Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/108

78 But now with clearer vision we reread the record of the past. True, we find no Raphael or Beethoven, no Phidias or Michael Angelo among women. No woman has painted the greatest picture, carved the finest statue, composed the noblest oratorio or opera. Not many women's names appear after Joan of Arc's in the long list of warriors; but, as a ruler, woman stands to-day the peer of man.

While man has rendered such royal service in the realm of art, woman has not been idle. Infinite wisdom has intrusted to her the living, breathing marble or canvas, and with smiles and tears, prayers and songs has she patiently wrought developing the latent possibilities of the divine Christ-child, the infant Washington, the baby Lincoln. Ah! since God and men have intrusted to woman the weightiest responsibility known to earth, the development and education of the human soul, need you fear to intrust her with citizenship? Is the ballot more precious than the soul of your child? If it is safe in the home, in the school-room, the Sunday-school, to place in woman's hands the education of your children, is it not safe to allow that mother to express her choice in regard to which one of these sons, her boys whom she has taught and nursed, shall make laws for her guidance?

Just here, in imagination, is heard the question, "How much help could we expect from women on financial questions?" We accept the masculine idea of woman's mathematical deficiencies. We have had slight opportunity for discovering the best proportions of a silver dollar, owing to the fact that the family specimens have been zealously guarded by the male members; and yet, we may have some latent possibilities in that direction, since already the "brethren" in our debt-burdened churches wail out from the depths of masculine indebtedness and interest-tables, "Our sisters, we pray you come over and help us!" And, in view of the fact of the present condition of finances, in view of the fact of the enormous taxes you impose upon us, can you look us calmly in the face and assert that matters might, would, should, or could have been worse, even though Julia Ward Howe, Mary A. Livermore, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had voted on the silver bill?

A moment since I referred to the great responsibilities of motherhood, and doubtless your mental comment was, "Yes, that is woman's peculiar sphere; there she should be content to remain." It is our sphere—beautiful, glorious, almost infinite in its possibilities. We accept the work; we only ask for opportunity to perform it. The sphere has enlarged, that is all. There has been a new revelation. That historic "first gun" proclaimed a wonderful message to the daughters of America; for, when the smoke of the cannonading had lifted, the entire horizon of woman was broadened, illuminated, glorified. On that April morn, when a nation of citizens suddenly sprang into an army of warriors, with a patriotism as intense, a consecration as true, American women quietly assumed their vacated places and became citizens. New boundaries were defined. A Mary Somerville or Maria Mitchell seized the telescope and alone with God and the stars, cast a new horoscope for woman. And the new truth, electrifying, glorifying American womanhood to-day, is the discovery that the