est
times of my life. I had hoped that the celebration would have helped
the cause of effective voting, which had been predominant in my mind
since 1859. By my interests and work in so many other directions--in
literature, journalism, education, philanthropy, and religion--which
had been testified to by so many notable people on that occasion, I
hoped to prove that I was not a mere faddist, who could be led away by
a chimerical fantasy. I wanted the world to understand that I was a
clear-brained, commonsense woman of the world, whose views on effective
voting and other political questions were as worthy of credence as her
work in other directions had been worthy of acceptance. The greetings
of my many friends from all parts of the Commonwealth on that day
brought so much joy to me that there was little wonder I was able to
conclude my birthday poem "Australian spring" with the lines:--

With eighty winters o'er my head,
Within my heart there's Spring.

Full as my life was with its immediate interests, the growth and
development of the outside world claimed a good share of my attention.
The heated controversies in the motherland over the preachings and
teaching of the Rev. R. J. Campbell found their echo here, and I was
glad to be able to support in pulpit and newspaper the stand made by t
he courageous London preacher of modern thought. How changed the
outlook of the world from my childhood's days, when Sunday was a day of
strict theological habit, from which no departure could be permitted!
The laxity of modern life, by comparison is, I think, somewhat
appalling. We have made the mistake of breaking away from old beliefs
and convictions without replacing them with something better. We do not
make as much, or as good, use of our Sundays as we might do. There is a
medium between the rigid Sabbatarianism of our ancestors and the
absolute waste of the day of rest in mere pleasure and frivolity. All
the world is deploring the secularizing of Sunday. Not only is
churchgoing perfunctory or absent, but in all ranks of life there is a
disposition to make it a day of rest and amusement--sometimes the
amusement rather than the rest. Sunday, the Sabbath, as Alex McLaren
pointed out to me, is not a day taken from us, but a day given to us.
"Behold, I have given you the Sabbath!" For what? For rest for man and
beast, but also to be a milestone in our upward and onward progress--a
day for not only wearing best clothes, but