THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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ences were exercised under the sacred guise of mother, wife or daughter, and in this triumvirate of holy relationship let the women of the old South be portrayed. Let her stand forth modestly, but seen of all eyes, as the rose-tree in the garden of that civili­zation which changed conditions have swept into the past.

I am well aware of the popular misapprehension that has existed in the North in regard to the South, and in the South in regard to the North; but I am equally as well aware that today I speak to the best informed, the most aspiring and the most cultured body of women in Christendom. Remembering the intelligence which makes you seek truth in every direction; remembering the breadth and force of character which made such an assembly as this possible; remembering the spirit of kindness which you have generated and disseminated to every quarter of the globe, I ask you to listen to a truthful portrayal of the characteristics of the better class of women in the old South.

Remember that there were two distinct civilizations at work in this Union ; that the wheel of progress was constantly turning in the North, fed by new forces from the Old World, while the conservative South proceeded along slower lines of develop­ment; remember how widely separated were the two peoples—that no iron bands linked their commercial relations; that the lightning had not been harnessed into hourly service; that the press of the country was the principal means of communica­tion, and that it was occupied mainly with the enumeration of exasperating political differences. Would that I had the power of presenting, as it should be presented, the beautiful and pathetic picture of the dutiful, painstaking wife and mother, who was the heart and soul of the old South-land. Instead of being a kind of Oriental queen, served and worshiped by her subjects, she was at the beck and call of everyone about the household. She not only attended to the minutest details of plantation life, but in time of pestilence and suffering she was the ministering angel. The limits of her charity were only bounded by the extent of her knowledge. That distinguished son of the South, Thomas Nelson Page, says: “She was mistress, manager, nurse, counsel­lor, seamstress, teacher, housekeeper, slave—all at once. What she really was, was known only to her God. Her life was one act of devotion—devotion to God, devotion to her children, devotion to her servants, to her friends, to the poor, to all humanity.” Certainly her physical endurance, her moral responsibility, her unflagging tact, were ever taxed to the utmost. I feel that her characteristics have never been more beauti­fully painted than by one who came from the extreme East, and who spent twelve years studying the South, her conditions and history. I allude to A. D. Mayo of Bos­ton. He says, in speaking of the Southern woman: “ She did so prevail in her own sphere of usefulness that the best manhood of the South fell down and worshiped at her shrine. She was the house-mother, the queen of society, the peace-maker of the neighborhood, the saint of the Church.”

Passing over those four years during which, owing to the collision of two separate and distinct civilizations, the whole country was bathed in blood, let us view the environ­ments of the Southern woman at the close of that period, and see how she met and coped with the appalling difficulties that confronted her.

The outside world has had no conception of the complete wreck of private for­tunes during the great struggle. History of recent date is beginning to throw some light upon the almost incredible privations of multitudes of Southern families, but its portrayal must necessarily have the weakness of the echo when compared with the actual suffering and despair of that day. Strange to say, the blow fell heaviest upon those who were the least prepared to withstand its severity. During the days of recon­struction, as during the war, the women carried the heavy end of the burden. How fresh in the memory of all is the magnificent struggle made by the women of New England, on the bleak Atlantic coast, in the two centuries succeeding the landing of the Mayflower. Their toils, their hardships, their trials and sacrifices, were almost incredible, and the bravery and heroism with which they were encountered have never been surpassed in the annals of history.

The difficulties that confronted the women of the South in the reconstruction