The record-union., 1893-03-23

and influence of women. It is, however,
no matter of wonder that the work and
worth OF Frances Willard should have
been thus recognized in the mother
country; for wherever the temperance
cause has champion, wherever the cause
OF social purity has an exponent, when
ever the labor movement lifts up its
voice, whenever woman, with the sum
light of the glad new day upon her face,
stretches forth her hands to God, there
her name is loved, cherished and re-
Vered. Tried by jury of her peers. even
amid the clashing opinions of this transit
ton age, when the old is unwilling to die
and the new seems hardly ready to be
born, there would still come the verdict:
she Is fair opponent, she is kindly
comrade;" as Lincoln said, she has firm
ness in the right as Col gives her to see
the right, and moves along her chosen
path with malice toward none and charity
for ALL"
From that more august and. perhaps,
impartial jury, beyond the circle OF re-
form. comes the verdict, prophetic of that
which history shall one day record, "she
made the world wider for woman and
happier for humanity" We know that
America owes her greatness to the
sterling worth of those intrepid Puritan
pioneers who were the best gift of the old
world to the new. So Frances Willard,
who has in her veins that pure New Eng
land blood, owes to her ancestry much of
the strength and courage that must ever
be the basis of retormer's character.
Away on Wisconsin farm, amid the
cedars sweet and fragrant and the whlsp-
ering fields of Indian corn, she caught
the inspiration OF her life from the mother
whose strong and sunny spirit made
glad the solitary place, and who brought
into the prairie wilderness a most in
trepid intellect and a culture exception
ally rare. The brightness of her own
great nature made that "desolate" place
blossom as the rose'' for her children.
On that country farm Coleridge. Words
worth and Pope were household friends.
That enthusiasm for humanity, which
characteriZes Frances Wizards work,
was breathed into her active mind by
one born and bred in the great freesoil
State OF the North, whose delight it was
to teach her little girl to read from the
Slaves Friend" What wonder that, in
after years, one of the greatest achieve
ments OF Frances Wizards life was her
mission OF reconciliation to the women OF
the South, while yet the scars OF war
throbbed in their breasts, and new-made
graves stretched wide between sections
that had learned the misery of hatred. 1t
was the white ribbon taken by her ten
der hands that bound those wounds, and
gently drew the noble-hearted women of
that sunny land into the hospitable home
circle of the w. C. 7. U.
Sacrifice is the foundation of all real
| success, and it was crucial moment in
Miss Wizards life when she resigned the
brilliant position of Dean of the first
! Women's College, connected with uni
yerslty in America, and went out, penni-
less, alone and unheralded, because her
spirit had caught the rhythm of the
women's footsteps as they bridged the
distance between the home and the sa-
loon in the Pentecostal days of the tenn
| perance crusade. She has relinquished
that which women hold the dearest, the
sacred, sheltered life of home. Around
her hearth no children wait to greet her.
She has lost that life only to find 1t again
ten thousand fold. She has understood
the mystery OF the wider circle of love
and loyalty. and the world is her home
as truly as John Wesley said it was his
parish" She has understood the
diviner motherhood that claims the or
phaned hearts of humanity as her herit-
age, and chorus of children's voices
round the world cherish and hail her
name, for organized mother love" is the
best definition of the w. G. T. U. Well
may we say in the words of our great
poet
Live and take comfort; thou wiltleave behind
Powers that shall work for thee,
| Earth, air and skies
There's not Il breathing of the common wind
that will forget thee, thou
Hast great allies
| Thy friends are eXaltations, agonies and love,
and mans unconquerable mind.
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