surely soon or some time, a new order beginning.  He, the Father of all, gives it to us to be the motherhood.  That is the great solving and upraising word; not limited to mere parentage, but the law of woman-life.  For good or for evil she mothers the world.

Not all are called to motherhood in the literal sense, but all are called to the great, true motherhood in some of its manifold trusts and obligations. “Noblesse oblige;” you can not lay it down.  “More are the children of the desolate than of her who hath a husband.”  All the little children that are born must look to womanhood somewhere for mothering.  Do they all get it?  All the works and policies of men look back somewhere for a true “desire” toward and by which only they can rule.  Is the desire of the woman—­of the home, the mother-motive of the world and human living—­kept in the integrity and beauty for which it was intrusted to her, that it might move the power of man to noble ends?

    Do you ask the governing of the nation?  You have the making of
    the nation.  Would you choose your statesmen?  First make your
    statesmen.

Indeed the whole cause on trial may be summarily ended by the proving of an alibi, an elsewhere of demand.  Is woman needed at the caucuses, conventions, polls?  She is needed, at the same time, elsewhere.  Two years of time and strength, of thought and love, from some woman, are essential for every little human being, that he may even begin a life.  When you remember that every man is once a little child, born of a woman, trained—­or needing training—­at a woman’s hands; that of the little men, every one of whom takes and shapes his life so, come at length the hand for the helm, the voice for the law, and the arm to enforce law—­what do you want more for a woman’s opportunity and control?

Which would you choose as a force, an advantage, in settling any question of public moment, or as touching your own private interest through the general management—­the right to go upon election day and cast one vote, or a hold beforehand upon the individual ear and attention of each voter now qualified?  The ability to present to him your argument, to show him the real point at issue, to convince and persuade him of the right and lasting, instead of the weak and briefly politic way?  This initial privilege is in the hands of woman; assuming that she can be brought to feel and act as a unit, which appears to be what is claimed for her in the argument for her regeneration of the outer political word.

But already and separately, if every intelligent, conscientious woman can but reach one man, and influence him from the principle involved—­from her interior perception of it, kept pure on purpose from bias and temptation that assail him in the outside mix and jostle—­will she not have done her work without the casting of a ballot?  And what becomes of “taxation without representation,”