ative assemblies.

Again, most women would be in favor of helping any picturesque
nationality, without regard to the Monroe doctrine, or the state of
the finances, or the needs of the market. Most women would think it a
good action to sacrifice their party for a friend. Most women would
change their politics, if they saw it to be their interest to do so,
without a moment's hesitation. Most women would refuse the primary
obligation on which all franchises rest,--that is, to defend their
country by force of arms, if necessary. And if a majority of women
passed a law which the majority of men felt themselves justified in
resisting by physical force, what would women do? Such a position in
sequence of female suffrage is not beyond probability, and yet if it
happened, not only one law, but _all_ law would be in danger. No one
denies that women have suffered, and do yet suffer, from grave
political and social disabilities, but during the last fifty years
much has been continually done for their relief, and there is no
question but that the future will give all that can be reasonably
desired. Time and Justice are friends, though there are many moments
that are opposed to Justice. But all such innovations should imitate
Time, which does not wrench and tear, but detaches and wears slowly
away. Development, growth, completion, is the natural and best
advancement. We do not progress by going over precipices, nor re-model
and improve our houses by digging under the foundations.

Finally, women cannot get behind or beyond their nature, and their
nature is to substitute sentiment for reason,--a sweet and not
unlovely characteristic in womanly ways and places; yet reason, on the
whole, is considered a desirable necessity in politics. At the Chicago
Fair, and at other convocations, it has been proven that the
strongest-minded women, though familiar with platforms, and deep in
the "dismal science" of political economy, when it came to disputing,
were no more philosophical than the simplest housewife. Tears and
hysteria came just as naturally to them as if the whole world wagged
by impulse only; yet a public meeting in which feeling and tears
superseded reason and argument would in no event inspire either
confidence or respect. Women may cease to be women, but they can never
learn to be men, and feminine softness and grace can never do the work
of the virile virtues of men. Very fortunately this class of
discontented women have not yet