Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1893-10-17

Her Reception In America
Our American kinsfolk were the frs.
to discover her genius, capacity and
charm, and their recognition did much
to pave the way for her success in this
country on her return. No one born
outside the United States since the
days of Lafayette ever received SO en-
thusiastic welcome from Americans
as did Lady Henry Somerset when she
visited the West 1t was not merely
that the greatest halls were crowded
wherever she was announced to speak,
and that the overflow Of those unable
to get in blocked the streets and
stopped the tramcars; it was much
more than that She was welcomed to
the hearts of the best people every
where, and, most marvellous of all, the
newspapers from Maine to California
were uniformly civil Usually the
mere craze to do something out of the
regular run secures an occasional and
exceptional outburst of vulgar rude
ness, but Lady Henry was spared even
this usual exception to the uniform
cordiality of the American press She
made good use of her time. She at
tended Moody's School for Evangelists,
and studied more closely at the feet OF
the president of the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union, and served her ap-
premiership in journalism as one of
the editors of the Union Signal What
with public meetings, private recep-
tions interviews, journalism and study
ing, Lady Henry may be said to have
succeeded in acclimatising herself as
an American more completely and
more rapidly than any English noble
has ever done before
The Influence of Miss willard.
Miss Willard has naturally exercised
over Lady Henry the ascendancy which
the elder woman who has arrived eXer-
cises over the younger who has her posi-
tion still to make. Miss Willard, although II
starting from the opposite extreme of
politics. had arrived at pretty much
the same conclusions as those to which
Lady Henry had been driven. They
were both broadly evangelical in their
conception of Christianity, without any
of that repugnance and antipathy to
Roman Catholicism which 80 often ac-
companies evangelical ZEAL Both were
enthusiastic total abstainers, putting
temperance in this age only second to
the Gospel Both also were profoundly
convinced that, while beginning with
the Gospel, the work of social regener-
alton must be as mprehensive
and many-sided as are the evils
which they sought to combat; and
both saw-what, indeed, it does not
need very profound perception to
discover-that the approaching advent
of woman in the political sphere af-
fords the chief ground for hoping
that the future times will be better
than these. So far it is proba BILE
that these two good ladies did more to
confirm each other in the faith than
anything else. What Miss Willard
taught Lady Somerset was the i'm
portance of the labor movement to
the temperance and other social ques-
tons and the immense possibilities
Reformers if America and Great Brit
ain undertook the leadership of the
progressive forces Of the world.
The Future?
1t is impossible to conclude this
sketch without casting a glance ahead
and wondering what kind of position
Lady Henry Somerset will have at the
dawn of the twentieth century? One
thing is certain, and that is, that what
ever her position will be it will be at
least as great in the English-speaking
world beyond the sea as in England
itself. Lady Henry Somerset and Miss
Willard have come to be, more than
any other living persons, the type and
symbol of Anglo-American alliance
which ought to be the next new birth
of time. They contemplate making
the round of the world in year or
two, and presenting their Poly
glot Petition of White Ribboners"
against the alcohol and opium trades
and licensed impurity (signed in fifty
languages by millions of peopie), and
thee will not visit any town or city in the
Queens dominions where they will not
find enthusiastic welcome and trained
workers who for the first time will find
that they are thought worthy of atten-
tion and consideration by British re-
formers. Hitherto the worlds women
missionaries have come from America.
We British are 80 insular. We create
an empire, as Seeley says in absence
of mind. and we cannot be induced to
think of it afterwards. But SO far. as
Lady Henry can, all this is 20 be
chan 0eH