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| LUCBETIA MOTT. $§l ant in her place. Pleased with the promotion, I strove hard to give satisfaction, and was gratified, cm leaving the school, to have an offer of a situation as teacher if I was disposed to remain; and informed that my services shoald entitle another sister to her education, without charge. My father was at that time, in successful business in Boston, bat with his views of the importance of training a woman to usefulness, he and my mother gave their consent to auothcr year being devoted to that institution." Here is another instance of the immeasurable value of wise parental influence. In 1809 Lucretia joined her family in Philadelphia, whither they had removed. " At the early ago of eighteen," she says, " I married James Mott, of New York—an attachment formed while at the boarding-school." Mr. Mott entered into business with her father. Then followed commercial depressions, the war of 1812,'the death of her father, and the family became involved in difficulties. Mrs. Mott was again obliged to resume teaching. " These trials," she says, " in early life, were not without their good effect in disciplining the mind, and leading it to set a just estimate on worldly pleasures." To this early training, to the example of a noble father and excellent mother, to the trials which came so quickly in her life, the rapid development of Mrs. Mott's intellect is no doubt greatly due. Thus the foundation was laid, which has enabled her, for more than fifty years, to be one of the great workers in the cause of suffering humanity. These are golden words which we quote from her own modest notes: "I, however, always loved the good, in childhood desired to do the right, and had no faith in the generally received idea of human depravity." Yes, it was because she believed in human virtue, that she was enabled to accomplish such a wonderful work. She had the inspiration of faith, and entered her life-battle against Slavery with a divine hope, and not with a gloomy despair. The next great step in Lueretia Mott's career, was taken at the age of twenty-five, when, " summoned by a little family and many cares, I fdt called to a more public life of devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in our Society." In 1827 when the Society was divided Mrs. Mott's convictions led her " to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on the truth as authority, rather than ' faking authority for truth.' " We may find no better place than this to refer to her relations to Christianity. There are many people who do not believe in the progress of religion. 'They are right in one respect. God's truth cannot be progressive because it is absolute, immutable and eternal. But the human race is struggling up to a higher comprehension of its own destiny and of the mysterious purposes of God so far as they are revealed to our finite intelligence. It is iti this sense that religion is progressive* The Christianity of this age ought to be more intelligent than |