One of the comforts which I found in the new association was the relief which it afforded me from a sense of isolation and eccentricity. For years past I had felt strongly impelled to lend my voice to the convictions of my heart. I had done this in a way, from time to time, always with the feeling that my course in so doing was held to call for apology and explanation by the men and women with whose opinions I had hitherto been familiar. I now found a sphere of action in which this mode of expression no longer appeared singular or eccentric, but simple, natural, and, under the circumstances, inevitable. In the little band of workers which I had joined, I was soon called upon to perform yeoman's service. I was expected to attend meetings and to address audiences, at first in the neighborhood of Boston, afterwards in many remote places, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis. Among those who led or followed the new movement, I naturally encountered some individuals in whom vanity and personal ambition were conspicuous. But I found mostly among my new associates a great heart of religious conviction and a genuine spirit of selfsacrifice. My own contributions to the work appeared to me less valuable than I had hoped to find them. I had at first everything to learn with regard to public speaking, and Lucy Stone and Mrs. Livermore were much more at home on the platform than I was. I was called upon to preside over conventions, having never learned the rules of debate. I was obliged to address large audiences, having been accustomed to use my voice only in parlors. Gradually all this bettered itself. I became familiar with the order of proceedings, and learned to modulate my voice. More important even than these things, I learned something of the range of popular sympathies, and of the power of apprehension to be found in average audiences. All of these experiences, the failures, the effort, and the final achievement, were most useful to me. In years that followed I gave what I could to the cause, but all that I gave was repaid to me a thousandfold. I had always had to do with women of character and intelligence, but I found in my new friends a clearness of insight, a strength and steadfastness of purpose, which enabled them to take a position of command, in view of the questions of the hour.