they had no sacred rights bound up with the sacred rights of men. The National American Woman Suffrage Association sent last autumn an appeal to organized suffragists all over the world, urging them to 'arise in protest, and show war-crazed men that between the contending armies there stand thousands of women and children who are the innocent victims of man's unbridled ambitions.'

There was no word in this appeal to indicate that any nobler and humbler- sentiment than unbridled ambition (which, after all, is for the very few) animates the soldier's heart. There was no distinction drawn between aggressive and defensive warfare. There was no hint that men bear their full share of the sufferings caused by war. The assumption that women endure all the pain is in accordance with the assumption that men enjoy all the pleasure. To write as though battle were a game, played by men at the expense of women, is childish and irrational. We Americans are happily spared the sight of mangled soldiers lying in undreamed-of agony on the frozen field. We do not see the ghastly ambulance trains jolting along with their load of broken, tortured men; or the hospitals where these wrecks are nursed back to some poor remnant of life, or escape through the merciful gates of death. But we might read of these things; we might visualize them in moments of comfortable leisure, and take shame to our souls at the platform eloquence which so readily assumes that the sorrows of war are hidden in women's hearts, that the burdens of war are laid upon women's shoulders, that women are sacrificed in their helplessness to the hatred and the ambitions, the greed and the glory of men.

If by any chance a word of regret is expressed for the soldier who dies for his country, it is always because he is

the son of his mother, or the husband of his wife, or the father of his child. He is never permitted an entity of his own. It is curious that the same women who clamor for a recognition of their individual freedom should assume these property rights in men. Dr. Anna Shaw has commented sarcastically upon a habit (one of many bad habits) which she has observed in the unregenerate sex. They speak of their womenkind in terms of relationship; they use the possessive case. They say, 'my wife,' 'my sister,' 'my daughter,' 'my mother,' 'my aunt,' instead of 'Jane,' 'Susan,' 'Mary Ann,' 'Mrs. Smith,' 'Miss Jones.' Apparently Dr. Shaw does not hear women say, 'my husband,' 'my brother,' 'my son,' 'my father,' 'my uncle'; or, if she does, this sounds less feudal in her ears. Advanced feminists have protested against the custom of 'branding a woman at marriage with her husband's name.' Even the convenience of such an arrangement fails to excuse its arrogance.

Yet we are bidden to protest against the wickedness of all war, not because men die, but because wives are widowed; not because men slay, but because mothers are childless; not because men do evil, or suffer wrong, but because, in either case, women must share the consequences. For the sake of these women war must be stopped, is the popular clamor, - not unsuggestive of Mr. Winkle imploring the submerged Mr. Pickwick to 'keep up' for his sake. After all, the vast majority of men would be only too glad to escape war for their own sakes. They do not covet loss of income and destruction of property. They do not gladly aspire to an armless or legless future. Not one of them really wants a shattered thigh, or a bullet in his abdomen. And, in addition to these (perhaps selfish) considerations, we might do them the justice to remember that they are not desti

tute of natural affection for their wives and children; but that, on the contrary, the protection of the family is, and has always been, a factor in war. It lent a desperate courage to the Belgian soldier who saw his home destroyed; it nerved the arm of the French soldier who knew his home in peril. The killing of women and children at Scarborough sent a host of tardy volunteers into the British army. It is about the only thing on earth which the least valiant man cannot stomach.

The Turk, not squeamish as a rule,
No special glee betrayed,
And even Mr. Bernard Shaw

Failed to commend the raid.

The outbreak of the war was seized upon as a strong argument for diametrically opposite views. A small and hardy minority kicked up its heels and shouted, 'Women cannot fight. Why should they control a land they are powerless to defend?' A large and sentimental majority lifted up its eyes to Heaven, and answered, 'If women had possessed their rights, all would now be smiling and at peace.' And neither of these contending factions took any trouble to ascertain and understand the rights and wrongs of the conflict. People who pin their faith to a catchword never feel the necessity of understanding anything.

Here, for example, is a violent pacifist in the Woman's Journal, who, to the oft-repeated assertion that women, when they have the vote, 'will compel governments to settle their disputes before an international court of arbitration,' adds this unwarranted statement: "The women of the world have no quarrel with each other. They do not care whether or not Austria maintains its power over the Balkan States; whether or not France obtains revenge for the defeats of 1870; whether Germany or England gains supremacy in the world

market.'

This good lady does not seem to know what happened last August. France did not proclaim war upon Germany. Germany proclaimed war upon France. France did not attack,- for revenge, or for any other motive. She was attacked, and is now fighting with her back to the wall in defense of her own soil.

It is possible for an American woman to have no quarrel with any one, no knowledge of what Europe is quarreling about, and no human concern as to which nations win. But she should not think, and she certainly should not say, that the women of the warring lands are equally ignorant, and equally unconcerned. The Servian woman no doubt cares a great deal for the freedom of her hard-pressed, bravely defended country. The French woman cares with her whole soul for the preservation of France. The Belgian woman can hardly be indifferent to the ultimate fate of Belgium. It is even possible that the English and German women are not prepared to clasp each other's hands and say, 'We are sisters, and it matters nothing to us whether England or Germany wins.' The pitfall of the feminist is the belief that the interests of men and women can ever be severed; that what brings suffering to the one can leave the other unscathed.

V

In the genial reign of Henry the Eighth, a docile Parliament passed, at the desire of the King, an 'Act to abolish Diversity of Opinion.' President Wilson, less despotic, has recommended something of the same order as a mental process, a soul-smothering, harmony-preserving, intellectual anodyne. It is called neutrality, and is warranted to shelter us from the storm. Its only outlet is a prayer (conditions not to be mentioned) for peace. But penetrating

this self-imposed lethargy, disturbing this tranquil petition, shaming our adroit commercialism, and nullifying even the Pope's entreaty,-'Lay down your arms!'-comes the echo of words with which we were once familiar, of which we were once proud: 'With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.'

This is the potent voice of humanity, never to be silenced while men stay men. The 'work' was bloody work; brother slaying brother on the battlefield. The women of the North and the women of the South bore their share of sorrow. They did not clamor that they were victims of men's unbridled ambition, and they never intimated to one another that the final victory was to them a matter of unconcern. Theirs was the 'solemn pride' of sacrifice; and that fine phrase, dedicated by Mr. Lincoln to the woman who had sent five sons to the conflict, is applicable to thousands of mothers to-day. The writer knows a young Frenchman who, when the war broke out, had lived for some years in this country, and hoped to make it his permanent home. To him his mother wrote, 'My son, your two brothers are at the front. Are you not coming back to fight for France?' The lad had not meant to go. Perhaps he coveted safety. Perhaps he held life (his life) to be a sacred thing. Perhaps he thought to comfort his mother's old age. But when that letter came, he sailed on the next steamer. It was a summons that few men, and certainly no Frenchman, could deny.

I do not tell this incident by way of proving that women stand for war. It lends no more weight to an argument than does the idle fact that Femina, the woman's organ in Paris, asked its readers last winter, 'What man in history would you have liked to be?' and the reply of a very large majority was,

'Napoleon.' I have seen that incident quoted several times as proof of women's belligerency; whereas it only goes to show that a profoundly foolish question will, in nine cases out of ten, elicit a profoundly foolish answer. But when the late Justice Brewer said that there never was a time since the beginning of days,' when women were not opposed to bloodshed, I wondered how he found this out. Certainly not from the pages of history, which afford little or no evidence on the subject. And this may be one reason why feminists are protesting stoutly against the way in which history has been written, its indiscreet revelations, its disconcerting silences.

At a meeting of the Women's Political Union in New York last October, Mrs. Gilman boldly urged the rewriting of history on a peace basis: less emphasis placed upon nationalism, less space devoted to wars. At a meeting of the National Municipal League in Baltimore last November, another reformer urged the rewriting of history on a feminine basis; less emphasis placed upon men, less space devoted to their achievements. She complained that President Wilson hardly makes mention of women in his five volumes of American history, and intimated that the 'knell' of that kind of narrative had 'rung.'

The historian of the future will find his task pleasantly simplified. He will be a little like two young Americans whom I once met scampering blithely over southern Europe, and to whom I ventured to say that they covered their ground quickly. 'No trouble about that,' answered one of them. 'We draw the line at churches and galleries, and there's nothing left to see.' So, too, the chronicler who eliminates men and war from his pages can move swiftly down the centuries. Even an earnest effort to minimize these factors painfully suggests that blight of my girlhood, Miss Strickland, who forever

strove to withdraw her wandering attention from warrior and statesman, and fix it on the trousseau of a queen.

History is, and has always been, hampered by facts. It may ignore some and deny others; but it cannot accommodate itself unreservedly to theories; it cannot be stripped of things evidenced, in favor of things surmised. Perhaps, instead of asking to have it remodeled in our favor, we women might take the trouble to read it as it is: dominated by men, disfigured by conflict, but not altogether ignoble or unprofitable, and

always very enlightening. We learn from it, for example, that war may be just, and peace a shameful thing; that 'firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,' implies some knowledge of existing circumstances upon which to base our judgment; and that wife and child, far from being unconsidered trifles, are powerful incentives in defensive warfare, more close, more dear, more impelling than threatened home and country.

We will (fight) for ourselves and a woman, forever and ever. Amen.

I

THE American temperament is volatile. And the emotions of Americans have always been exceptionally susceptible to religious appeal. Yet revivalism is not one of the by-products of our newness; what we have done is, organize and capitalize it. With a capacity trained in commerce we have taken it out of the spasmodic and spontaneous class of phenomena and given it the aspect of a trust, with the rich returns that all trusts tend to produce. In some directions its methods are so efficient and its results so predicable that the most expert publicity agents and the most astute political leaders are openly envious and frankly eager to learn the principles by which such vast mass movements are achieved.

Nothing, however, arouses quicker resentment than to attribute the results

of a modern revival to efficiency and skillful organization. Protestant evangelicals claim that evangelism or revivalism is indubitably authorized by the Bible, that it has a historical continuity and sanction quite as traceable as Apostolic Succession, and is open to neither the empirical nor the sectarian objections that may be urged against the Roman and Anglo-Catholic dogma. Indeed, if pressed, they will contend that revivalism, or the power to move men to immediate spiritual decision, is the only valid mark of an apostolic succession. No one will dispute that the modern revival has, apparently, a very long line of antecedents, and that if universality and continuity are true notes of a genuine religious function or phenomenon, the revival will find little difficulty in making good its claim. Their argument will find its first term in the records of the Founder of Christianity.

II

Jesus of Nazareth admitted frankly that He 'came not to destroy but to fulfill,' 'not to kill but to make alive.' Etymologically the word revival means a quickening or a resuscitation of a faculty or experience that has been dormant or has fallen into desuetude. That such was what He did, none who knows the chronicle will deny. It is difficult to prove from the four Gospels that He deliberately created anything beyond a new spiritual consciousness; Heawakened men to the realities of the spiritual ideal. The Gospels credit Him with speaking of the 'Kingdom of God' or the 'Kingdom of Heaven' at least one hundred and twenty times, whereas He referred to the Church only twice,

and one of these references is textually dubious. And even had He made more frequent use of the term ecclesia, it would have to be interpreted in the strictly Greek sense as the 'enfranchised,' those who had the right to a determinative voice and vote in the affairs of the community. It is quite probable that, had the perpetuation of his work fallen into Greek hands, the form of Christianity might have taken an entirely different shape. It might have been an organism rather than an organization. The tendency toward that development is seen clearly in the fourth Gospel. But Peter, James, Paul, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews were determined to keep and emphasize the nexus with Judaism. In fact they exaggerated it, much to the embarrassment of subsequent leaders who were bent upon giving it a universal application.

The natal day of the Christian Church was Pentecost, when three thousand were converted. Under the preaching of Peter, class- and race-consciousness faded away, the individual volition lost itself in the mass-movement, and we

have the first Christian revival. Coming so early and standing out so boldly in the history of the church, it was impossible that it should not be standardized. Christians in every generation have prayed and looked for 'another Pentecost.' Hymns of invitation, or of appeal for decision, are called Pentecostal hymns. Meetings in which intense spiritual interest is felt are called Pentecostal seasons. It is important for

every student of revivals to remember that the Christian Church has always looked upon them as valid and desirable. That they are intermittent has been a cause of regret, a ground of repentance; if the Church were always loyal to its mission and pure in its faith, every day would see multitudes turning from sin, every day would be Pentecost. Such a belief can be illustrated from the literature of the Church in each successive generation.

An entirely different justification comes from psychologists. Religion is the action of the will upon character and conduct. But powerful though the will is, it is not initiative. As a cause producing very definite effects it nevertheless exerts itself only when sufficiently stimulated by compelling influences. It can be moved to action through the emotions or the reason, but the emotional stimulus is the quicker and more powerful. It is generally much more rapid than documentary evidence would lead us to suppose. The classical records of conversion are not typical. They have claimed extraordinary attention because the autobiographers were men of rare literary ability. Even if religion should cease to be an operative factor in life, Augustine's Confessions, Bunyan's Grace Abounding and Pilgrim's Progress, and John Wesley's Diary would be worth while as literature. The mere fact that between eighty and ninety per cent of conversions occur during adolescence is suf