THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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stand side by side with man in the government is to purify it, protect the home and make the world better and more Christ-like.
Is she not in a great measure robbed of her power to do this?
I saw in Pomona, Cal., a beautiful Woman’s Christian Temperance Union banner which impressed me deeply. Painted on white satin was the picture of a charming young mother, holding with her left arm her little boy as high as possible above the serpent coiled about her feet, with head raised ready to strike her darling. In her right hand she held a daggerwith which she was trying to destroy the deadly serpent, but that hand was chained to the ballot box below, and she was powerless to save her beautiful boy. So are the purposes of woman thwarted in protecting her home and the children which God has given her; but a better day is dawning, and our noblest brothers are already convinced that to best uplift humanity and advance Christianity is to confer upon woman her right of suffrage. To Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. James P. Eagle, and the brave self-sacrificing women who have so grandly served on this board of managers, thus advancing the interests of the womanhood of the world, we owe more than we can now realize; but as the years go by we shall see more of the far- reaching and wonderful results. Your power has been felt, and your purpose for the advancement of woman has been served. Gerald Massey beautifully describes the struggles of woman during this century:
Our hearts brood o’er the past, our eyes With smiling futures glisten;
Lo ! now its dawn bursts upon the sky;
Lean out your souls and listen.
The earth rolls freedom’s radiant ways,
And ripens with our sorrow;
And ’tis the martyrdom.today Brings victory tomorrow. .
’Tis weary watching, wave by wave,
And yet the tide heaves onward;
We climb like corals, grave by grave,
Yet beat a pathway sunward.
We’re beaten back in many a fray,
' Yet newer strength we borrow;
And where our vanguard rests today,
Our rear shall rest tomorrow.