We all know her—she is simply the woman of the past with an added grace—a newer charm. Some of her dearest ones call her "selfish" because she thinks so much of herself she spends her whole time helping others. She represents the composite beauty, sweetness and nobility of all those who scorn self for the sake of Love and her handmaiden Duty— of all those who seek the brightness of truth not as the moth to be destroyed thereby, but as the lark who soars and sings to the great sun. She is of those who have so much to give they want no time to take, and their name is legion. She is as full of beautiful possibilities as a perfect harp, and she realizes that all the harmonies of the universe are in herself, while her own soul plays upon magic strings the unwritten anthems of Love. She is the apostle of the True, the Beautiful, the Good — commissioned to complete all that the Twelve have left undone. Hers is the mission of missions— the highest of all— to make the body not the prison but the palace of the soul— with the brain for its great white throne.
When she comes like the south wind into the cold haunts of sin and sorrow her words are smiles, and her smiles are the sunlight which heals the stricken soul. Her hand is tender— but steel tempered with holy resolve, and as one whom her love had glorified once said— she is soft and gentle, but you could no more turn her from her course than winter could stop the coming of spring. She has long learned with patience, and to-day she knows many things dear to the soul far better than her teachers. In olden times the Jews claimed to be the conservators of the world's morals— they treated woman as a chattel, and said that because she was created after man, she was created solely for man. Too many still are Jews who never called Abraham "Father"— while the Jews themselves have long acknowledged woman as man's proper helpmeet. In those days women had few lawful claims and no one to urge them. True, there were Miriam and Esther— but they sang and sacrificed for their people, not for their sex. To-day there are ten thousand Esthers and Miriams by the million, who sing best by singing most for their own sex. They are demanding the right to help make the laws, or at least to help enforce the laws upon which depends the welfare of their husbands, their children and themselves. Why should our selfish self longer remain deaf to their cry? The date is no longer B. C. Might no longer makes right, and in this fair land at least fear has ceased to kiss the iron heel of wrong. Why then should we continue to demand woman's love and woman's help while we recklessly promise as lover and candidate what we never fulfil as husband and office-holder? In our secret heart our better self is shamed and dishonored, and appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, but has not yet the moral strength and courage to prosecute the appeal. But the east is rosy and the sunlight cannot long be delayed. Woman must not and will not be disheartened by a thousand denials or a million of broken pledges. With the assurance of Faith she prays, with the certainty of Inspiration she works, and with the patience of Genius she waits. At last she is becoming "as fair as the morn, as bright as the sun, and as terrible as an army with banners" to those who march under the black flag of oppression and wield the ruthless sword of injustice.
In olden times it was the Amazons who conquered the Invincibles and we must look now to their daughters to overcome our own allied armies of evil and to save us from ourselves. She must and will succeed, for as David sang — "God shall help her and that right early." When we try to praise her later works it is as if we would pour incense upon the rose. It is the proudest boast of many of us that we are" bound to her by bonds dearer than freedom," and that we live in the reflected royalty which shines from her brow. We rejoice with her that at last we begin to know what John on Patmos meant — "And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." She brought to warring men the Prince of Peace, and He, departing, left his sceptre not in her hand but in her soul. "The time of times" is near when "the New Woman" shall subdue the whole earth with the weapons of peace. Then shall wrong be robbed of her bitterness and ingratitude of her sting: revenge shall clasp hands with pity, and love shall dwell in the tents of hate, while side by side, equal partners in all that is worth living for, shall stand the new man with the new woman.—The New Century, Boston.
