If we look out today at the various nations of the world and review them state by state, we see that they differ in strength and advancement according as the strengthening and advance-ment of woman among them differ. One of the Frankish historians, speaking of the Arabs, said: “Arab civilization is indebted to the freedom that Muhammad gave woman; when they robbed her of that freedom, their civiliza-tion was robbed from them.”

Yet all these nations together still agree upon erasing woman from the page of justice, which is the foundation of social stability. The monopoly of force in the making of laws will leave humanity, for long generations yet, floundering in wars and their calamities, tasting of their evils the flavor of bitterness and privation, and bereaved, because of them, of the dearest offspring that human thought has begotten in its long history of development — with all the injustice and usurpation this involves. How should he alone make the law, when she shares

its consequences with him, good or bad? He declares wars, and she crawls beside him under their heavy burdens; he lays down the statutes, and she bears with him the penalties of whatever in them is unsound. So long as force — which knows no law but conquest and worldly ambition — keeps this matter to itself, opening no way for a mother's tenderness to soften a father's greed, paying no heed to a sister's tear to temper a brother's rashness, and caring nothing for a wife's anxious love to blunt a husband's sting — yes, so long as this force takes no account of these good human feelings, how can it be fit to lead the way to contentment, in which is riches, and to tranquillity, in which is happiness? And how shall it bring the human ship into the safe harbors of peace?...

I recall the story of a woman to whom it fell to give the decisive word in just such a situation. A letter from Solomon had been delivered to her, and behold, the men around her bristled at this challenge and raced to offer their

arms in her defense, crying with the most ardent voices: We are the Queen's ransom! “We are possessed of strength and pos-sessed of mighty valor; but the command is yours — consider, then, what you will command.” Her answer was a smile, a soothing of tempers, the sending of a gift, and the words: “Kings, when they enter a town, lay it waste and make the mightiest of its people the most abased; even so do they.”

Thus did Bilqis, Queen of Sheba, prefer the exercise of reason — for man was armed with reason, and not for the devising of evils. Yes, she preferred the exercise of reason and deliberation, and submission to the truth once she found truth in the summons, over taking up force, though force she had in abundance. She did not resort to it, knowing well what befalls the land whether the issue be victory or defeat. And so it was that she tasted the sweetness of yielding to the truth, and by it turned back from error — and what a mighty glory is the glory