her holy mission to grapple with some of the most painful problems of modern civilization.
"So may life its solemn mysteries unfold
To eyes not shy to see them nor too bold."
A really happy woman of this type is an object of envy to many—to those who have gained something but lost freedom in marriage, to unmarried colourless women who deny our right at once to be virtuous and happy, to those men whose past has been for ever robbed of the bloom which is life's sweetest gift.
It may be asked whether the community loses when she thus studies the welfare and full development of her own nature. Those principles of self-preservation and race-preservation which underlie all communities are the necessary elements of the permanent existence of a society. When once that permanence is secured, these principles it is found, are gradually replaced by others, the original law which pitilessly sacrificed the individual to the community is no longer needed, the community is established, and the welfare of the individual becomes first possible, then necessary, as a condition of communal health.
The relative importance of the principles of social and industrial liberty becomes reversed. In a young society, self-preservation of the whole is the primary necessity. Industrial welfare is and must be sacrificed to it; thus the aim to be reached is a maximum of social strength, and a minimum of individual freedom; but as the community grows, its self-preservation is secured, and the aim gradually changes in character, it seeks to combine the maximum of individual liberty compatible with social existence. Marriage was in early times the only or the most powerful bond that united the wandering, incoherent tendencies of peoples. It identified the interests of the individual with that of the community, and made him willing to sacrifice his own welfare for the general good. It therefore maintained a justly high place as a political institution. Now marriage is no longer the only incentive to peace and order.
A new factor has shown itself, exercising the same uniting influence—this is the social spirit or public conscience which makes self-government possible. When this stage of evolution is reached, the conditions are changed; the greater the number of persons, male or female, admitted to a share in the administration of law, the more public spirit is utilized in binding society together; every woman and every man that takes her or his share of social duty becomes a cementing element in society. When the class or sex hitherto excluded is admitted to these responsibilities, the first effect is and must be an increase of solidarity and unity throughout the nation. Such increased solidarity is always
