and still hang about her. Bear them
along. The finest effluence of her life in the first century of our era,
as in this last, was love. Mary then bore the Christ; other Mary's loved
him. Woman was first in his life, and last in it. When the bearded magi
adored, she loved; she was the illustrator of his teachings, the
repository of his hopes for their future realization. Bring all those
memories, visions, yearnings, trusts, faiths--dreams of the good, never
yet seen but by the inner sight of the woman-soul,--along, and let us
set out for Beulah. Its blooming fields and fair mountains lie dim but
sweet on the distant horizon. We will go over and possess them--a
kingdom of our own. Why have we waited so long in bondage and darkness?
Why submitted to the heaped-up wrongs of the ages? Patience very
excellent: once admit the idea of a scheme, and some parts must
necessarily arrive in the afternoon. Development presupposes the delay
or withholding of things not yet developed. By the law of climax, these
are not the unimportant parts. Woman's sovereignty has been long
deferred, because of the preparation necessary for it. A John the
Baptist must precede the Christ in the wilderness. Fiends robed and
sceptred, once reigned over fiends clothed in skins and armed with
broadsword and battle axe. To-day a _gentle_man, or _gentle_woman can
sit secure on any throne of Christendom. While we congratulate
ourselves, let us not deny that the Tamerlanes, the Alarics, the
Napoleons have had their share in the intermediate work of preparation.

Not always, as it seems to us, do the swiftest and clearest methods find
favor with these hard-pressed worthies, but rather such methods as they
can employ; and in time, as we see, the work gets done.

Take our planet in the condition in which its first proprietor found it
on his arrival, and you will see that the improvements would be a heavy
item in transactions with a real-estate broker for it. Liberal
governments established--Canton, Paris, London, New York built--grain
fields, mills, patent offices, world's fairs, electric telegraphs, ocean
steamers, iron-clads, Central Park, show a long road travelled, and much
rough, terrible, fearful work done by the way--work which has developed
a condition for the exercise of the fine sovereignty of woman's pure,
gentle, loving, harmonious nature--road which leads by divine intention
to her empire. If the hand which has opened it has been red at times,
let