Newspaper Page Text
MAY, 1898.
For Woman’s Work.
To-morrow.
‘ ‘To-morrow, ’ ’ we say, as our hearts are stirred
By a plea for help to-day;
“To-morrow we’ll speak a kindly word,
To cheer some traveler’s way.’’
“To-morrow’’ we’ll do some golden deed,
A fainting one uphold;
Or sow perchance the precious seed
That shall yield an hundred fold.
“To-morrow’’ we’ll visit the sick and poor
Who lowly paths must tread;
And willingly give of our bounteous store
To those who lack for bread.
“To-morrow,’’ to hearts by sin weighed down,
We’ll tell of a Saviour’s love;
Os pardon and peace, the conqueror’s crown,
And the glorious home above.
“To-morrow,” alas, it is not our own,
To employ for good or ill;
To-morrow belongs to God alone,
To-day is with us still.
Then wait we not for to-morrow’s sun,
But heed the call to-day,
And do with our might till life be done
The work God puts in our way.
Essie M. Howell.
For Woman’s Work
“Complete Living.**
*0 THOSE who understand the true
significance of human life, Frances
E. Willard seemed the very flower of
Nineteenth Century womanho >d. Not so
much because of the work she did—though
it was great—but for what she was: do
ing is never greater than being. There
may have been women of greater genius,
but George Eliot, with her unrivaled in
tellect and learning, was a soul groping
in the dark. For her, life was ever tinged
with sad fatality; she could not realize the
joy of being, for she knew not the God of
nature and of love. I have wondered
what George Eliot would have been if
that great mind had dwelt in a sound and
buoyant body.
Other women of genius—Madame de
Stael, and Sonya Kovalevsky, for instance
—found life disappointing; they did their
work with lonely, unsatisfied hearts.
Better than all, Miss Willard seemed to
have a genius for complete living. L u dy
Henry Somerset says of her friend: “She
was a character more perfectly human,
more exquisitely divine, than any other I
ever met.”
That is the ideal of complete living. If
evolution of human life means anything, it
is symmetrical development—intellectual,
moral and physical development, with the
crowning gift of spiritual insight that sees
God in everything and realizes the object
of all human achievements —happiness.
Complete living is not confined to those
persons of genius, or of great gifts; the
work we do may not win fame, but it is
given to us to do, it is ours, no one else
can do it, and it belongs to the great plan.
Only eternity can unfold the story of cause
and effect.
Says Phillips Brooks:
“Life, whict often seems a poor, extem
poraneous thing, is really an episode of
<ternity, and every man must at some
time bring his life before etern'ty.”
Miss Willard’s life is an example of
complete living. We are fortunate to live
in an age when this is possible. It is
possible because evolution has brought us
io the place where we can know] all that
has been before are lessons to teach us
this. I wish all mothers would feel the
inspiration of the meaning of life: give
your child a chance to live completely,
and your highest ambition will be realized.
Miss Willard’s life is another illustra
tion of natural growth in a natural en
vironment. For the serious consideration
of mothers of daughters, I quote a bit of
autobiography which Miss Willard fur
nished to Dr. M. L. Holbrook, of The
Journal of Hygiene; every word of it is
freighted with wisdom:
“It was my remarkably good fortune to
FRANCES E. WILLARD AS A TYPE.
be born of parents who were clean from
the alcohol and tobacco taint, and so far
as I can trace my ancestry through several
generations, there was but one intemper
ate person in the ranks, and he was a dis
tant relative out of the direct line. It
was also my unspeakable privilege, being
‘only a girl’ to enjoy the utmost freedom
from fashionable restraints up to the age
of eighteen years. Reared in the country
on a Western farm, I was absolutely igno
rant of tight shoes, corsets, or extinguisher
bonnets, and all the other concomitants of
woman’s bondage to the decrees of Mrs.
Grundy. Clad during three-fourths of the
year in flannel suits, not unlike those
worn at ‘gymnastics’ now by young lady
collegians, and spending most of my time
in the open air, the companion in work as
well as in sport of my only brother, I
knew much more about handling rake and
hoe than I did of frying-pan and needle;
knew the name and use of every imple
ment handled by carpenter and joiner;
could chase the sheep all day and never
tire; had a good knowledge of farming,
gardening and the like; was an enthusi
astic poultry raiser; and by means of this
natural out door life, eight or nine hours
sleep in twenty-four, a sensible manner of
dress and the plain fare of bread and but
ter, vegetables, eggs, milk, fruit and fowl,
I was enabled to ‘store up electricity’ for
the time to come.
“My parents lived five years in Oberlin
before 1 was seven years of age, at the
time when ‘Grahamites’ were popular, and
they became indoctrinated with many of
the ideas of Dr. Jennings, whose ‘water
cure’ book my father was fond of reading.
As a result, the three children were each
promised a library to cost SIOO apiece, if
we would not touch tea or coffee until we
became of age. Subsequently I used both
for years, very moderately, but have now
entirely discarded them. A physician
was almost an unknown visitant at our
house. I have no recollection of such a
personage being called for me before 1
was fourteen, and although my mother
says that when an infant I was the fee
blest of her children, I have outlived all
the family except herself. * * * * *
“I never ‘saw the inside of a school
house’ until my fifteenth year, but was
encouraged to read and study somewhat
at home, and always lived in an intellectu
al atmosphere, my parents and our few
friends and neighbors being persons of
education and earnest purpose. Although
my first school was in a country district,
the teacher was a graduate of Yale and had
been for years a classical tutor in Oberlin
college. My parents were of Puritanical
training as to Sabbath observance, and I
WOMAN’S WORK.
count its rhythnrc period of rest, an ele
ment in the health antecedents here
enumerated, as well as the late beginning
of my school days. I have written thus in
detail of what might be popularly termed
the ‘indirect reasons’ for my long life and
good health, because my study of the
temperance question teaches me that
heredity and early training are the most
direct procuring causes of physical sound
ness. lam now in my forty-seventh year,
and though, since sharing the great and
varied disabilities of a more conventional
life, I have had two acute illnesses and
several slight ones, my health is so uni
form that I have often laughingly told my
friends 1 had composed the first line of
my ‘great epic,’ and it is this:
‘PAINLESS IN A WORLD OF PAIN.’
‘•The chief wonder of my life is that I
dare to have a good time both physically,
mentally and religiously. I have swung
like a pendulum through my years, ‘with
out haste, without rest.’ What it would
be to have an idle hour I find it hard to
fancy. With no headache, why should I
not think ‘right straight ahead?’ My
whole life has been spent in intellectual
activities, having begun to teach when
about twenty years of age, and pursued
the difficult avocation with no set-back or
breakdown until I dedicated myself to the
Temperance Reform in 1874. (I should
except about two years and a half of hard
study, writing and traveling in Europe
and the East between 1868 and 1870.) In
the last twelve years I have been perpet
ually ‘on the road’, going fifteen thousand
to twenty thousand miles per year, visiting
in 1883 every state and territory in the
Union, and holding a meeting once oer
day on an average throughout the entire
period. It has been my custom to write
articles and letters and plan work, being
thus constantly employed all day long on
the cars, and then give an address at night.
“Now, lam aware that this is not a
hygienic mode of procedure, and that to
breathe car air and audience atmosphere
year in and year out is not conducive to
the best development. But it was the
only way for me to reach the one thou
sand towns ‘set as my stint’ (a farm fash
ion we had, this of ‘doing our stint’ per
sisted in as an inherited tendency) and
feeling so adequate to the day’s doings. I
went steadily on, taking the opportunity
to recline in the quiet of my apartment
between the meetings, stating to friends
that visiting was impossible to me, and
making it an invariable rule to go direct
from the platform to my room. Here a
cup of bread and milk, a cracker, or a few
spoonfuls of beef tea were taken in order
to set up a counter-action to the move
ments of the brain, and I went to sleep a
few minutes after going to my room,
usually getting eight hours. * * * ■»
My rising hour has long been from seven
to half past; (1 wish it were earlier) and
retiring anywhere from half past seven to
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half past nine; but when traveling it has
been about ten. I regard that hour as the
line of recuperation, vigor, and sustained
mental activity. Eight hours of writing
and study, all of them between breakfast
and tea has been my rule. After the eve
ning meal at six o’clock I will not work—
lecturing is of course excepted. In this
field I have studied the non-dramatic style
because it is less wearing and fully as well
adapted to purposes of information and
conviction. **»•»*
“My manner of life has recently been
changed from peripatetic to stationary,
and my purpose is for the next ten years
at least, should God spare my life so long,
to live in my quiet cottage home at Evan
ston, in the suburbs of Chicago, with my
mother and a dozen secretaries, and help
to spread the temperance propaganda by
pen stead of voice. I expect, as a rule, to
sit at my desk from eight thirty or nine
a. m., until six p. m. daily, with a half
hour’s interval from twelve thirty to one
o'clock, with exception of an outing of
about half an hour. The tricycle for the
open air and the home exercises within,
are my basis of gymnastics. Walking I
delighted in when I could go unimpeded;
but from the sorrowful day when my hair
was first twisted up, and long skirts twist
ed down I have never enjoyed that noole
form of exercise, and I have met very few
women in this country who really walk
at all. Wrigglers, hobbiers, amblers and
gliders, I am familiar with among women,
but walking is an art hereditarily lost to
our sex.
“ ’Tie true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis ’tis
true.’ I never touch the pen after tea, and
ten o’clock finds our house dark as a
pocket, silent as a tomb and restful as a
cradle.
“Believe me, dear doctor, I have not
jotted down these personal items because
I think my methods specially noteworthy,
or by any means faultless. The fact is,
you asked me to do this; I esteem highly
your life-work, and have learned lessons so
invaluable from your Herald of Health in
past years, that I was happy to comply
with a request from such a source, hoping
withal, that some good might come of it.
Hoping also, that we may learn the Health
Decalogue of our Heavenly Father so
thoroughly, and be so loyal to it, that we
shall ail become as healthy and as happy
as I am sure by the analogies of nature
and teachings of grace, He meant us to be.
I am yours, willing, though not expecting
under the necessary conditions of my life,
to live a century and work right on.
Frances E. Willard.”
It is not how long we live, but how
well. Frances E. Willard lived nobly,
joyously, and when death was at hand she
•seemed supremely happy.” Her last
words were: “How beautiful it is to be
with God!”
Howard Meriwether Lovett.
3