of the inaugural White Cross address to the
students of the Edinburgh University, now one of the first medical
schools in the world. The date of the address had been fixed, the hall
taken, when an unforeseen difficulty arose. Eminent man after eminent
man was asked to give the address, but all with one consent began to
make excuse. Spirit and flesh quailed before so difficult and rowdy an
audience on so difficult and perilous a subject. At last the professor
who was chiefly interested implored me to give the address myself, or
the whole thing would go by default. Under these circumstances I had no
choice but to do so. But as I sat in the committee room while the order
of the meeting was being arranged, and heard my audience shouting,
singing, crowing like cocks, whistling like parrots, caterwauling like
cats, and keeping up a continuous uproar, I thought to myself, "I have
got to go into that, and control it somehow so as to be heard"; I
confess I did feel wrecked upon God. Professor Maclagan, who took the
chair, agreed that a prayer was impossible, a hymn was equally out of
the question. The only thing was to push me at once to the front; and
almost immediately after a few very brief words from the distinguished
chairman I found myself face to face with an audience that evidently
meant mischief. By some instinct I told them at once about James Hinton,
whom, of course, they knew by name as the first aurist of his day; how,
with all that this life could give him, he had died of a broken heart, a
heart broken over the lost and degraded womanhood of England, the hosts
of young girls slain in body and soul whom he met with at night in our
terrible streets. This seemed to strike and sober them, that a man
should actually die over a thing which to all of them was so familiar
and to many had been only the subject of a coarse jest. Fortunately,
there is a stage of nervous terror which rounds again on desperate
courage, and having once got hold of my audience, I determined to use
the occasion to the uttermost and venture on the most perilous ground.
In the course of my address I asked them to take notice of a great
silent change that was taking place all round them in the position of
women, the full significance of which they might not have grasped.
Everywhere women were leaving the seclusion of their homes and were
quietly coming forward and taking their place by their side in the great
work of the world. I thanked them for the