securing her the stability of
her right to her husband's affections, the stability to her right of
maintenance after she has given up her means of support, above all, the
stability of her right to the care of her own children. If we want to
study the innate misery to women arising from the relaxation of the
married tie, or transient unions, we had better read Professor Dowden's
_Life of Shelley_--misery not the result of public stigma, for there was
no such stigma in the circle in which Shelley moved, but misery brought
about by the facts themselves, and producing state of things which
Matthew Arnold could only characterize by the untranslatable French word
"_sale_." But nearer home, one of your most brilliant writers, Mr. Henry
James, has given us an equally profitable study in his novelette, _What
Maisie Knew_, which I presume is intended as a satire on freedom of
divorce, but which again can only be characterized by the French word
"_sale_."

I confess it does fill me with sardonic laughter to find this oldest and
stalest of all experiments, this oldest and flattest of failures,
paraded as a brand new and original panacea for all the woes of our
family life,--woes which, if nobly borne, at least make "perfect through
suffering."

There is but one great rock-hewn dam successfully reared against the
lawless passions of men and women, and that is Christian marriage. It
has at least given us the Christian home, and pure family life. And
sometimes it fills me with despair to see enlightened nations, like
America and Australia, whittling away and slowly undermining this great
bulwark against the devastating sea of human passion. If only I could
feel that any poor words of mine could in any faint measure rouse
American women to set themselves against what must in the end affect the
depth and steadfastness of those family affections on which the beauty
and solidity of the national character mainly rest, I should feel indeed
I had not lived in vain.

At least I can claim that one of your greatest women, Frances Willard,
was heart and soul with me on this point.

And now to descend to lower levels. Could we not do a little more to
save our young girls from sacrificing their happiness to false ideals by
opportunely obtruding a little mature common-sense into their day
visions and their inexperienced way of looking at things? It is all very
well in the heyday of life, when existence is full of delight and home
affection, t