when, from Eden down, Eve can always plead with Adam, can have the first word instead of the last—­if she knows what that first word is, in herself and thence in its power with him—­can beguile him to his good instead of to his harm, as indeed she only meant to do in that first ignorant experiment?  Would it be any less easy to qualify for and accomplish this than to convince and outnumber in public gathering not only bodies of men but the mass of women that will also have to be confronted and convinced or overborne?

Preconceived opinions, minds made up, men not so easily beguiled to the pure good, you say?  Woman quite as apt to make mistakes out of Paradise as in?  That only returns us to the primal need and opportunity.  Get the man to listen to you before his mind is made up—­before his manhood is made up; while it is in the making.  That is just the power and place that belong to you, and you must seize and fill.  It is your natural right; God gave it to you.  “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”

We can not do all in one day, and in such a day of the world as this.  We plant trees for posterity where forests have been laid waste and the beautiful work of life is to be done over again; we can not expect to see our fruit in souls and in the nation at less cost of faith and time.  Take care, then, of the little children:  the men children, to make men of them; the women children—­oh, yes, even above all—­to make ready for future mothering—­to snatch from the evil that works over against pure womanliness.  Until you have done this let men fend for themselves in rough outsides a little longer; except, perhaps, as wise, able women whom the trying transition time calls forth may find fit way and place for effort and protest—­there is always room for that, and noble work has been and is being done; but do not rear a new generation of women to expect and desire charges and responsibilities reversive of their own life-law, through whose perfect fulfillment alone may the future clean place be made for all to work in.

Is there excess of female population?  Can not all expect the direct rule of a home?  Is not this exactly, perhaps, just now, for the more universal remedial mothering that in this age is the thing immediately needed?  Let her who has no child seek where she can help the burdened mother of many; how she can best reach with influence, and wisdom, and cherishing, the greatest number—­or most efficiently a few—­of these dear, helpless, terrible little souls, who are to make, in a few years, a new social condition; a better and higher, happier and safer, or a lower, worse, bitterer, more desperately complicated and distressful one.

“Desire earnestly the best gifts,” said Saint Paul, after enumerating the gifts of teaching and prophecy and authority; “and I show you,” he goes on, “a yet more excellent way.”  Charity—­not mere alms,