The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1898-06-23
HENDERSON, N. c., THURSDAY, JUNE 49, 1898.

reign the true greatness of Englan
began. Spencer, Sidney, Ben John
son, Bacon, Shakespeare, these alone
would be sufficient to illumine hel
reign with splendor. Her chief glory
is as the defender of the Christian
faith. Under her, the last y estige Of
the power of Rome was 70 rever re.
Pudiated in England and her colonies,
and the prowess of her arms was vim
dicated by the crushing defeat OF
Spain; then as now, bigoted, cruel,
oppressive, teacherous and despotic.
If Elizabeth had been gentle, more
womanly, her fame had been brighter.
Judged by the standard set by the
Master, Elizabeth Fry, the plain
little Quaker woman of Norwich,
England, was one of the great women
OF the world, one of the greatest
practical reformers of all the ages.
In England, France, Belgium, Hol-
land, Germany, Scotland, Ireland,
she was received and welcomed by
Kings and Queens and ministers,
and reformed the abuses of the
prison and asylum systems of all
these countries. and compelled the
humane treatment of their unfortu-
nate inmates. She passed out, loved
as woman was never yet loved.
Verify, great shall be her reward.
Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton,
Francis Willard, these have their
names written in the grateful hearts
OF men, and from thence they will
surely be transcribed to the Book of
Life.
"Dorothea Lynde Dix, the delicate
little New England woman, who out
of soul full of love to God and His
creatures, in less than four years,
travelled over ten thousand miles, in
the numbering stagecoaches of her
| day, visiting every State east of the
| Rocky mountains, inspecting the
| jails and penitentiaries in all of them,
and advocating the building of asy-
| lums for the insane-lives to see the
| direct result Of her labors, twenty
asylums built in as many different
States-ours in North Carolina
among them-and prisons and poor
| houses made wholesome and COM
| Portable.
"Hath man done greater work than
this? 1t was Eli Whitney, who as
all the world knows invented the
cotton gin, but what all the world
does not know, is that when in abso-
lutte despair at the failure of his in
vention it was a woman, the widow
| of General Nathaniel Greene, who
came to his rescue and by a simple
and timely suggestion obviated the
difficulty and assured success. The
whirl OF every spindle, the music of
every loom, the smoke of every
factory, are but memorials of her
| praise. Rosa Bonheur well contests
the palm with Landseer, the great
sympthetic painter of animal life.
George Elliott ranks as the very
| queen of literature, as Shakespeare
does as it's king. She combines the
merits of Collins, Bulwer, Trollope,
Thackery, Hicks, Bronte and Scott,
inferior perhaps to any of them in
certain lines, but superior to any
and all of them as a great creative
artist. May we not throw the mantle
of charity over the departures o1
this most gifted of woman? They
cost her tomb in Westminster Alb
bey.
''Great men are produced by great
emergencies, and great resposibili
ties, and it is demonstrated that like
emergencies and responsibilities de-
velop women equally great; and
further, that the purer and more
womanly the woman, the greater
the brighter, the more enduring hel
fame.
''Be not ambitious of the perils
and penalties of greatness. Guilt
vatc feminine grace as we'll as in
telleotual strength. Be advised O
those who are older and wiser. Fine
the only safeguard from the tempta
tions of life in our holy religion. A
goddess woman is an anamoly, g
monstrousity. Woman's mission
should be benefactions rather than
politics; hospitality rather than he
roism; goodness rather than great
ness; her model, Victoria, the gentle
and the good, rather than victoriou:
Elizabeth, the grand and the great
To woman the familiar lines of Tenny
son are especially applicable:
"However it be. it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than cOrOnetS,
And simple faith than Norman blood.