THE EXALTATION OF WOMANHOOD. 129 man, the individual being in himself sufficient, standing alone-one man and one woman with their little ones under the only social compact and living isolated it might be, as were Crusoe and Friday on the island, and as were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, man's thoughts today would extend no farther than to subsistence, as of the lower animals. That day has gone by. All mankind have become one family. Now the chief good is not "self-help," but "help one another." What could the thousands in San Francisco and other towns and cities of California, reduced to a state of dependence by earthquake and fire, have done unaided by their fellows at a distance, and by the national, state and city governments of our country? Here the only true and enlightened motive came to the forefront—yes, the only motive left to mankind in the present advanced stage of enlightenment-the common good. Why so? It is because of what the dead have bequeathed us, and of our own increased intelligence. The dead have given us water, steam and electric power; and these new forces have brought about such a change of conditions as have broken up and destroyed the old order, leaving, in the interim, a condition of social anarchy. The designing take advantage of this anarchal condition to pile up, beyond their needs, what is not by nature their own, because others must use it must consume it or perish of hunger and cold, and because given us by those gone before-inventors, etc. And whatever surplus exists, beyond needs essential to life, must rot or "moth and rust corrupt"-must perish from the earth. When the blacksmith has gathered all that he and his can consume, why should he gather more, unless to bestow it on the needy-as are the California sufferers and the denizens of the slums? Now will ye old schoolmaster of ye olden time be understood and his words appreciated for their truthfulness when he says that provision for me and mine ends when I have enough to satisfy present and future wants of myself and dependents? If the blacksmith shoe horses beyond this demand of his household, it should be done gratuitously, or the work be given by him to other hands to do. He ought to say: "I have sufficient; another may have my place." Whoever is well provided against want should step aside and give others a chance to make a living. No one in any office or pursuit should receive beyond a fair subsistence for him and his dependents, since the end of effort, according to Nature, is then attained. But that beyond-whose is it? It is his who most needs it. Now comes in the higher motive: "I have more than I need; I will distribute it where it will do most good." That is what Mr. Carnegie has said and is endeavoring to do with his surplus. But the many know more than the one-hence, democracy. Let the surplus be distributed by the state-not by individuals or petty corporations. I would speak in tones so loud as to be heard across seas: No corporation should be tolerated in which every man, woman and child of the nation is not an equal stockholder and all profits be distributed equally to each and all in the land, and in every land, if needful, for the conservation of the common weal universally. YE 88TH LESSON. The Exaltation of Womanhood. What is it? Browsing like the ox? The spirit world is free from it. There life is assured. All to do in spirit life is to guide to direct the course of life-nothing to keep life up. The fire that moves the engine to action burns without having to shovel in coal. Womankind are crazy to hold the position of stoker. It is no desirable office; but it is "woman's rights" to have and to hold it. Of course, we ought to be ever busy. But there is work superior to that of stoker for woman to do. She ought to be glad to be relieved of the work of having to earn a living. She ought to rejoice that she may give her strength to a better work than this. What is that better work? God's work. It is not merely to be the giver of life, as God said, "let there be light and life," but higher yet are the duties devolving on her. True, to be "mother" is a high office for which the living are most grateful. Mother! How we love her! That love is the manifestation of our gratitude for the life we possess. We may neglect to write to "father," but we cannot neglect to send missives of love to her. It is her grave that we visit because we must and can't help it-are drawn to do so by love. We visit our father's grave as a duty. Mother, why entrust the care of your child to a nurse? Don't do it. Look after your darling yourself. That is your God-work. Prepare your sons to be men and not grafters. You want to do man's work, do you? Does the president of the United States aspire to fill the office of road supervisor? 0, mother, teach your daughter that she is far superior to your son and holds an office by the grace of God more honorable and more noble than any but the woman's office-and the work assigned her to do is the only work not drudgery. But a false philosophy is destroying the world. What is all human effort directed to? It is to one end alone, the safeguarding of motherhood. Not a thing is done but is directed to this sole end. That is all that any movement means. Not an action is performed that has not this end in view. That is the one and only object of human effort. It is the pivot around which all things on the plane of life revolve. It is the medula oblongata of sentient existence. Men build for no other purpose cultivate the fields for no other purpose-navigate the seas for no other purpose- -go to war for no other purpose. Indeed, there is no other purpose in life but the safeguarding of motherhood. Do mothers know this? Know that they stand next to the Highest? God is "Mother-God"--not "Father-God," according to His office. We say "mother nature." Well, if God leaves all to nature and He is merely a looker-on as the Zulu leaves all the work to his wife and he lies in the shade while she does it, then may we consistently say "Father-God" and not "Mother-God?" What is our bounden duty as men? It is to "Rally round the flag" and defend woman's right of support in her high office. And she deserves as liberal a support, at least, as is received by the president of an insurance company, since the office that God and His good angels have elected her to fill is so much more responsible and superior to any ever held by man, be he King, Kaiser or Czar-if she rightly fill it. But has she of late done so? Has she discharged the duties of her high office fittingly? No, she has not. If she had disciplied her sons in their youth as she ought to have done, there would be no tobacco fiends, cigarette fiends, drunkards, grafters or wrong-doers of any sort in the world. She is responsible for all the evil that men do, as well as the good. The characters of all men are formed in boyhood. The mother's task is gigantic. But much of the work of her hands is of a poor quality now and only because she has neglected to do her duty by her little ones. Yet, there is hope. Mothers' congresses will not fail to direct the thoughts of the "new woman"-bewildered and crazed -into a channel of sanity and her children will become her only concern. Congress of Mothers! Noble throng! In doing good unweary; The angels cheer on wings of love; among the angels Mary. Young womanhood ne'er stood so high and he who would decry The virtue of our daughters, oh, ignobly let him die! WOMAN AND MAN. Along with freedom walks the maiden goddess-Chaste Dian, 131 What was the ideal of womanhood of the ancient Athenians? In the words of Pericles: "She is the best of women who is most truly a woman; and her reputation is the highest whose name is never in the mouths of men for good or for evil.” YE 89TH LESSON. Woman and Man. Woman's name is here placed before man's because she is first, not in strength of body nor in that of intellect in the direction that man has been compelled of necessity to use his; but in mind she is his superior, heart reckoned in, because she is the vital factor of human life on the planet earth, and the exercise of her faculties of heart and brain has been along the more essential lines of effort. The comparative, natural standing and importance of each must be weighed and estimated by the scientist. One person may become expert on the trapeze; but this expertness is not of equal weight with that of another person in swimming, or in hunting or fishing or in tilling the soil or in carpentery or in any other line of useful exercise or labor. And there is no other criterion of comparative worth but usefulness. The place of woman in the economy of human existence is highest. Man is the "helpmeet" and not woman. Woman was first createdthat is to say, sentient life was first female, the male property included in the unit of being-the single cell-the monad or moneron, which, dividing became two separate existences or living intelligences. The same holds true in a class of plant organisms. The poplar and the willow may be divided, every separate branch or twig or bud planted in early spring will become a shrub, bush, and finally a tree as it advances in growth. So the female from the human down to the moneron is first in importance-the primal and primary being-the male an after division and his importance secondary-only essential as are bees and other insects that extract sweets from flowers essential to the fertilization of certain plants-the cucumber, for instance. Man, in the economy of nature became stronger than woman physically by the necessity of existence through the process of evolution. Nothing has come about by chance, and everything by the necessity of the situation. So man became the guardian and protector of woman as she was ever by her condition guardian of her young. He, the stronger in body, "ruled over her"-as she over her little ones-and by the exercise of his physical strength has held her to her motherly and wifely duties and obligations under natural and primitive conditions. And it has been essential that he did so-essential to the life of the race. What had to be for this end was right to be-call it slavery if you will. Right and wrong are relative terms. What has to be ought to be. It is right to kill rather than submit to being killed. "Self-preservation is the first law of nature"-a law applying to the race as to the individual. If to preserve the life of the race the weaker must yield her will to the stronger, it is right. If womankind by convention declare that they will not fill their natural office of motherhood-revolt against nature as a class-then the law of physical force-of "might makes right" comes in of necessity again and the wisdom and beneficence of the natural order, that has bestowed on man the preponderance of physical power, be-. comes apparent. If her knowledge of good and evil control her, and she choose the evil, and man by his God-given physical superiority, compulsorily, according to nature, hold her fast under nature's law to be "fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth," preventing "race suicide," that is otherwise inevitable, where is the wrong? She must keep to nature and obey nature's laws-peacefully or forcefully-"she may or she must”—or why was man given superior power, which to her is nature's mandate of obedience? Is it not time that all opened their eyes wide to see the situation? Let every dwelling become an asylum for the reclamation of womankind from madness. Let the schooling of girls be different from that of boys, and let each be taught what is fitting for each to know in their separate stations in life. There is work for both to do, but not in the same line. Let the boys be fitted for the work essential to men and the girls for the work essential to women. The issue means the life and happiness of millions or degeneracy and annihilation. If love, duty and sanity have become nil on the part of womankind, the strong arm will finally decide it. The phantom— the "willow the wisp" of "higher education," golf and pleasure-seeking -the rot of riches-has been followed too far already—the distaff and the cradle set aside. We have arrived at the valley of dry bones. "Son of man," it is said, "can these bones live?" The answer is, "O Lord God, thou knowest!" But the word comes back, "Prophesy upon these bones and say unto them O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord ** and ye shall live." What is that word of the Lord? "Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth." YE 90TH LESSON. Twentieth Century Abolitionism. It is plain and easily comprehensible by every sane mind that if no metallic or paper checks, that is to say, money, bonds, notes, mortgages, stocks, etc., exchangeable for articles preservative of life: grain, vegetables, clothing-the products of labor-real wealth-were in existence, that it would not only be impossible to hold for any great length of time those products, because perishable by nature, out of reach of the needy; but there would be no wish or desire on the part of any to possess or hold fast more of them than would suffice for the maintenance of life in comfort. It is also as plain and comprehensible that, if all of these artificial devices of Satan were put an end to, there would be no millionaires and no paupers. But is it possible that production would continue and be stimulated as now and real wealth be called into existence to meet all wants? Yes. How may this be? A system of exchange checks may be substituted for money as short-lived as are the products that the checks would stand to represent. Imperishable checks exchangeable for perishable products is a device of the devil-a figure of speech that rightly explains the situation. There is no wealth in existence that can be inherited that is imperishable. "But," says the reader, "does not the Scottish Duke of Athol, Sir John James Henry Hugh Stewart, own three hundred and three thousand acres of land that has descended to him in an undisputed title from father to eldest son for centuries upon centuries and isn't that landed estate wealth?" It is natural wealth, but it does not any more rightfully belong to the said Scottish duke than to any other man whose living is derived from it. His paper title to that estate is not of any weight in the court of God Almighty, that is to say, outside of an artifice that, if men were not blinded by tradition, would not stand a moment; but that same three hundred and seventeen and three-fourths square miles of land monopolized by the Scottish duke would be public land subject to homestead entry in small holdings no larger than will support a family-as all the world will one day be divided, and, I trust, soon. The unjust artifice of land monopoly rests on public opinion which, when enlightened and rightfully ex THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA. 133 pressed in legal enactment, will make all men equal partakers of nature's bounties. Indeed, there is nothing outside of subsistence guaranteed to each by the social compact, that does not belong alike to all. Every man, woman and child is equal owner of all things and has an equal right of shelter in every mansion with the so-called owner himself. By what law? By that of hospitality. It is defined in the New Testament, "And they had all things common.” How plain to every sane mind that what I cannot make use of belongs to him who can make use of it. The common right of life is paramount. No man may deprive another of or hold out of the reach of another, the means of life has any right to say to another "You may not breathe the air of heaven," which is indeed no less the absolute property of one than is the land of earth. He that shuts me off the land shuts off my breath. When the disinherited many have awakened from the Rip Van Winkle sleep of the ages, as ere long they will awaken, they will then say to the greedy monopolists, "Live and let others live." The ancient law of wrong that enslaves the many, by disinheriting them, must go the way that chattel slavery went, both alike being inherited from the same cruel age of war and barbarity when "might made right," when what one could do assured him the right to do, when men and women were seized by force on the African coast and brought to the United States and sold as beasts are sold and "Christians" (so-called) said: "We thus make great gain for God's ministers and people.' (Cotton Mather.) The true meaning of the word "freedom" is that ancient barbarism is outgrown and that a new era has come in when every latchstring hangs out and all God's children have become equal sharers of His bounty. Yes, when again "all things are common," when a wrong inflicted on one is felt by all and when all will join hands to rectify the wrong, as is being exemplified this very day when two thousand five hundred carmen have struck on the Rock Island railroad to compel the reinstatement of one man whom they believe was wrongfully treated-dismissed unjustly from employment. Can any one rightfully call himself a Christian who does not prefer others' welfare to his own? Henceforth, as in the beginning, this love of the one for all and of all for the one will be the criterion of the true faith, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Confucian, Zoroastrian, etc.-all one fundamentally, instead of adherence to the dogmas of the dark ages. It is today the religion of labor the world over. And that religion is primitive Christianity, as when with the disciples "all things were common." YE 91ST LESSON. The New Industrial Era. The wage era followed that of chattel slavery. The "New Industrial Era" is the coming in of co-operative effort. He that will not welcome co-operation is surely anti-Christian; for the word co-operation comprehends in its significance all that Jesus lived for-all that all the saints and apostles since the day of his crucifixion on Calvary have labored for. The inauguration of co-operative production and co-operative distribution of all the essentials of human life and happiness of earth is the inauguration of the Kingdom of God-the coming of the New Jerusalem, and, too, of the Sibyline era. It is a consummation for which any patriot, any philanthropist and any Christian will gladly lay down his life and what Jesus, Isaiah and the Sibyl foresaw approaching. "But the people are not ready," is the cry we hear on every hand. When will they be ready? How long has Christ's Kingdom been looked for? Who will not welcome his second coming? Who will shut the door to keep him out? Who dare say he will not give his |