrighteous law to welcome women lawyers; for the throng of working women to read backward through the story of four hundred industries to their beginning in the 'four,' and remember that each new door had opened because some women toiled and strove; for all these the exercises were a part of a great thanksgiving paean, each phase of progress striking its own chord, and finding each its echo in the hearts that held it dear.
"To the student of history, or to him who can read the signs of the times, there was such a profound significance in this occasion as makes one shrink from dwelling too much upon the external details. Yet as a pageant only it was a most inspiring sight, and one truly worthy of a queen. Indeed as we run the mind back over the pages of history, what queen came to a more triumphant throne in the hearts of a grateful people? What woman ever before sat silver-crowned, canopied with flowers, surrounded not by servile followers but by men and women who brought to her court the grandest service they had wrought, their best thought crystallized in speech and song. Greater than any triumphal procession that ever marked a royal passage through a kingdom was it to know that in a score or more of cities, in many a village church on that same night festive fires were lighted, and the throng kept holiday, bringing for tribute not gold and gems but noblest aspirations, truest gratitude, and highest ideals for the nation and the race.
"The great meeting was but one link in a chain; yet with its thousands of welcoming faces, with its eloquence of words, with its offering of sweetest song from the children of a race that once was bound but now is free, with its pictured glimpses of the old time and the new flashing out upon the night, with the home voices offering welcome and gratitude and love, with numberless greetings, from the great, true, brave souls of many lands, it was indeed a wonderful tribute, worthy of the great warm heart of a nation that offered it, and worthy of the woman so revered.
"It seemed fitting that Mme. Antoinette Sterling, who, twenty years ago, took her wonderful voice away to England, where it won for her a unique place in the hearts of the nation, should, on returning to her country, give her first service to the womanhood of her native land. 'I am coming a week earlier,' so she had written, 'that my first work in my own beloved America may be done for women. I am coming as a woman and not as an artist, and because I so glory in that which the women of my country have achieved.' So when she sang out of her heart, 'O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him!' no marvel that it seemed to lift all listening hearts to a recognition of the divine secret and source of power for all work.
"One charming feature of the entertainment was a series of pictures called 'Then and Now,' each illustrating the change in woman's condition during the last fifty years. And after this, upon the dimness there shone out, one after another, the names of noble women like Mary Lyon, Maria Mitchell, Emma Willard, and many others who have passed away. Upon the shadows and the silence broke Mme. Sterling's voice in Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar.' And when this was over, as with one voice, the whole audience sang softly 'Auld Lang Syne.'
"And last but not least should be mentioned the greetings that poured in a shower of telegrams and letters from every section of the country, and many from over the sea. These expressions, not only of personal congratulation for Mrs. Stanton, but utterances of gladness for the progress in woman's life and thought, for the conditions, already so much better than in the past, and for the hope for the future, would make of themselves a most interesting and wonderful chapter. Among them may be mentioned letters from Lord and Lady Aberdeen, from Lady Henry Somerset and Frances E. Willard, from Canon Wilberforce, and many others, including an address from thirty members of the family of John Bright, headed by his brother, the Right Honorable Jacob Bright; a beautifully engrossed address, on parchment, from the National Woman Suffrage Society of Scotland, an address from the London Women's Franchise League, and a cablegram from the Bristol Women's Liberal Association; a letter from the Women's Rights Society of Finland, signed by its president, Baroness Gripenberg of Helsingfors; telegrams from the California Suffrage Pioneers; and others from the Chicago Woman's Club, from the Toledo and Ohio Woman's Suffrage Society, from the son of the Rev. Dr. William Ellery Channing, and a telegram and letter from citizens and societies of Seneca Falls, New York, accompanied with flowers and many handsome pieces of silver from the different societies. There were also letters from Hon. Oscar S. Strauss, ex-minister to Turkey, Miss Ellen Terry, and scores of others. An address was received from the Women's Association of Utah, accompanied by a beautiful onyx and silver ballot box; and from the Shaker women of Mount Lebanon came an ode; a solid silver loving cup from the New York City Suffrage League, presented on the platform with a few appropriate words by its President, Mrs. Devereux Blake.