f the vast majority of German women. They are,
after all, happy in the old, primeval, original royalty of wifehood and
motherhood, in the sweet leaning upon their complement, the beloved
husband. Do they fear, perchance, lest their warlike sisters might drag
them to the front, to unnatural battle, deprive them of their sweet,
foreordained inheritance of man's love, protection, and fostering care?
Has not their quiet, calm, and holy circle of activity, upon which all
that is eternal in creation rests, which has been sanctified by custom,
tradition, morality, and experience for thousands of years, blessed
thousands, nay, millions of women, generation after generation? Had
Saint Mary any other mission on earth or in heaven but love, infinite
love, for the Christ, her Son? Has art ever been able to produce
anything more beautiful, more divine, more touching, more powerful, than
the Mother of God and the Christ-child, the symbol of every mother and
every child? Do not the heavens in glorious constellations perpetuate
the memory of great women? Is not the galaxy of women saints rich
enough, and can it not be enriched still further for generation after
generation to the end of the world? Is not well-nigh all the poetry that
flows directly from the heart founded upon love, and indeed upon that
love which is spontaneous, original, eternal? Forsooth, if there must be
a change, it is a sorrowful change, due to the unnatural, complicated
conditions of modern social life, but by no means due to the unanimous
will of German women. The demon "physical hunger," the fear that there
are not enough good men to go around, are the true motives of the
emancipation movement with the masses of German women. The motives of
the Ida Hahn-Hahns and the like are potent only with a few of the vast
number of the women of Germany.

Thus it is but natural that the dangers of premature and ill-conceived
emancipation soon aroused great and good German women who loved the best
in the glorious past of Germany, the many models of German virtue,
sacred simplicity, and blissful womanhood and motherhood, from Thusnelda
to Queen Louisa of Prussia, and who were not eager for untried
innovations. The very sight of the habits and nature of the new
prophetesses, all of whom were abnormal in some respect, gave food for
reflection. The strongest opposition to the movement was formed among
women. It was women who warned against the modern gospel, who tried to
divert a