It is difficult to gauge the character of Mary Dyer, who may be taken as the type of the New England Quaker of her day, even though she was of alien birth. That she was a woman of pure and holy spirit there can be no doubt; and though her persistent affronting of death may seem to savor of fanaticism, it was fanaticism, if at all, of that sort which inspired the early Christian martyrs. She was utterly sincere; and sincerity may plead forgiveness for any mere error. In Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer we have seen two types of the New England woman as leaders of men. The former was perhaps more of a power, the latter of an influence; but each was complement to the other, not in task but in type. It needs no wonderful discernment to see in these women the rise and florescence of the New England spirit which has come down to our own day and has permeated and informed the whole American genius of femininity. Through their descendants--in some cases unworthy of their ancestors, whom they deserted or even betrayed the blood of Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Dyer is with us; but that is of less moment than the survival of their spirit, of the independence of the American woman when convinced of right, of her steadfastness in following her impulses, undeterred by sneers or even bodily perils. Though they were not directly of the Puritan mothers, not directly of the stock which has most numerically survived, the names of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer are deserving of honorable memorial as among the first founders of the feminine republic of America. They were pioneers also. Anne Hutchinson was the first woman preacher of whom we have record on these our shores, and she was the first of the many religious "prophetesses" who were to rise up and for a time draw men and women to them because of their personality rather than from any merit in their tenets. It was probably far less that which Mrs. Hutchinson preached than that which she was that brought to her meetings those "seventy or eighty" devoted women who looked upon her as one inspired. Mary Dyer had no following, was, like Him she preached, "despised and rejected of men"; but she was in a sense the protomartyr among women in our country, and she kindled a flame which in another guise rose to a gigantic conflagration when the time came for women to speak fearlessly and openly their thoughts concerning great matters.