The parlor of the Unitarian church was filled to overflowing on the occasion of the farewell reception to Miss Susan B. Anthony. After prayer by Rev. Charles G. Ames, Robert Purvis, who presided, said in a brief and earnest address: "I have the honor, on behalf of the National Suffrage Association, to present to you these resolutions testifying to their high regard, confidence, and affection." After the applause which the resolutions evoked, Mr. Purvis continued: "I present these with feelings which I can not express in words, for my thoughts take me back in vivid recollection to those stormy periods of persecution and outrage when you, Miss Anthony, with the foremost in the ranks of the Abolitionists, battled for the freedom and rights of the enslaved race. You have lived, with many compeers, to see the glorious result of your labors in redeeming from the infamy and degradation of chattelism 4,000,000 slaves. That done, your attention was turned to the greater question--in view of numbers--of woman's emancipation from civil and political debasement." Upon rising to reply Miss Anthony received an ovation. She said: "I feel that I must speak, because if I should hear all these words of praise and remain silent, I should seem to assent to tributes which I do not wholly deserve. My kind friends have spoken almost as if I had done the work, or the greater part of it, alone, whereas I have been only one of many men and women who have labored side by side in this cause. Philadelphia has had the honor of giving to the world a woman who led the way in this noble effort. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were active in the good work ere my attention had been called to it. It was through their influence that I was led to consider and accept the then new doctrine. Alone I should have been as a mere straw in the wind.... I have known nothing the last thirty years save the struggle for human rights on this continent. If it had been a class of men who were disfranchised and denied their legal rights, I believe I should have devoted my life precisely as I have done in behalf of my own sex. I hope while abroad that I shall do something to recommend our work here, so as to make them respect American women and their demand for political equality...." Letters, telegrams, flowers and gifts were received in great numbers.[13] May Wright Sewall had this graphic description in the Indianapolis Times, owned and edited by Col. Wm. R. Holloway, an earnest advocate of woman suffrage: