There is nothing more supernatural in the self-sacrificing instinct which reverses the order of combat and makes the militant party the direct helper of the weak, than there is in the sexual combat of natural selection which kills the weak. The law of evolution is emasculated and shorn of its beauty if we omit, or relegate to some other law, its most significant operations. What means the helping hand of strength that is beginning to be outstretched toward weakness all over the civilized world? It means that nature is reversing the order and making conflict the direct instead of the indirect instrument of development. In the survival of the fittest body, she could not use this principle of mutual helpfulness, in which the conflict is subjective to the helping agent. She could only hint at it in the survival of the fittest mind, but she can use it altogether in the survival of the fittest soul. At the base of Calvary the weed has choked the flower. Half way up the rugged steep the two are interlocked in fierce but equal strife, while on the summit, triumphant in eternal bloom, the flower has choked the weed.

Go follow in the storm's wild wake,

While tear-drops dim fair Nature's eyes,
And learn that through her wide domain
The fittest is the first that dies.
The opening bud that promised well
Will ruthless on the ground be cast,

While petals of the loveliest rose

Will strew the footprints of the blast.

Go gather garland rich and fair

From out thy perfumed garden bower,
And place it in thy silver vase,

And watch it for a brief sweet hour.

The first to fade and droop away
And fall from out the rosy band,
Will be the flower you loved the best
And nurtured with the tenderest hand.

The tree that bears the sweetest fruit
We need to guard with watchful care,
And shield it from the icy blast,

That raves through winter's frosty air.
The purest life on mother's breast,

That pauses thoughtful in its play, Is that which soonest wings its flight, From out-grown chrysalis of clay

But 'neath this mystic law of life
There lies concealed a meaning deep,
That holds within its jeweled palm

A message for the souls that weep: "The fittest on the earth survive"

Hath meaning yet beyond our ken, And holds an unexplored realm,

To modify the thoughts of men.

For that which yields, the readiest prey
On earth, to storm and angry sea,
In all that maketh life divine,

Seems fittest for the great To-Be.
Where souls, at top of being's chain,

Turn back to view the pendent links That mark the still unbroken line

From silent dust to that which thinks;

Where thought's mysterious power gains rule,
O'er Nature's elemental law,

And builds a world of mighty love

Above the reign of tooth and claw; On Nature's heights the tables turn, The brutal law she doth o'erwhelm, While mercy, justice, love and truth Are crowned the fittest in her realm.

bre Sargent

INDIVIDUALITY IN WOMAN.

BY

MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD.

WE

foremothers.

E are but the third genera tion from our revolutionary If each of us could clasp

hands with our mother and she with hers, these links would bridge the distance that separates us from Abigail Adams, the mother of the revolution; Martha Washington, its most stately lady, and Molly Pitcher, its most notable heroine. Like ourselves, those women bowed before the cross and were devoted to the

flag; like us they were the allies of the men who amid storms of shot and shell declared for "revolution "; like us they staked their all upon the triumph of the cause to which these men had pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." My own dear mother, to-day in the tranquil brightness of her 82d year, has often told me of her New England grandfather, who once found himself the only revolutionist present at a public dinner, whereupon an attempt was made to coerce him by the toast, "King George's health,