o it
has gone on to our day.

Pure love, poetic genius, and true religion have done much to vindicate
and to restore the normal harmony.

The time has now come when a clearer vision and better action are
possible,--when man and woman may stand as pillars of one temple,
priests of one worship.

This hope should attain its amplest fruition in our own country, and
will do so if the principles from which sprang our national life are
adhered to.

Women should now be the best helpers of women. Of men, we need only ask
the removal of arbitrary barriers.

The question naturally suggests itself, What use will woman make of her
liberty after so many ages of restraint?

Margaret says, in answer, that this freedom will not be immediately
given. But, even if it were to come suddenly, she finds in her own sex
"a reverence for decorums and limits inherited and enhanced from
generation to generation, which years of other life could not efface."
She believes, also, that woman as woman is characterized by a native
love of proportion,--a Greek moderation,--which would immediately create
a restraining party, and would gradually establish such rules as are
needed to guard life without impeding it.

This opinion of Margaret's is in direct contradiction to one very
generally held to-day, namely, that women tend more to extremes than men
do, and are often seen to exaggerate to irrational frenzy the feelings
which agitate the male portion of the community. The reason for this, if
honestly sought, can easily be found. Women in whom the power of
individual judgment has been either left without training or forcibly
suppressed will naturally be led by impulse and enthusiasm, and will be
almost certain to inflame still further the kindled passions of the men
to whom they stand related. Margaret knew this well enough; but she had
also known women of a very different type, who had trained and
disciplined themselves by the help of that nice sense of measure which
belongs to any normal human intelligence, and which, in women, is
easily reached and rendered active. It was upon this best and wisest
womanhood that Margaret relied for the standard which should redeem the
sex from violence and headlong excitement. Here, as elsewhere, she shows
her faith in the good elements of human nature, and sees them, in her
prophetic vision, as already crowned with an enduring victory.

"I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the
dews