As a light in deep darkness she has arisen—woman, pure womanly, with all the God-given attributes of her highest nature at last acknowledged by her self-styled “lord and master,” Man! She has shaken off the trammels which for many centuries he had fastened about her—as heroic maid and mother she has roused the better spirit in him. Out of the gloom and blood and slaughter of this world war—the most wicked war that ever devastated the earth—she has radiated upon him like an angel, clothed in a glory of love and pity; and, moving by his side through the poisonous smoke of battle and the thunder of the guns, she has cheered him on his way. When wounded and fallen she has been swift to rescue him, and first to soothe. Who will, who can, ever justly estimate the saving work of women in this terrific holocaust of nations!—this mad hurtling of man against brother—man without thought for the consequences of such wholesale murder! To Woman, in her mother-love and mercy, friend and foe are alike indifferent; all that her pitying eyes see are the gaping wounds, the flowing blood, the torn and disfigured limbs—her province is to save, heal, and comfort if she can. She knows that with God there are no nations, but that all men are human beings, subject to the same sufferings, the same deaths; she knows by the teaching of Christ that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground without Our Father, and that men are of “more value than many sparrows.” So, placing herself in tenderest unison with that “quality of mercy” which
she gives her care and service to all. She has no fears for herself; she would as soon die as live, provided only she is doing her duty. Perhaps, away down in the very core of her heart, her natural maternal instinct teaches her that these struggling, contesting masses of men are more or less enraged children, tormented and driven by bigger boys than themselves to fall upon each other and slay without thought—she may sometimes think wistfully that had they sought her counsel they might have found some better way out of their quarrel than the killing of their brothers—but, until lately, her rôle through all the centuries has been the mistaken one of submission to man’s caprice or ordainment, and any attempt at individuality on her part has been decried as a perversion of sex. Now the question of sex, reduced to first principles, appears to be that woman should find her sole content as the “vessel” of man’s pleasure—the breeder and nurse of his offspring and no more. This great war has somewhat altered the lines of the masculine perspective, for men have been forced to admit that women can do all their work as well as themselves, and sometimes better. They can even build ships and aeroplanes, and all this without losing the spirit of womanliness. Strange as it may seem, the woman who might lately have been seen hammering at the keel of a “Dreadnought” can prove herself soft-handed in tending the wounded, and most reverently loving in her last cares for the dying and the dead. She has mastered her nerves—those “Early Victorian” nerves which shuddered fastidiously at the sight of blood, and sent their hysterical owners into a swoon when dangers or difficulties arose, in order to create fresh confusion; she knows the great secret of self-control, and the wonderful vigour and courage which are born of that fine quality. There are very few women nowadays who scream at the sight of a mouse! But this was considered quite “the proper thing” to do in Jane Austen days, just as in some of the queer old novels written before the grand romances of Sir Walter Scott, the heroines invariably “fainted away” when the lover of the piece declared his passion. Women know that “lover of the piece” fairly well by this time, and all his limitations—sufficiently, at any rate, to be convinced that there is nothing in him worth even a pretended “swoon,” though there may be much that is worth cherishing, guiding, and inspiring to the best purposes. Not every man is like a certain one I wot of, who, after being nursed for three months in a friend’s house, said to that friend and hostess on the day he left in restored health,—“If you want a man to like you, never do anything for him!” This was not said in jest, but in grim and churlish earnest. It was a curious recompense for three months’ watchful anxiety and care, but I dare say she realised then, if never before, that “one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Fortunately there are few such “sow’s ears” about; most men, especially our heroic fighters, are touchingly grateful for women’s kindness and devoted nursing, while fairly astonished at their endurance, cheerfulness, patience, and devotion. Truly, the supposed “incapacities” of woman never existed except in the hopelessly unintelligent of her sex which have their counterpart in man; she has supported her share of the burden of life under a stupid system of repression and tyranny which has frequently resulted in discouragement, weariness, and indifference. But give her the chance to be her true, free self, and she will be the most powerful factor in the world for the betterment of humanity. We shall not deny that there are worthless women—fool-women, toy-women,—fit for nothing but posturing in various attitudes and sets of clothing; but these will find their level and grow fewer as time goes on. The grander, purer natures will, like waves of a clean, bright sea, roll over the mud-banks and eventually wash worthless things away. For now, after centuries of oppression and servitude, in which her incalculable love has been more than half wasted, and her splendid qualities misprized, now at last Woman has her chance! And those who see her day dawning must and will pray earnestly that she will use her powers always for the highest and the best, to the end that Man may find in her not a “drag on the wheel,” but a great lifting strength to bear him upward and onward to that completeness of noble living which from the beginning God has ordained.