This step into the larger freedom of the Hicksites, or Unitarian branch of Quakers, proved no mistake for one whose heart and life could not measure themselves by theological creeds. To use her own words, “I have felt a far greater interest in the moral movements of our age, than in any theological discussion.” And her eloquent pleadings and practical charities for three-quarters of a century are ample witness of her sincerity. The domestic life of Mrs. Mott was in itself a noble refutation of the assertion that eminent public service by women is incompatible with home making, since few homes could show such perfect conjugal union and such thrifty household management. There are about three hundred and fifty women preachers in this branch of the Christian church at present. The sect of Shakers, or “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing,” originating near Manchester, England, about 1770, as an offshoot of the Society of Friends, and following the same spiritual authority, gave to its women an equal share with men in its service and government. In 1770, Ann Lee, one of the members of this sect, professed to have received a special illumination, in the name of which she was accepted as the “Christ of the female order.” Her followers believing that “God was revealed as a dual being, male and female, to the Jews, that Jesus revealed to the world God, as a Father,” received “Mother Ann” as “God revealed in the character of Mother, the bearing spirit of all the creation of God.” In 1774, obedient to another revelation of the spirit, Mother Ann, with nine of the more prominent members of her society, emigrated to America and began her work in the State of New York, from which center ardent missionaries propagated the new faith. When we consider the essential doctrines of this sect,—human brotherhood, exemplified in a community of goods, non-resistance, non-participation in government, strict celibacy, and perfect chastity,—we must confess that Ann Lee, possessing not even a rudimentary education, must nevertheless have been gifted with extraordinary powers of persuasion thus to have secured the founding of the various communities of Shakers in the United States, among which her name is still reverenced in its deific relations.