AMONG the many ages or periods in this world's existence, -- ages and periods which have been separated and classified, according to the fancy of historians, as the "Dark," the "Mythical," the "Classical," or the "Mediæval," -- it is doubtful whether there has ever been one which has so richly merited the pre-eminent and prominent label of "Sham" writ across it as this, our own blessed and enlightened time. If any pride can be taken in the fact, let those who will be proud. For never in all the passing pageant and phantasmagoria of history did a greater generation of civilised hypocrites cumber the face of the globe than cumber it to-day, -- never was the earth so oppressed with the weight of polite lying, -- never were there such crowds of civil masqueraders, cultured tricksters, and social humbugs, who, though admirable as tricksters and humbugs, are wholly contemptible as men and women. Truth is at a discount, -- and if one should utter it, the reproachful faces of one's so-called "friends" show how shocked they are at meeting with anything honest. We are drifting our days away in a condition of false luxury, -- of over-ripe civilisation, -- which has bred in us that apathetic inertia which is always a premonitory symptom of fatal disease. If one should talk to us of heroic actions -- even the simplest -- our befuddled minds connect them vaguely with a necessity for the police or the law courts, -- if we should hear of a bold man's attempt to scale the heights of a seeming too lofty ambition, we express our sickly belief that he will fail, -- and if he succeeds, we are, in the same sickly spirit, more disappointed than gratified. We cannot abide boldness. We are too weak in our nerves to stand the warm and splendid fervours of enthusiasm. We shudder -- we cry -- we whine at things that threaten to disturb our slothful self-indulgence, -- our eating -- our drinking -- our sleeping in soft beds, guarded from draught and noise -- our dear, pet vices -- our morbid egotism -- our blind, idiot vanity: we cannot endure troublous emotions -- the great stress and storm of heart which moulds noble character. Away with such! We cannot be expected to exert ourselves more than is absolutely necessary for the feeding of our bodies and the carrying of them about, carefully, to such places as may seem adequate for their entertainment and further nourishment. I am not speaking of the "millions underground," -- the vast, toiling, silent millions of unregarded and unrewarded workers, who labour out of sight as it were and with such ominous speechlessness, -- the speechlessness being only for a time. I am addressing you, -- women, most of you, -- who read the pages of this popular magazine * because you expect you will find something therein to minister to pleasure or vanity, -- something in the way of advice of dress or the toilette, or the thousand-and-one little fascinations wherewith you hope to entrap the often silly souls of men, -- not because you want to be told where you fail in the very mission and intention of Womanhood.

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• Religion & Spirituality

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