The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-07-31
(By WILLIAM t. ELLIs.)

(By WILLIAM II. ELLIS.)
One of the stimulating Kipling po-
ems is called THE Files" and it mar
rates how you may find all the new
things of today in the newspaper MES
of long ago. Just now the world Is
agog over the NEW woman, and
Opportunity the Sunday School lesson
introduces that forceful feminist, the
Queen of Sheba, in quest or the pest,
Nearly three thousand years nave
passed since this remarkable woman
travelled fifteen hundred miles from
her home in Arabia, by slow Gamer
pace, across the desert sands, TO take
counsel with wise King solomon
throughout all these ages she mas
been a pictorial figure in proverb and
story, and her single phrase, fhe
half has never been told" is one OF
the commoneSt coins current IN UNI
versal speech. Legend, among MOS
lens and Christians alike, has been
busy with this wonderful woman
name; but these fanciful stories IN
terest us less than her message TO our
own times upon the woman question,
which is this:
IA Problems are not primarily prob
lens of sex, but o. personality me
strong character makes its way, re-
CARELESS of limitations of sex or con-
ditions. The Queen of Sheba ranks
second only to Solomon in the annals
of their time. Even back in the DARK
days of woman's subsection, there
shine brilliant names, like Deooran
and Cleopatra. These women were
personalities, although not all were
good women.
1T would be a mistake to let the
rirIs of today gain the impression
that any material change is to be Ell
fected in woman's sphere or fortune
apart from the development or lndi-
viduaI character. There is now, and
will
est desideratum in the so-called WON
an movement" the need for preeml-
nent personalities, women who can be
leaders in the world.
Some American Queens.
1t is pertinent to recall that North
America has been singularly produc-
tive of women of force and enter
prise, who yet held Steadfastly aloft
the torch of idealism. These heroines
of faith have some qualities greater
than their long-ago sister of Sheba-
One of them, Victoria Murdoch, of
Wichita, was pictured, shortly after
her death, by her son, ex-Congressman
Victor Murdoch, in tribute OF sim
erary Digest" those passages which
deal particularly with the spiritual
qualities of this woman of affairs:
Beautiful as her whole life was,
beautiful as she was, she was most
beautiful in her faith. 1t needed no
occasional or habitual, doubter, but
sustaining argument. 1t offered
nothing in rebuttal, It never weak
ened nor grew suddenly strong. 1t
simply was as strong, as enduring, as
unanswerable, and as immovable as a
granite mountain. She made a cour-
teous show of gentle patience with the
occasional or habitual, doubter, but
inwardly, imagine that she held the
doubling intellect to be meager or sap
PLY immature.
f11n of
incident, of activity always. She
knew joy in its full measure-apd
sorrow; she had lost five children;
she had known hardship and ease.
ambition, realization, disappoint-
ment, but her faith remained a single,
stable, fixed point. Nor was it a
silent faith to be cuddled out of harms
way. 1t was faith as sure and final
as Pauls. 1t put the keystone Of the
Resurrection in the arch, because it
knew the arch would fall without it.
This is the faith not only of the gentle
soul who does not know why it should
be so, but it is the work of the strong
soul who knows
A Queens Woman-way.
In some degree. there exists in every
woman's breast that quality which led
the Queen of Sheba to Jerusalem
the Unsuitable longing for the best.
Sometimes with lesser women, this
noble yearning for highest good. takes
the form of mere social emulation.
Commonly, it incites mothers to send
forth their sons to dare and do greatly.
1t is also revealed in the religious
instinct, which makes woman the
chief supporter of the church and
temple and shrine in all lands. Every
woman is naturally a priestess at the
altar of idealism. God pity the race,
if womanhood ever loses this Impulse.
This dominant motive expressed it
self in several ways in the case OF
the queen of Sheba. She had curios-
ity, the desire to know Also she had
a sense of responsibility for her Of
flee; she wanted to learn the best
ways of ruling her people. Ambitious
for great court and a great reign,
she sought to exa mine into Solomon'S
administration. Also, feminine fash
ion, she desired to talk over her prob
lens with a wise counsellor; the nor
NAL woman wants to discuss her prob
lens small or great, with some other
person, and, preferably, with a man.
The CabIegrams From Sheba.
Within week of the writing of
these lines, meager cablegrams have
landward attack upon Alden by the
Arabs of the Yemen. 1 wonder how
many persons connected the news
with the queen of Sheba? Yet the
Yemen, that most turbulent and fan
atical section of Arabia, is the ancient
Sheba; and Alden, the British strong
hold at the entrance to the Red sea,
was once her seaport. This latest
news told of the discontinue of the
camel corps; for still. as in the queens
day, the camel is the express train OF
Arabia-and his average speed is
three miles an hour. To this day the
spices leave Yemen as the queen
to Jerusalem, by the camel
caravan, the water for passengers be-
ing slung across the animals back in
gurgling goatskins.
We are SO accustomed to thinking
of the Jewish nation in terms of the
present Palestine that we forget that