Mrs. Bloomer was spared to witness the triumph of many of the reforms she had earnestly advocated. The temperance principle in which her heart was so much absorbed made great progress during her lifetime, and the prohibitive features she so earnestly advocated were engrafted on the laws of her adopted state. She was not spared to see woman accorded a right to the ballot in all the states, but she was cheered by the wonderful progress in that direction that took place all over the world. In Wyoming and Utah women had voted for several years, and only a few weeks before her departure she learned with infinite satisfaction from Mrs. Jennie A. Irvine, a favorite niece residing in Colorado, that the right of suffrage had been granted to women in that state. While therefore she was never herself permitted to exercise that inestimable right, yet she died in the full conviction that only a few years would elapse before it would be accorded to women in all the free countries in the world. ESSAYS BY MRS. BLOOMER. In the following pages are given the productions of Mrs. Bloomer’s pen on a variety of subjects. Most of these essays have been printed in newspapers located in different parts of the country, but are here made public again in more durable form. It is believed they will not be devoid of interest to the reader: “WIFELY DUTIES. “‘_Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him._’—GEN., iv. 7. “These words were addressed to Cain by the Creator. They are the same as those used to Eve, except that in the one case they were addressed to the one to be ruled, and in the other to the one who was to rule. The latter is more clearly a command than the former. And if a command, then Cain only obeyed it in ruling over his brother; and, as there was no limit fixed to the rule, was he very much to blame for taking the life of his brother? Did not God command him to rule and was not God responsible for the result? “And if God foretelling to Eve that her husband should rule over her was a command to which all women were to be subject for all time, does not this command to Cain to rule over his brother follow the seed of Cain for all time, and are not all elder brothers commanded to rule over the younger, and is it not the duty of the younger to submit to such rule? “Clearly the Scripture quoted was not a command in either case. We cannot throw upon God all the fearful consequences that have grown out of and resulted from the construction so often put upon these words. Read them as prophecy, substitute ‘wilt’ for ‘shalt’—as I am told the original fully warrants—and they become clear enough. In both cases it was a prophetic declaration of what was to follow, and the prophecy as we all know has been fulfilled to the letter.