Frances Willard.

White Ribbon, Volume 6, Issue 66, 1 November 1900, Page 1

Frances Willard.

IN MEM OK I AM. Portions of an Address by the Lady Henry Somerset, World’s W.C.T.U* Convention, Edinburgh, June 23rd, 1900. How vividly we realise that there was . winter morning, a little more

than two years ago, when a solemn hush came to women the world over, when tears stood in the eyes of men unused to emotion, and when to many hearts there came that “ Silence that ached round in," when the human voice we loved so well was still, the busy pen was laid aside, and we knew that Frances Willard had gone home.

Top Row: Mrs. 11. Osborn Mrs. Lente Stevenson Miss Powell Mdme. Leorain (England). (Massachiuetts). (New Zealand). (France). 2nd Row: Mas. J. K. Barnet Mbs. Pearsall Smith Mrs. Barnes Miss Clara Parrish Mdme. Triego Helenius (Rhode Island). (England), (New York), (Japan). (Finland).

We are sometimes apt to minimise, when we look upon those who have passed on, the humanness of their example ; the prominent features of strength and greatness and courage stand out so strongly that we fail to grasp the little by ways that led to those heights. 1 think that if I were asked the salient feature of Frances Willard's character, I should say : The

salient feature ot Frances Willard’s character was its absolute transparent simplicity and the child like humanness of her nature. From the days of her happy girlhood at Forest Horn**, in that free, bright life, and under the care of the most loving mother that ever watched the unfolding of her children, all through her college days to the time when her great gifts brought to her a position for which she was singularly fitted as the head of the Woman’s College, you will always find these characteristics prominent ; her deep human affections, her singleness of purpose, her intense trust in humanity, and her yearning after the ideal.

I am not going to dwell upon the incidents of her life ; they are much too well known to all of you. . . . Hut what I want to ask you to consider is: What was if that gave In r the hold over human beings such as, perhaps, we shall never see again. W hat was it that made it possible for everyone who came into her presence to feel that they had found a friend, that their interests, their lives, their work, their advancement, their development, was the thing that was always near to her heart ? We might answer that, in a sense, it was selflessness; but it was not only that, there was something more I think, first of all, it was a profound belief in humanity. She saw the Divine in humanity as 1 have never known it realised by anyone else; and in the very darkest, dingiest, human life she recognised the aureole that no one else saw. It was not that she made herself believe in people, but it was that she did believe in them. She had an intuition of their best, and although at times that intuition made her possibly exag gerate the good and minimise the ill, it never failed to call out, at any rate for the time, in that human soul, a real desire to live up to what she believed it to be.

And then she had the wonderful art of praise. I have heard her blamed for praising too much, but I think it was a divine instinct in In r that made her understand that the human heart is far more apt to be self-depreciating than really proud, that the most boastful people are sometimes at bottom the most uncertain of themselves, and that they put, as it were, all their wares in the window, because they realise that there is nothing behind. And Frances Willard knew that praise was humbling, anti that when people heard her

speak ot them as though they were able to fulfil something or do something, there went up a great desire that they might be worthy of what she thought them ; and in nine cases out of ten, I venture to say, her praise was the very best nedicine to the individual soul.

But, perhaps, the most Christ.like characteristic of Frances Willard was her power of forgiveness. I know no one who felt more acutely the bitterness of ingratitude, the heart ache of a slight, or the stab of an enemy, more than she. I have often seen her lip quiver as she read a letter, and her hand tremble, and I have realised how profoundly the human pain and disappointment entered her soul ; and yet, after a moment’s struggle, she would look up and say, “ 1 want to feel as if I were ready to put a kiss upon her forehead, and when I know 1 can, then 1 shall feel that lam able to act. ’ It was the most perfect instance 1 have ever met of a rule of love governing and guiding conduct. And yet, all the while, it was from no altitude, no crushed-out human feeling that she acted.

I do not want, to day, to speak of the clearer vision with which she saw the things which people sometimes call ‘‘secular”; now she was the pioneer prophetess of religion in politics, in that great land of America ; how she inspired the women of all lands to understand that there was in the very act of voting for the laws of any country a sacred charge, holy and high a id true ; how she saw that by evolution and not by revolution must come that wider liberty which God destines for humanitv ; how she realised that the power of the liquor traffic, which had so encroached upon the liberties of civil life, must be crushed, and that the life must lie taken from it, that it must be left powerless, dead—if the evil of intemperance was to be dealt with. I do not forget that pain came to her heart, and that it was my action that brought the pain, that while she stood uncompromisingly by her principles, she recognised motive, in judging action. When I took ground that was opposed to the foundation belief of the White Ribbon movement, she realised that it was mistaken judgment on my part, never a desire to promote or facilitate evil. As I look back over those days 1 honour the women who, true to their conviction, strenuously opposed ,

my action, and I thank God that the tender, loyal heart of our leader received, before she left us, the full assurance of my complete withdrawal from the position I Ind taken. God grant that we may learn from our faults and our mistakes the deepest lessons of our li\es.

I think the best use we can make of this memorial hour is to realise how thin is the veil and how neir the angel spirits whom we have met to greet, not to remember them as though they were not. How near this spiritual companionship, this spiritual protection; this light from tht Unseen which shines about us perpetually. And so faithfully believing more than we know, we, to-day, work on and work upward, and the way is lighter anti the road less steep, and heaVen nearer because God gave us Frances Willard.