THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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lips, while the prostrate people watched for the fire-drill’s tiny thread of smoke which meant another generation of safety.
Plato’s “ One Dreadful Night and Day” is an echo from the other side of the world of this terrible terrestrial overturning which is described in the Central American sacred books, and possibly in our Old Testament’s oldest book, fearful pictures of a broken and blasted humanity wandering, heartsick, about a ruined world. Such terrors as they must have suffered confront us, written upon primeval rocks in characters of fire, to be read by the eye of science after the meaning of these prayers is lost to the race that has preserved the words of supplication. Despairing of saving even life amidst this wreck of the world, the dying souls uttered this cry to their gods for rescue from the tempest of fire and molten stones that seemed pouring upon them from Heaven; the very abode of God—“the God by whom we live; who knoweth the thoughts and giveth all gifts; one God of perfect perfection and purity, under whose wings we find repose and a sure defense.” Sorely tortured souls, they poured out their agony for refuge as we today would beseech our God for protection should some awful convulsion of nature shake these white shining walls , down upon our devoted heads.
Mothers, you who have little children at home, go presently through the stately avenues of our White City, from this Memorial Hall of the women of today to another, dedicated to the memories of our vanished American civilizations, and regard their relics; poor shreds and patches of humanity, and yet so eloquent of mother- love, for who but a mother would have swathed those small bodies in softest feather cloth, and placed in the little hands food for that last long spirit-journey upon which no mother compassion can brood over the infant soul. From the canon of the Mancos, through the temples and palaces of Yucatan, wife-love and mother-love can lead us back to ocean-buried Atlantis, the plains of Aasgard and the Islands of the Blest, which Poseidon planted in the midst of his watery realm for his mortal love. Always woman, and always motherhood, for this was the cradle of the race hidden within the dark and misty Mare Tenebrosum. Veiled in the mist of ages, save for these fleeting terrible echoes, still we may read the mother’s tortured heart. Where there had been a fruitful earth, brilliant with the light of fair and tranquil days, and where were safe and happy homes, she saw only desolation and ruin, “ little children perishing with hunger and none to give them consolation or caress, suffering for the sins of their fathers.” This cry was cruelly wrung from the broken spirit, “ Death is Thy messenger, so powerful that none may escape. But, O most pitiful Lord! at least take pity and have mercy upon the children!”
Then, when after the whirlwind and the tempest of fire came the deluge and the icy rains, can you not see the stricken fragment of humanity huddled in some cavern, perhaps sore pressed by equally terrified beasts in the mad rush for refuge; or beneath some overhanging rocksheiter, striving to maintain the vital warmth? Do not believe that man, the creature of God’s sunlight, was first a cave-dweller from choice. The cavemen who carved the reindeer’s figure upon the animal’s horn* and etched the portrait of the mammoth upon one of the creature’s tusks, were too deft of touch, too certain of skill to be habitual dwellers in the dim light of caverns. If archaic art means anything more than accident it means that men and beasts, without conflict, were rushed into the nearest shelter from terrible and sudden peril that admitted of no choice in the chances of escape. It means that the cave-dwelling was of long continuance; and, taken with other circumstances familiar to the student of pro-glacial history, both in the record of the rocks and in the traditions of the earliest religions, it implies a decided civilization already flourishing. The ancient British record says: “The patriarch distinguished for his integrity was shut up, together with his select company. * * * Presently a tempest of fire arose. It split the earth asunder to the great deep * * * and the waters covered the earth.” All this overthrow of the foundations of nature in consequence of the profligacy of mankind. That very evil state implies a knowledge of the luxuries of life. There could not well be profligacy