The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-12-21

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sIVHN fAT1\V&NSSsM from bA0 pen VI
ITIi71nTInSMNp dacious assailant
a'AIE'ssSaHa}1SF of things and in
stitutions which do not suit her. We all
know Gail Hamilton, and we are all COM
PEELED to like her, despite the perilously
free and reckless habit she has of charging
full upon us when we least expect it, with
that sharp lance of hers, and remorselesslv
piercing, in her dashinR onslaught, the
tough hides and tender consciences of foes
and friends alike. What though the lance
is never permitted to rust, and when in ac-
ton has ever been freshly dipped in gall?
There is honey mingled in the gall, if We
only choose to find 1.-THE sweet and sooth-
ing honey of a womanly tenderness, with
which her bitterest feminine vindictiveness
is never quite untin0ed.
For Gail Hamilton never ceases to be q
woman. Her fercest assaults have been
made with the delicate though deadly steel
pion, entering With all her soul into the
forefront of the conflict, or standing def
antly alone, if need be-, to fghv for what
she believes to be riRht-never with the
coarser and heavier weapons of the Amazon.
She can bind wounds as we'll as make them,
and though some of her antagonists feel
that she has relentlessly passed them by
after disabling them, or thinking that
she has disabled them, they are not
going to quarrel with her forever for even
her victims are compelled to feel in the
long run that there was, after all, some
tering them. But what hornets nest
Gail Hamilton is going to stir up about her
self now! She has entered into the arena
of theological discussion, and the objects
OF her assault are religious creeds and the
men who made them. as we'll as the men
"A Washington Bible Glass;"
And Gail Hamilton last winter was the
leading spirit and chief instructor of that
Bible class. It's organizers we're the women
who stand highest in what has come to be
known as the administration social set of
at present belongs in that set as a near rela.
tive and member of the household of Sec
rotary Blaine, found last winter many dis
tinguished women and wives of dis
tinguished men, who, although lead
o eorbodea sny of them
persistent feeling of religious unrest. Their
minds were not in full sympathy with the
creeds they professed. or, in some instances,
their children: absolutely rejected sundry
h~~ and the s knew
writer. 1.-THE unquenchable thirst for God,
the free action of thought. were battling
with ecclesiasticism, and would not be put
off with authority or put off with religion"
And so it was that woman, described in
Is the breath of life''-and we can easily
recognize in her the author of the new book
said to the questioners: "Let US leave
speculation to itself; let us cease to ques-
ton error, and let us search for truth. The
Bible is the source of our formulated faith.
is authoritative. Let us see, not what is
Calvinism or Lutherism. or Agnosticism, or
Catholicism, or tniversalism, but what ia
scripture; not what men say scripture says
and means. but what scripture itself means
and says"
wife of the president" we are told, with
highest interest in highest things, was fore
most in support. The wife of the secretary
of state, ever hospitable to truth, proffered
her drawing room for the study of the Holy
Scriptures. But before. the class had
fleecy, filmy cloud, that had BODIED no evil
in sunny sky suddenly deepened and dark
ened with the thunderbolts of God. From
the home which would have Welcomed the
Bible class, from a home which had held
four and thirty years of unbroken family
AAAGys q 1OA Va AoIe pIOluAses d uduRutSI Oh
tender love,
Went pressing almost hand in hand,
loo ea.ly to the unknown land,
and all the world was changed
Not alone here but elsewhere in the work
is the great grief that then fell upon
the Blaine family-a grief in which no one
Gail Hamilton shared-most tenderlv and
feelingly referred to. Soon. however, upon
the suggestion of the wife Of the vice presi-
dent. the idea of the Bible class was re-
vived. Was there ever such Bible class in
the world before? Look at it as described
The wife of the president promptly re-
newed her fealty. and remained a constant,
suggestive. enthusiastic student command
ing her children and her household after
her, not only in stimulating attendance and
attention, but IN an always generous con-
sideration. Both houses of congress. the
circles of science. of literature, of educa-
ton, of diplomacy. sent their delegates.
Presbyterianism, CongreRationalism, Uni
tnrianism, Episcopacy, were ably and ami
ably represented and never more agreeably
daughters came with their more beautiful
mothers. The English church and the
Greek church bent to each other with state
ly courtesy. The Quaker faith was there,
robed according to the last dainty imported
touch of the children of the world, but with
George Fox and the Whittiers, brother and
sister. lgnatius Loyola and Jonathan Ed
wards Sat side by side i'll French costume of
faultiess cut and wonderful combination:
and the one had danced no more lightly or
deeply into Saturday night than the o:her,
Young radlcalism found the texts for old
orthodoxy; and both smiled approval when
ever the sword Of the Spirit slipped in be-
tween the loosened joints of Errors gaping
armor. All came together, not TO adj
vocate any theory or repel any doctrine
whatever, but to learn for themselves what
the Bible teaches.
Women were at FIRST, with single excep-
tion, the only attendants. but soon the
great men of the capitol began to drop i'm
on those Sunday afternoon gatherings, and
Gail Hamilton had most distinguished audi
ences, for it soon happened that the menu
beers of the class left 1.-The woman in the
chalr'-aRain We can guess her name-to do
all the talking. She nodestiy says that
when at the end of an hour she tried to stop.
the members s6libustered after the straight.
forward fashion of women" and forced her
to so on. After that ''she ostentatiously
placed an open watch ON the table at the
outset-and never consulted it." Here is
her first line shot at her friends of the
pulpit:
She begs to announce modestlv to her
brother clerRymen that her only difficulty
was to induce her congregation to dispense
when the sermon was over; that she had to
buy them of with the tea and cakes of the
secretary of state: and that, without auy
extraneous assistance of diversion from
music. or itany, or liturgy or even passing