novel doctrine, to change our course entirely. We are under orders to
sail out into unknown seas, beneath skies unfamiliar, with small
light from the stars, without chart, without pilot, the port to which
we are bound being one as yet unvisited by mortal man--or woman!
Heavy mist, and dark cloud, and threatening storm appear to us
brooding over that doubtful sea. But something of prophetic vision is
required of us. We are told that all perils which seem to threaten the
first stages of our course are entirely illusive--that they will vanish
as we approach--that we shall soon arrive in halcyon waters, and
regions where wisdom, peace, and purity reign supreme. If we
cautiously inquire after some assurance of such results, we are told
that to those sailing under the flag of progress triumph is inevitable,
failure is impossible; and that many of the direst evils hitherto
known on earth must vanish at the touch of the talisman in the hand
of woman--and that talisman is the vote.

Now, to speak frankly--and being as yet untrammeled by political
aspirations, we fearlessly do so--as regards this flag of progress, we
know it to be a very popular bit of bunting; but to the eye of
common-sense it is grievously lacking in consistency. The flag of our
country means something positive. We all love it; we all honor it. It
represents to us the grand ideas by which the nation lives. It is the
symbol of constitutional government, of law and order, of union, of a
liberty which is not license. It is to us the symbol of all that may be
great and good and noble in the Christian republic. But this vaunted
flag of progress, so alluring to many restless minds, is vague in its
colors, unstable, too often illusive, in web and woof. Many of its
most prominent standard-bearers are clad in the motley garb of
theorists. Their flag may be seen wandering to and fro, hither and
thither, up and down, swayed by every breath of popular caprice; so