elves in a peculiar position. While considering the
previous points of this question we have been guided by positive facts,
clearly indisputable in their character. Actual, practical experience,
with the manifold teachings at her command, has come to our aid. But we
are now called upon, by the advocates of this novel doctrine, to change
our course entirely. We are under orders to sail out into unknown seas,
beneath skies unfamiliar, with small light from the stars, without
chart, without pilot, the port to which we are bound being one as yet
unvisited by mortal man--or woman! Heavy mist, and dark cloud, and
threatening storm appear to us brooding over that doubtful sea. But
something of prophetic vision is required of us. We are told that all
perils which seem to threaten the first stages of our course are
entirely illusive--that they will vanish as we approach--that we shall
soon arrive in halcyon waters, and regions where wisdom, peace, and
purity reign supreme. If we cautiously inquire after some assurance of
such results, we are told that to those sailing under the flag of
progress triumph is inevitable, failure is impossible; and that many of
the direst evils hitherto known on earth must vanish at the touch of
the talisman in the hand of woman--and that talisman is the vote.

Now, to speak frankly--and being as yet untrammeled by political
aspirations, we fearlessly do so--as regards this flag of progress, we
know it to be a very popular bit of bunting; but to the eye of
common-sense it is grievously lacking in consistency. The flag of our
country means something positive. We all love it; we all honor it. It
represents to us the grand ideas by which the nation lives. It is the
symbol of constitutional government, of law and order, of union, of a
liberty which is not license. It is to us the symbol of all that may be
great and good and noble in the Christian republic. But this vaunted
flag of progress, so alluring to many restless minds, is vague in its
colors, unstable, too often illusive, in web and woof. Many of its most
prominent standard-bearers are clad in the motley garb of theorists.
Their flag may be seen wandering to and fro, hither and thither, up and
down, swayed by every breath of popular caprice; so it move to the mere
cry of "Progress!" its followers are content. To-day, in the hands of
the skeptical philosopher, it assaults the heavens. Tomorrow it may:
float over the mire of Mormonism, or depths stil