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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

Its promise is bright and most hopeful, we deem,

For brothers and sisters together,

Now, side by side, drink from wisdom’s deep fount,

In cloudy and sunshiny weather.

The parents and children together now search For the treasures of all ancient lore;

The mothers need never again be styled,

“ The old servant who waits on the door.”

Some think that the race, in the coming years,

For position, for culture, for health,

Between man and woman, and boy and girl,

For honors, for fame, for wealth,

Will settle some questions of present dark need,

Which hope to some sad hearts may carry,

When woman can live by her own honest work She’ll not be in haste to marry.

When she’ll give her hand in the marriage bond To the lawyer she’ll ne’er be a debtor;

’Twill be for pure love, and not for a home,

There’ll be fewer ties, but better.

The tomorrow of woman stands not alone,

With the sunrise light in her face,

But also for man waits a blessing sure,

If he’s found in a true man’s place.

We are nearing the end of another page In the history’s roll of the world,

A century’s close is a turning time,

New truths will then be unfurled.

Since the Puritan Fathers first came to these shores, And their homes of liberty sought,

The dawning time of each hundred years Has given to the world its new thought.

Both the church and the state, in the passing of years, Have rolled many clouds far away,

And the gloom and the fear of the Puritan creeds Are truly not with us today.

Our nation has left in the depths of the past Its childhood and infantile sleep,

And with noontide strength must wrestle now With problems both dark and deep.

Her money, her trusts, and her laborers’ cries,

Her tariffs, her capital schemes,

Are the subjects demanding the wisest of laws—

’Tis no time for mere idle dreams.

Our nation’s too free, if the truth we’ll confess,

’Tis high time her laws were made firm To keep out the paupers, and Old World serfs,

With their death-spreading cholera germ.