if we are commonplace? We cannot all be artists, poets and sculptors.
Yet, how frequently we see people in commonplace surroundings,
possessing the soul of an artist, handicapped by physical disability
or lack of means! We are all necessary in the great, eternal plan.
'Tis not good deeds alone for which we receive our reward, but for the
performance of duty well done, in however humble circumstances our lot
is cast. Is it not Lord Houghton who says: 'Do not grasp at the stars,
but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily
duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.' I consider a
happy home in the true sense of the word one of the greatest of
blessings. How important is the work of the housemother and homemaker
who creates the home! There can be no happiness there unless the
wheels of the domestic machinery are oiled by loving care and kindness
to make them run smoothly, and the noblest work a woman can do is
training and rearing her children. Suffrage, the right of woman to
vote; will it not take women from the home? I am afraid the home will
then suffer in consequence. Will man accord woman the same reverence
she has received in the past? Should she have equal political rights?
A race lacking respect for women would never advance socially or
politically. I think women could not have a more important part in the
government of the land than in rearing and educating their children to
be good, useful citizens. In what nobler work could women engage than
in work to promote the comfort and well-being of the ones they love in
the home? I say, allow men to make the laws, as God and nature
planned. I think women should keep to the sphere God made them
for--the home. Said Gladstone, 'Woman is the most perfect when most
womanly.' There is nothing, I think, more despicable than a masculine,
mannish woman, unless it be an effeminate, sissy man. Dr. Clarke
voiced my sentiments when he said: 'Man is not superior to woman, nor
woman to man. The relation of the sexes is one of equality, not of