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HINTS TRON HISTORY: Li, "i^ T "
<By A. H. Ellett.
What Can a Woman Do?
HEN’ Bremen, with an army of 75,000
barbarians, had slain the Roman army
on the banks of the Allia—when he
had marched without further opposi
tion into Rome and had slain the
eighty aged senators who sat in the
Forum, on their ivory chairs—when
provisions in the citadel were consumed,
and Rome must be ransomed or perish,
T
then it was that her women came forward with
their dearest possessions and saved the city.
When Rome, in her turn, beset the city of Car
thage; when the darkness of despair began to
creep over the doomed city, it was the devotion of
her women that nerved the hearts of the men for
three years to withstand the siege of the Romans.
It was the women within the walls who willingly
ent off their beautiful hair to furnish bow strings
for the soldiers and saved, for a while, this city
of 700,000 people from the mortal wrath of its
invaders.
Sisera, the captain of the hosts of Jabin, king of
Canaan, had 900 chariots of iron. For twenty
years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.
It was Deborah who met him on the field of bat
tle and delivered Israel.
King Ahasuerus had listened to the counsels of
Haman. Haman had called the scribes and had
sent to all the provinces the order “to destroy,
to kill and to cause to perish all Jews, both young
and old, little children and women.” The orders
were hastened by the king’s decree, and the king
and Haman sat down to drink. Then a woman was
sent for a time like this. Esther delivered her
people.
In France, in the Reign of Terror, the one clear
brain, the one true heart, the one undaunted soul,
was that of a woman. Madam Roland’s character
is the one clear star in all that midnight sky of
horror.
The wife of Disraeli, who sat throughout the
drive with her hand crushed in the carriage door,
rather than risk disturbing the train of thought
in the mind of the great minister, was greater than
he, and is the explanation of his greatness.
Garabaldi attributes his success to a woman.
John Quincy Adams lays the crown of .his life
work at her feet.
“She can send to the helm of the ship of State
A peerless pilot, good and great,
And I ween if the ship shall reach the strand
Os the hoped-for haven of the hoped-for land
And drop her anchor in the golden bay
At the golden close of a golden day,
’Twill be by a woman’s hand.”
Had Brutus listened to Portia, he need not have
died on the field of Philippi. The prophecies of
Cassandra were true, and if the Trojans had be
lieved them “Hium suit” might not have been
written.
Had Pilate minded the pleadings cf his wife, he
would not have been guilty of the blood of the
Christ.
Woman’s intuition, lighted by the love in her
heart, has seldom been at fault.
“She can unfold better than the sages can,
The unread scroll of the fate of man,
And I wist, also, she can read the chart,
With a clearer vision and a surer art;
And the wisest love this old world knows,
And the wise man comes, and the wise man goes,
Is the love of a woman’s heart.”
The proper soil in which to sow the seed of a
great truth is a heart of faith. The heart of Lydia,
a seller of purple, was the soil in which first grew
the fruits of Christianity for Europe.
When Christ said: * ‘Great is thy faith: be it
unto thee even as thou wilt,” he was speaking to
a woman. On another occasion, when Ho said:
“Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace,” He was
speaking to a woman,
The Golden Age for October 24, 1907.
Always the faith and loving trust of womankind
has put to shame the arrogant scepticism of men.
“With her tears she can moisten the Master’s feet,
And can fill all the years with the odors sweet
Os the spikenard broke to anoint His head,
And can treasure the truth that the Master said:
‘She hath done what she could,’ ah, the sceptic
might
Give the life that he lives if the Lord would write
Such a record of him when he’s dead.”
After all the prayers and entreaties of the sen
ate had failed to turn aside Coriolanus from the
destruction of his native city, a word from his
mother melted his heart and rescued Rome.
The only hand that ruled the “man of des
tiny” while his hand ruled the world, was the
hand of a woman, and if Napoleon Bonaparte had
remained constant to Josephine, maybe the story
of Waterloo and St. Helena would not have been
written.
Not the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the so-called
emancipator, but that of Frances E. Willard shall
yet lead the armies drawn against the legions of
King Alcohol, and shall set our people free.
“Lord of creation” is a pleasing phrase, and
yet I fancy the sovereignty of this world is in
tenderer hands than his.
‘ ‘ She can rule in the realm of the human heart,
And reign as a queen by her woman’s art*
She can rout all the legions of sorrow 7 and pain,
And all the dark spirits that wait in their train;
She can sow, e’en in sorrow, and water with tears
The germs that shall gladden the glorified years
With the gladness of Eden again.”
“ ‘What hath a woman done?’ I heard the ages
ask:
She hath brought in the brightness and banished
the gloom,
She hath banished the canker and brought in the
bloom,
She hath watched at the cradle and wept by the
grave
Os the dreams of the free and the hopes of the
brave;
And the undying deeds of her service sublime
Shall bless this old world till the ripples of Time
Shall blend in eternity’s morn.”
R I?
The Prohibition Fight.
District Superintendent T. S. Buckingham, in the
Kentucky Issue of October 1, says: “They, the
liquor sellers, must blame themselves for engaging
in a traffic that is found to be out of accord with
the conscience of the vast majority of our citizens.
The Anti-Saloon League is simply a means of giv
ing the people a chance to enforce their will. We
adopted this method from the liquor men, and it
may be are bettering cn their instructions. There
fore, stand out from under.”
Now and then, even at this late day, some sim
pleton or badly informed man, otherwise sensible,
attempts to ridicule prohibitory measures as
“sumptuary.” The word “sumptuary” is
from the Latin “sumptuarius,” and that is
from “sumptus,” which means “expense.”
The French word is “sumptuaire.” The
meaning, therefore, is things that relate to expense.
Hence sumptuary laws are laws that relate to ex
pense. They have no relation to criminal statutes,
but the word “sumptuary” distinguishes them
from criminal law. A writer in Kentucky Issue of
October 1, submits that all lav’s are “sumptuary,”
but he is wrong. There is no “sumptuary” law on
the statute books of Georgia. Citizens are at lib
erty to expend as much or as little money as they
please, provided the money they propose to spend
is their own. If it should be the money of some
one else, the laws say if you spend it, you must
go to the penitentiary. That is not said because
the spending of the money would be extravagant,
but because it would be stealing. That is not a
“sumptuary” law, but a criminal law. If there
were a law that no woman should pay more than
$4.50 for a hat, that law would be “sumptuary.”
If the law said that no one should serve more than
two kinds of wine at a banquet, it would be
“sumptuary.” If a law forbade anyone’s having
more than two pairs of shoes it would be “sumpt
uary.” But a law that forbids all persons selling
or otherwise furnishing intoxicating drinks or toxic
drugs is not a law relating to expense, but is a law
to prevent crime. Such laws, therefore, are not
“sumptuary,” but are criminal. So of * “Sun
day closing” and kindred laws. They are police
regulations, or, as described above, “laws to pre
vent crime.”
The temperance question has reached the stage
in every State where it refuses to back up and be
hitched. The sentiment is gaining ground that a
business that has to have thrown about it all the
restrains and protections of the law is a business
that is not respectable enough to exist unrestrained
in a civilized community, and is making it neces
sary for the men behind the bung and vat to go
slow. —Denver Times.
The Prohibition Press gives an account of the
study made in Oklahoma by the real estate men,
Chamber of Commerce, and the newspapers and the
like, of the effect that prohibition is likely to have
on values in that city. They sent a committee of
business men to look at Kansas City, Kansas, and
report conditions. They carefully examined the
evidence about home and concluded that Oklahoma
had nothing to fear, but, cn the contrary, every
reason to be hopeful in respect to her business fu
ture. This conclusion is, of course, correct. Those
of us who have been watching these things for years
could not expect that intelligent men with the facts
before them would reach any other conclusion.
« *
JVot Quite Clear.
A well-known clergyman of Boston was once talk
ing to some friends with reference to the desira
bilitv of chronological coherence in ideas, in the
form of written statement, when he observed that
there are times when this method becomes a trifle
too suggestive.
“For instance.” said the speaker, “I once heard
a minister in New Hampshire make his usual Sun
day morning announcements as follows:
“ ‘The funeral of the late and much lamented
sexton takes place on Wednesday afternoon at 3
o ’clock.
“ ‘Thanksgiving services will be held in this
chapel on Thursday morning at 11 o’clock.’
Lippincott’s Magazine.
*
A Great f Nelv School.
(Continued from Page 2.)
than three hundred acres in the rear, much of it in
a high state of cultivation, with orchards of Japan
plum and peach and orange, and acres of it in sugar
cane, corn, peas and grass—and a lale large enough
to float a good-sized navy.
The buildings are Romanesque, Gothic and Moor
ish in style, and can accommodate five hundred stu
dents; some of these buildings have floors of mar
ble and roofs of tile and tin. It is simply marvelous
to think that here Columbia College gets in a day
what it has taken other colleges seventy-five years
to provide.
But it will cost money to run it. Let all friends
of the cause rally around this great infant and
supply the needed nourishment in contributions to
current expenses, endowment, library, and other
buildings. Eight hundred and fifty volumes have
already been donated as a start for the lihrarv. A
great many can help in this wav bv gift of valuable
books that can easily be spared from many private
libraries.
The president announced an enrollment of one
hundred and thirty-six the first day, and among this
number are ten students for the ministry. It is
fully expected that the enrollment will reach at least
two hundred within the next thirty days, and we
expect five hundred students in two years.
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