And this it is to be a
lady still, in the new days in which too many men have little care save
to make money. Show then that you can be ladies still. That the spirit
is the spirit of your ancestresses, though the form in which it must show
itself is changed with the change of society.
To you I appeal; to as many in this church as are ladies, not in name
only, but in spirit and in truth. Say to your fathers, husbands,
brothers, sons, and say too, and that boldly, to the tradesmen with whom
you deal--Do you hear this? Do you hear that there are savages and
heathens, generations of them, within a rifle-shot of the house? And you
cannot exterminate them; cannot drive them out, much less kill them. You
must convert them, improve them, make them civilized and Christian, if
not for their own sakes, at least for our sakes, and for our children.
And if they should answer: My dears, it is too true. But we did not
make them or put them there, and they are not in our parish. They are no
concern of ours, and besides they will not hurt us.
Answer them: Not made by our fault! True, our hands are more or less
clean: but what of that? There they are.
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