Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1888-12-15


son, from the musty ages to the present day. And
woman has heard so much of her glaring weak
nesses, sad lacks and sore deficiencies, that she
meekly accepts the stigma of being incapable OF
the highest planes of culture-of being vain, in
consistent, capricous unreasonable; powerless to
plan great measures and equally so to execute;
butterfly with no higher ambition than to enhance
her attractveness, that she may secure to herself
the greater need of fattery at the hands Of her
lordly brother However, thanks to a generous
Providence, such msts are fast disappearing before
the resplendant rays of the "New Learning"
Yes, in the language of the renowned Hugo, ''this
is truly woman's era The letters of ignorance
and superstition that have so long shacked her are
rapidly falling away and she steps forth clothed
with freedom and intelligence. All hail to this
glorious day
But my sisters, we come upon the worlds stage
at momentuous period of her history; and just
in proportion to the increase of our opportunities
and advantages, will be the increase of our re-
sponsibities. This, tony mind, is a most solemn
realization. The world is grooming and dying for
the gentler touch of womany hands and the ten
derer sympathies of womanly hearts.
Shall we prove recreant to the trust reposed in
us and deny our duties? or, shall we not rather
look up to the A-Father who has blessed us be-
You'd what we could have asked or even thought
and inquire in faith: sLord, what wilt Thou have
us to do?o Let us first discover by frank and
prayerful investigation, our individual talents; and
then, like the just steward, deal honestly with our
Lord, by setting about worthy and profitable in
vestment of the same. Do not scorn the little
missions of mercy scattered so plofuseIy all about
your pathways, yainly waiting and hoping by some
grand achievement to win triumphal arch on
which your names shall be chroncled among the
famed in history, poetry, or song. Remember,
that while you today are basking in the effugence
of MONDAY light, numbers of your less fortr-
nate sisters are still cropping in the darkness of ig-
norance and its offspring, wickedness and super
stition. Help them; oh, help them, by educating
them give them your comforts, your PRAYERS,
your sympathies; and thus lift them to higher
plane of womanhood. Do not strain your eyes to
the lands far over the seas, and exhaust your whole
heart and entire purse upon the Feeee, lIindoo or
Hottentot sister to the shameful neglect of your
sisters who, all about you, are daily pershing for
the bread of life Endeavor to make more con-
sistent and equable division of your labors; let
your best efforts be lent to the uplifting the train
ing, the enlightening of the siserhood of our own
lana, remembering that It's the hand that rocks
the cradle that rules the world. The motherhood
hold in their keeping the destiny of our nation;
they must possess it in wisdom or wreck it through
ignorance and folly. The purer and wiser the
motherhood, the more chaste and cultured the
youth. Moreover, as intelligence increases our
general vision strengthens, our horizon broadens,
thus enabling us to discern more clearly the great
needs of our foreign sisters, and prompting us to
devise better things for them.
My sisters, another harvest is past; another
summer is ended, and lol the old year is about
Keeling off into the boundless eternity 1t is meet
that we tread softly and speak low in the presence
OF death so sublime. 1t is fit time for reaec-
ton, whether melancholy or joyous; for we should
pause and consider what we have CLEANED from the
fading year; what sheaves do we come bearing to
the Master! Are we expecting the welcome