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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

are scattered nearly at random over the country, each largely a copy of its neighbor, they all become commonplace. Why need we each adopt the far from perfect cur­rent manners, customs and opinions of our nearest surroundings as resignedly as chil­dren accept mumps, whooping-cough and measles; as rapidly as the tree toad takes on the color of the surface upon which it happens to rest? Why should our prejudices, our politics and our religion follow as closely in the wake of our fathers as sea foam follows in the wake of the ship? We inherit features, tendencies; no one can inherit characters. It is time women make that a deliberate personal formation. To be shaped and molded without our consent has no better justification than Aaron’s apology for helping to make the golden calf. He explains: “ They saith unto me, make us gods which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him. Then I cast it (the gold) into the fire and there came out this calf.” In the midst of a great clamor of opinions women cast their brightest jewels—the power of testing and proving all things for themselves—into the fire which tries all opinions; but to each there gener­ally conies out the traditions nearest to her hand. The real test is evaded. Thus if the man have eaten sour grapes it is the woman’s teeth which are set on edge. In every heart there are ideals which wait to be realized. Like gold tarnished and dim, these ideals are often wrapped in a dark mind-rust. They are so obscured that they are quite unknown to their possessor. If another will burnish them with the light of his vivid perceptions, the possessor is amazed to find such rare gems hidden in the forgotten chambers of his being. He knows little about his untold, unmeasured wealth.

Every human being is an undeveloped wonder. There is no other like him in the universe. Whoever will make it the end of life to embody the vast wealth of hope, truth, beauty and goodness which he can find within himself, to give form and expres­sion to his own highest ideals, such a one will become a glorious landmark at which many will gaze reverently with admiration and emulation.

How pitiable, then, that women who are but just learning what some one assured the poor little Hindoo widows—that the world was made for women, too—are still content to be so largely the weak imitators of the more than questionable methods already too prominently in vogue! Successful men and women are taken as models to be imitated both in their lines of work and in their manner of work. Imitation leaves only a dim, weak copy. Its defects are as glaring as those of the multiples of a good solid handwriting imprinted on poor thin paper by machine pressure. Such reproductions of merely verbal documents are convenient, but for any human being to ape another instead of bringing out the best genuine character still undeveloped within himself is suicidal. Nature, who makes no two leaves nor two blades of grass precisely alike, has given also to every woman her own strength, her own symmetry of possibilities. If these can be steadily unfolded from within, a sweet, wholesome .and useful character will certainly be evolved. Such a one may not develop into a high or striking landmark; she will become an altogether admirable one toward which every eye' will turn with approval.

“ Men have craved greatness where the fates withstood,

Not in this life can all be greatly wise;

But all who strive to may be greatly good,

For in the effort, the attainment lies.”

The fable of the birds who agreed that whoever could fly the highest should become their king is very suggestive. The feeble bat tucked himself under a feather of the eagle’s wfing, so light a weight that the eagle did not even know he was there. When the strong wing of the royal bird was weary, and the kingly eagle was compelled to descend, the bat spread his skinny wings and fluttered up a few feet beyond all of the others, then down he floated leisurely, wings but half closed, to receive admiring congratulations and the coronation. But pitiable little king! he has never dared to