n their ranks. Let none underrate
his own powers, and imagine that the issue does not depend upon him.
None, be he the weakest, can be spared in the struggle for the progress
of the human race. The unremitting dropping of little drops hollows in
the end the hardest stone. Many drops make a brook, brooks make rivers,
many rivers a stream, until finally no obstacle is strong enough to
check it in its majestic flow. Just so with the career of mankind.
Everywhere Nature is our instructress. If all who feel the call put
their whole strength in this struggle, ultimate victory can not fail.

And this victory will be all the greater the more zealously and
self-sacrificingly each pursues the marked-out path. None may allow
himself to be troubled with misgivings whether, despite all sacrifices,
labor and pains he will live to see the beginning of the new and fairer
period of civilization, whether he will yet taste the fruit of victory;
least of all may such misgivings hold him back. We can foresee neither
the duration nor the nature of the several phases of development that
this struggle for the highest aims may traverse until final
victory,--any more than we have any certainty on the duration of our own
lives. Nevertheless, just as the pleasure in life rules us, so may we
foster the hope of witnessing this victory. Are we not in an age that
rushes forward, so to speak, with seven-mile boots, and therefore causes
all the foes of a new and better world to tremble?

Every day furnishes fresh proof of the rapid growth and spread of the
ideas that we represent. On all fields there is tumult and push. The
dawn of a fair day is drawing nigh with mighty stride. Let us then ever
battle and strive forward, unconcerned as to "where" and "when" the
boundary-posts of the new and better day for mankind will be raised. And
if, in the course of this great battle for the emancipation of the human
race, we should fall, those now in the rear will step forward; we shall
fall with the consciousness of having done our duty as human beings, and
with the conviction that the goal will be reached, however the powers
hostile to humanity may struggle or strain in resistance.

OURS IS THE WORLD, DESPITE ALL;--THAT IS, FOR THE
WORKER AND FOR WOMAN.

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[236] [Aside from the contradiction implied between this sentence and
that other, on page 247, in which the internationally overshadow