will-power, or the concentrated desire of prayer, has forced his
interior faculties, perhaps through their correspondences, to help him
through enlightenment. We find ourselves placed on this planet in total
ignorance as to why we came or where we go, but there seems to be one
continuous purpose through all--that man shall improve. It may be that
high intelligence, combined with experience in all grades of life, is
required somewhere else. It may be that in order to gain such experience
it must be lived through. There would certainly be no striving if
everything came to us as an unearned gift. The disasters resulting from
one man's action are a warning to the next venturer; and if experience
is not, or cannot be, sent into a soul as an unearned gift, then the
higher wisdom may be non-interference.

The estimate of man's personal agency in history is necessarily raised
when the faculties he has utilized in gaining his ends are inquired
into. Such a study seems to lead toward an alteration in the accepted
idea of divine control in matters of history when it suggests this
intention--that the divinity of a right control shall be shown through
man. Such a study shows that he is sufficiently endowed with a spiritual
nature, not only for this purpose, but for any other; and it suggests
that, as his faculties bring him into direct connection with some
All-knowledge from which every kind of intelligence may be drawn, he is
expected to use his opportunities; also that the natural consequences of
mistakes will not be rectified except through the intelligence supplied
to further demand.

PLAZA OF THE POETS.

THE NEW WOMAN.[17]

BY MILES MENANDER DAWSON.

[17] From advance sheets of "Poems of the New Time," by Miles
Menander Dawson, The Humboldt Library, Publishers: New York.
Cloth, 12mo, $1.00.

She stands beside her mate, companion-wise,
Erect, self-poised, with clear, straightforward eyes.
For what she knows he is she holds him dear,
And not for what she fancies him--with fear.

Brave spirit! Disillusionized, she lifts
What blinder women bear as heaven's ill gifts.
She asks but, ere she reproduce a man,
He truly be one, so a woman can.

She gives not for the asking, nor as one
Who does unpleasant things that must be done.
Nay, he who half-unwilling love receives
Knows not the full-orbed joy she freely gives.

Emancipated, on firm f