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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
it is a very empty sphere. There is much to do to fill this vastness, and women are beginning to realize how much they are the great soul-educators, and that is what they are doing with their flower missions, their fruit missions, working girls’ clubs, open- air funds, and all those things that are educating and refining the senses, and through them the soul, trying to open the eyes of the people to see some of the beauties of the world. What could you tell a child of the beauties of Paradise who has never seen a flower? But take the children from the slums of our cities out into a daisy field, and they will think they are surely in Heaven.
I have no sympathy with those who sing, “ Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home.” Earth is not a desert drear, unless you have pitched your tents in vacant lots; and if you have, plant some flowers around it; cultivate your surroundings, and when flowers bloom take them to those who have no flowers and teach them to cultivate them, and thus bring some beauty into their lives. If you live in a desert drear all your lives, do not imagine you will blossom out in the gardens of Paradise and feel at home there. Your soul would be so dried up that it would take all eternity to get it into condition to enjoy, or appreciate, even the beauties of Paradise. When you have cultivated your soul-nature so that it can look out and enjoy the beauties around us, and realize the possibilities of an earthly paradise, and also realize how much there is to do to help others toward this earthly perfection, then there will not be much time for complaining, nor will any dare to be idle. Woman must be the torch-bearer, and there are many dark places to be lighted, and I hope many that hear me will take up the work with new zeal, and that there may be more and more who will take up this work for the salvation of bodies and the elevating, purifying, and beautifying of the human race.