The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1885-06-05

our Country anu Homes.
resa.'' And how they did die all the world
knows.
1t is not for rhetorical effect, still less for
the excitation of the ''tenderest sympathy
that | revert to this w~ell-known historical
incident. 1t is that | may call attention to
the argument in the cry of those men-for
| suppose a mans cry may be counted
as an argument | wish to beg you to
notice those words, rege nostro. That ex-
preston of those Hungarian mobiles. Ii
king, Maria Theresa, instead of our queen,
Maria Theresa-has been interpreted to re-
present an idea in their minds to suit the
mind of the interpreter. "Woman's
Rights speakers have made them an a.
acknowledgement OF the part of those most
masculine men, that here was a woman
who was more than any one of them, or all
together: Z. e., more able to command them
by having more that was kingly i'll her.
Hence pro rege n%ostr0, rather than pro re
giao nOstlu. Chivalrous knights-errant of
our day make this expression to indicate
the most refined and splendid chivalry in
those Hungarian mobiles; as if they had said
to this threatened and trembling mother,
clasping the future king in her arms,
'sNever mind now! You shall be just as
much sovereign AS if you were a king your
self. We will die to make it so; pro fege
h~0str0.'
Now, | make this expression to mean
neither of these things. | believe that
roared ont these words as the simplest
usage to express their most instant and i'm
pulsivc expression for all that men, as pa
triois, should die for. | believe that this
crowned mother stood to them as the repre-
sentative of their nationality, their rights,
their honor, summing up in her person, as
did the ruling sovereign in those days,
their country and their country's cause.
They formulated in their expression, rege
aostr0. the sentiment which Louis XIV.
taught in the words-L'etat c'est moi. They
proved this, for they did fight, and many
of them did die: and men do not deliber-
ately die for a beautiful, weeping woman
though they love to swear to that effect
sometimes-unless there be some wOrthier
object to be gained by their self-devotion.
But whether my idea of this be %fanciful or
not, whether it be calm and logical,
whether it be good criticism, | dare not
affirm. Dir. Crosby will know. But |
dare affirm that the American mother who
to-day, being pressed on every side by the
aggression of King Alcohol, confronts
American men, the infant in her arms her
only sceptre, the motherhood on her brow
her only crown, and cries to them for pro-
lection of her kingdom, the home, carries
in her cry an argument. And | dare affirm
for, thank God, it is a spectacle all may
witness-that stalwart warriors, pulling
from their scabbards trusty swords, admit
that cry to be an argument by their an
swering shout, 1--WE will fight for IL
king ~
For we all have a ~king-even doctors.
llicIC 10 q iiuJCotI VI ilSHt. u lbfdllN VI
truth, which, in manifold form, claims
our allegiance and argues its claim. God
sees in the fearful eye of the bruised and
baffled mother, sister, wife, his own argu-
ment for the utter extinction of intoxicat-
ing beverages, the suppression, root and
branch, of the liquor traffic. And in that
cry He makes His argument to men.
A chancellor's philosophy, grasping in its
mighty sapiencc cults and sciences which
we poor women cannot even name, has as
yet failed to apprehend that chemistry of
Heaven which distills from a Christian
mothers tear the first drop of that mighty
gathering storm, whose full and final out
break shall sweep away forever all refugees
of lies which, sincere or insincere, bull
wark the liquor traffic.
"And the children of Israel sighed by
reason of bondage, and their cry came mp
unto GOD; and God heard their groaning,
and God remembered his covenant. and
God looked upon the children Of Israel and
had respect unto them
ELIZABETH CLEVELAND.