And now, when at the end of the ages He once again calls us women to stand heart to heart with Him in a great redemptive purpose, shall we hang back?  Shall we not rather obey the Divine call, enduring the Cross, despising the shame, and, like those women of old, winning for ourselves, by faithfulness unto death, the joy of being made the messengers of a higher and risen life to the world?

God grant that the power of the Holy Ghost may overshadow us and enable us to make answer with her whom all generations have called blessed:  “Behold the hand-maiden of the Lord!”

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 42:  Late Head-Master of Harrow; now Metropolitan of India.]

[Footnote 43:  I would especially commend this modern order of knighthood to the prayers and support of women.  It is bravely fighting our battle for us and doing the public work among men.  As it attacks what is especially the sin of the moneyed classes, it is unpopular, men resenting its interference with what they call their private life, and it is always in peril for want of funds.  The White Cross league admits women associates for intercessory prayer—­and what mother will not be thankful for that?—­for any work where women’s aid is needed, and for raising funds for what is so emphatically our own cause.  I would earnestly suggest to women who have incomes of their own that they should leave the White Cross a small legacy, so as to place it on a firmer basis.  I hope myself to leave the English branch L2000.]

[Footnote 44:  From an article in the Nineteenth Century on “Meddling with Hindu Marriages.”]

[Footnote 45:  Ezek. i., 26.]

APPENDIX

In Mr. Edward Thring’s address to the Church Congress at Carlisle in 1841, he said: 

“Curiosity, ignorance, and lies form a very hot-bed of impurity.  We pay heavily for our civilized habits in false shame and the mystery in which sex is wrapped.

“I confess that for curiosity I have no remedy to propose.  Ignorance and lies are on a different footing.  I suppose everyone is acquainted with some of the current lies about the impossibility of being pure.  The only answer to this is a flat denial from experience.  I know it is possible, and, when once attained, easy.  The means, under God, in my own case, was a letter from my father.  A quiet, simple statement of the sinfulness of the sin and a few of the plain texts from St. Paul saved me.  A film fell from my eyes at my father’s letter.  My first statement is that all fathers ought to write such a letter to their sons.  It is not difficult if done in a common-sense way.  Following out this plan at Uppingham in the morning Bible lessons, I have always spoken as occasion arose with perfect plainness on lust and its devil-worship, particularly noting its deadly effect on human life and its early and dishonored graves.  Ignorance