Cruelty and Lust are the twin evils that now most seriously afflict our race, and which women—the mothers of the race—are especially called on to fight. Women must act. No one not partially blind can fail to see that the onward movement of events is carrying women forward into positions of active influence in social life that they have not hitherto occupied. Whether we welcome or dread this change, it goes on irresistibly, based upon industrial activity, and extending into every other department of life. The command of wisdom is to accept this advance, recognise its responsibilities, and bravely rise to meet them. Women, by the endowment of Motherhood, are created with special powers. This endowment, which is a mighty spiritual as well as a physical force, indicates their distinctive line of active influence, and will show why they are especially called on to combat cruelty and lust, which kill motherhood.

In this special subject, women must initiate their own lines of action, for they are called on by the constitution of Humanity to lead in this moral warfare, not be led. Equal justice to all, with protection for the most defenceless, is the only foundation on which both custom and legislation can safely rest in any attempt to improve the relations of the sexes or to remedy the direful evils which these relations at present engender.