THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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and I could but voice what I felt: “Oh sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” And these are the triumphs of peace, not war; and when that magnificent band under the flooding radiance of the great search light, struck up the music to which is set that glorious hymn, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written by a woman, my heart and soul sang as never before:
“Mine eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of the Lord.
Our God is marching on.”
“How far that little candle casts its beams!” Shakespeare makes Portia exclaim, when she sees the light of a candle, the only light for the palaces of kings in her day, gleam from the window of her home, which she is approaching. And, quick as thought and apt as it is beautiful is the suggestion that comes to her woman’s soul, of the higher, the spiritual, reach of the same law, eliciting the instant exclamation: “So is a good deed in a naughty world.”
What diviner sermon was ever preached than is preached from this text furnished by the poet, in those great searchlights mounted on the four corners of yonder Manufactures Building, in which, they tell us, that one little candle’s light is, through the aid of discoveries, made in science and invention, increased in power to the light of two hundred million candles such as called forth the enthusiastic exclamation of Portia; and when we remember that this wonderful invention originated in the old city of Nuremburg, where the deepest dungeons, the darkest and foulest prisons, and the most terrible engines for human torture that man ever invented, yet remain to bear witness to what was yet called Christian in that age, is all the more striking and should raise our jubilee in this PMir to its fullest chorus, in which every voice should join. And a future, a future of which this invention and this whole Exposition is a suggestion—more, a promise—dazes the most advanced idealist. Truly, “what we shall be, doth not yet appear.” But, thanks to another kind of searchlight that is illuminating the world—that indicated in the motto chosen by the women of this board of managers for their auxiliary congresses: “ Not matter, but mind”—thanks to this spirit in the world which has created a World’s F'air, this illuminator for a new era.
In the olden time men could have seen in the face of every stranger whom we welcome to our Midway Plaisance, an enemy to be met with an armed defense against himself, his customs, his thought, and above all against his religion. Now, thanks to the new spirit of our times, we see in him a human brother from whom, though we may differ, with whom we may yet agree in broad human sympathies, and who has the same claim to the fatherhood of God as we have. The noblest art of this Exposition even, and its mission to our age, will be better understood by men and women yet to come. This exposition is to be, I believe, the educator of a broader man than has yet been. Fair as is the infinitude of these parts, a fairer whole in a higher moral and spiritual sphere is to grow out of them.
I am reminded of Byron’s first visit to St. Peter’s church in Rome, and his famed apostrophe to it, which, mighty structure as it is, could yet be put in a corner, or form a bay window to our great Liberal Arts Building. “ Enter,” exclaims the poet.
“ Its grandeur overwhelms thee not. And why? It is not lessened;
But thy mind, expanded by the genius of the spot, has grown colossal.”
In this one word, expanded, or expansion, is best expressed the education which this World’s Fair is destined to give the world. It is to be the starting point of new ideas.
It is a new revelation of man to himself that most astonishes. Who thought out this combination of such an infinitude of parts touching, especially in its auxiliary congresses, not only material things, but the mental and moral spheres of life? Those searchlights are not mounted to penetrate every nook and cranny of the fair grounds only, not every dark alley of the city of Chicago even, but they hint an illuminated