Lucretia Mott

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"I cannot go in without this woman," said Mrs. Mott quietly. Nonplussed for a moment, he looked at the kindly face, and said, "Oh, well, bring her in then!" Soon the "company's orders" were changed in the interests of humanity, and colored people as well as white enjoyed their civil rights, as becomes a great nation.

With all this beauty of character, Lucretia Mott had her trials. Somewhat early in life she and her husband had joined the so-called Unitarian branch of Quakers, and for this they were persecuted. So deep was the sectarian feeling, that once, when suffering from acute neuralgia, a physician who knew her well, when called to attend her, said, "Lucretia, I am so deeply afflicted by thy rebellious spirit, that I do not feel that I can prescribe for thee," and he left her to her sufferings. Such lack of toleration reads very strangely at this day.

In 1868, Mr. Mott and his wife, the one eighty, and the other seventy-five, went to Brooklyn, N.Y., to visit their grandchildren. He was taken ill of pneumonia, and expressed a wish to go home, but added, "I suppose I shall die here, and then I shall be at home; it is just as well." Mrs. Mott watched with him through the night, and at last, becoming weary, laid her head upon his pillow and went to sleep. In the morning, the daughter coming in, found the one resting from weariness, the other resting forever.

At the request of several colored men, who respected their benefactor, Mr. Mott was borne to his grave by their hands. Thus ended, for this world, what one who knew them well called "the most perfect wedded life to be found on earth."

Mrs. Mott said, "James and I loved each other more than ever since we worked together for a great cause." She carried out the old couplet:--

    "And be this thy pride, what but few have done,
    To hold fast the love thou hast early won."

After his death, she wrote to a friend, "I do not mourn, but rather remember my blessings, and the blessing of his long life with me."

For twelve years more she lived and did her various duties. She had seen the slave freed, and was thankful. The other reforms for which she labored were progressing. At eighty-five she still spoke in the great meetings. Each Christmas she carried turkeys, pies, and a gift for each man and woman at the "Aged Colored Home," in Philadelphia, driving twenty miles, there and back. Each year she sent a box of candy to each conductor and brakeman on the North Pennsylvania Railroad, "Because," she said, "they never let me lift out my bundles, but catch them up so quickly, and they all seem to know me."

Finally the time came for her to go to meet James. As the end drew near, she seemed to think that she was conducting her own funeral, and said, as though addressing an audience, "If you resolve to follow the Lamb wherever you may be led, you will find all the ways pleasant and the paths peace. Let me go! Do take me!"