If, in the course of these lectures, any words that I have spoken have touched your hearts, or carried conviction to your minds, do not put aside, I beseech you, such impulse as they may have given. Remember that, however feebly the subject has been treated, however presumptuous may seem the attempt, the subject itself is the most important theme that is presented to this generation. In my first lecture I showed you, that while women, ever since the beginning of civilization, have been sharing the hardest, and doing the most unwholesome work, they have also done the _worst paid_ in the world. I showed you that this poor pay, founded on a false estimate of woman's value as a human being, and consequently as a laborer, was filling your streets with criminals, with stricken souls and bodies, for whose blood society is responsible to God. Having proved thus, that women need new avenues of labor, I tried in my second lecture to show you, that, when she sought these, she had been met too often by the selfish opposition of man. I showed also that all such opposition proved, in the end, unavailing; that all the work she asks will inevitably be given. I showed you, from the censuses of Great Britain and America, how much labor is even now open to her; that it is not half so necessary to open new avenues of labor as to make work itself _respectable for women_; and I therefore entreated women to learn to work thoroughly and well, that men might respect their labor in the aggregate. "Woman's work" means nothing very honorable or conscientious now. Alter its significance till it indicates the best work in the world. In my present lecture I have indicated some of the steps that might be taken to benefit the women in the heart of this city. To encourage you to take them, I have briefly pointed out Ellen Woodlock's remarkable success. Have I kindled any interest in your minds? Can you enter into such labors? Have you strength or time or enthusiasm to spare? In the ballads of Northern Europe, a loving sister trod out, with her bare feet, the nettles whose fibre, woven into clothing, might one day restore her brothers to human form. Your feet are shod, your nettles are gathered: will you tread them out courageously, and so restore to your sisters the nature and the privileges of a blessed humanity? Opportunity is a rare and sacred thing. God seldom offers it twice. In the English fields, the little Drosera, or sundew, lifts its tiny, crimson head. The delicate buds are clustered in a raceme, to the summit of which they climb one by one. The top-most bud waits only through the twelve hours of a single day to open. If the sun do not shine, it withers and drops, and gives way to the next aspirant.