Then I sadly came away
  And felt guilty, all the day!

Dr. Frederick Winters was a great believer in personal liberty for every one—­except, of course, the members of his own family.  For them he craved every good thing except this.  He was kind, thoughtful, courteous, and generous—­a beneficent despot.

There is much to be said in favor of despotic government after all.  It is so easy of operation; it is so simple and direct—­one brain, one will, one law, with no foolish back-talk, bickerings, murmurings, mutinies, letters to the paper.  A democracy has it beaten, of course, on the basis of liberty, but there is much to be said in favor of an autocracy in the matter of efficiency.

“King Asa did that which was right in the sight of the Lord”; and in his reign the people were happy and contented and had no political differences.  There being only one party, the “Asaites,” there were no partisan newspapers, no divided homes, no mixed marriages, as we have to-day when Liberals and Conservatives, disregarding the command to be not unequally yoked together, marry.  All these distressing circumstances were eliminated in good King Asa’s reign.

It is always a mistake to pursue a theory too far.  When we turn the next page of the sacred story we read that King Omri, with the same powers as King Asa had had, turned them to evil account and oppressed the people in many ways and got himself terribly disliked.  Despotism seems to work well or ill according to the despot, and so, as a form of government, it has steadily declined in favor.

Despotic measures have thriven better in homes than in states.  Homes are guarded by a wall of privacy, a delicate distaste for publicity, a shrinking from all notoriety such as rebellion must inevitably bring, and for this reason the weaker ones often practice a peace-at-any-price policy, thinking of the alert eyes that may be peering through the filet lace of the window across the street.

Mrs. Winters submitted to the despotic rule of Dr. Winters for no such reason as this.  She submitted because she liked it, and because she did not know that it was despotic.  It saved her the exertion of making decisions for herself, and her conscience was always quite clear.  “The Doctor will not let me,” she had told the women when they had asked her to play for the Sunday services at the mission.  “The Doctor thought it was too cold for me to go out,” had been her explanation when on one occasion she had failed to appear at a concert where she had promised to play the accompaniments; and in time people ceased to ask her to do anything, her promises were so likely to be broken.

When the Suffrage agitators went to see her and tried to show her that she needed a vote, she answered all their arguments by saying, “I have such a good husband that these arguments do not apply to me at all”; and all their talk about spiritual independence and personal responsibility fell on very pretty, but very deaf, ears.  The women said she was a hopeless case.