ur national defence.

Another moral aim of our League, as explicitly stated in many of the
pledges signed throughout the country, is to frown on all traitors and
all such as we know to be sympathizers with them. We hope no one's
displeasure, will be aroused by a word here. It is very true, no warmly
patriotic woman can now, in the present hour of peril, cordially
associate with such persons as offensively intrude their treasonable
sentiments. But let the patriotic woman not go too far--let her not
forget that when human beings give, as it were, a moral sanction to
feelings of hatred or contempt, they unchain a demon in their breasts.
We are all oftentimes shocked by anecdotes illustrative of the rancorous
spite, and vulgar, unwomanly malignity, cherished by many Southern
females against the Union and its defenders. Now were it not well for
us, on the other side, to take warning, and, for the sake of our own
peace of mind, our own dignity of character, our own Christian virtues,
not fall into the fallacy of thinking it right to indulge in feelings
and words of hate, even toward the criminally disloyal. This topic is
one involving so much of social and personal happiness, we are tempted
to enlarge upon it; but as all our remarks at this time are intended as
mere hints and suggestions, and not as an elaborate discussion, we pass
on to another method of fostering a healthy living patriotism--the fifth
and last of those to which we now direct attention, but the one
evidently the most difficult, and yet for final results the most
important of all. It is the cultivation, in American women, of a true
understanding and appreciation of the principles of our democratic
institutions--with a view to their practical social bearing, and
consequent obligations upon our sex.

Two years ago, a distinguished English philosopher and historian, lately
deceased, expressed the fear that our American system of government was
in advance of the culture of democratic ideas among our people.
Doubtless this observation took the shape of a fear because its author
was cognizant of the truth that when the spirit of a government fails to
be continually nourished by a sympathetic spirit in the prevailing tone
of society throughout the nation over which it presides, then the
government has small assurance of perpetuity.

Being patriots, and having, as women, so much to do with matters social
and educational, would it not be desirable to understand clea