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Show friends new and old, made it a time long to be remembered.'' Twenty-three auxiliaries were represented, and it was voted to become entirely independent of the Board of the Interior and take full place beside them and the Boston Board. Mrs. S. E. Henshaw read a carefully prepared paper in the afternoon that brought to a head a "mooted subject"-should ladies read their own papers in the general evening meeting. It was voted that the secretary's and treasurer's reports should be read-the one by a friend, the other in person. As to papers and essays, the idea seemed to prevail that "ladies should read their own papers in the general meeting, yet liberty was accorded TO THOSE WHO DID NOT SEE THEIR DUTY PLAINLY IN THAT DIRECTION." Mrs. Luther Gulick was there and told of her own work in Micronesia, of our Morning Star and its welcome visits; and a woman's dress from the Fiji Islands was exhibited "without any overskirt or train, in fact, so brief as to be hardly distinguished from a pocket handkerchief!'' The years slipped by. An organ was sent to Mexico, held for duty and encountered all sorts of vicissitudes. Miss Starkweather^ and Miss Rappleye M^anted organs also. Quilts were made and autographed and sold to hospitals and the proceeds turned to the society. Even aigrettes, pressed mosses and wild flowers figure in our finances. In 1878 Mrs. J. K. McLean was elected President. The seventh anniversary, held in the new First Church in Oakland proved so interesting "that the sun hung low and transformed the west window with glowing colors to a thing of beauty ere there was the least sign of breaking up.'' It was 1878 before we finally read our own reports in the general meeting. Mrs. S. S. Smith, Mrs. R. E. Cole and Mrs. Carrie Colby being the brave pioneer women. The reports constantly refer to the inspiration of the letters from the missionaries in the field, to us in our homes and to the great faith of those hard working, self-forgetting missionaries. [ 14 ] |