The woman's club was not an echo; it was not the mere banding together for a social and economic purpose, like the clubs of men. It became at once, without deliberate intention or concerted action, a light-giving and seed-sowing centre of purely altruistic and democratic activity. It had no leaders. It brought together qualities rather than personages; and by a representation of all interests, moral, intellectual, and social, a natural and equal division of work and opportunity, created an ideal basis of organization, where every one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre; where the centre itself becomes a radiating medium for the diffusion of the best of that which is brought to it, and where, all being freely given, no material considerations enter. This is no ideal or imaginary picture. It is the simplest prose of every woman's club and every clubwoman's experience during the past thirty years. It has been in every sense an awakening to the full glory and meaning of life. It is also a very narrow and self-absorbed mind that sees in these openings only opportunities for its own pleasure, or chances for its own advancement on its own narrow and exclusive lines. The lesson of the hour is help for those that need it, in the shape in which they need it, and kinship with all and everything that exists on the face of God's earth. If we miss this we miss the spirit, the illuminating light of the whole movement, and lose it in the mire of our own selfishness. The tendency of association upon any broad human basis is to destroy the caste spirit, and this the club has done for women more than any other influence that as yet has come into existence. A club that is narrowed to a clique, a class, or a single object, is a contradiction in terms. It may be a society, or a congregation of societies, but it is not a club. The essence of a club is its many-sided character, its freedom in gathering together and expressing all shades of difference, its equal and independent terms of membership, which puts every one upon the same footing, and enables each one to find or make her own place. The most opposite ideas find equal claims to respect. Women widest apart in position and habits of life find much in common, and acquaintance and contact mutually helpful and advantageous. Club life teaches us that there are many kinds of wealth in the world--the wealth of ideas, of knowledge, of sympathy, of readiness to be put in any place and used in any way for the general good. These are given, and no price is or can be put upon them, yet they ennoble and enrich whatever comes within their influence.