"I AM OLD AND BLIND." "It is nothing now, When Heaven is opening on my sightless eyes, When airs from Paradise refresh my brow, That earth in darkness lies. "In a pure clime My being fills with rapture; waves of thought Roll in upon my spirit strains sublime Break over me unsought. Give me now my lyre, I feel the stirrings of a gift divine, Within my bosom glows unearthly fire, Lit by no skill of mine." 93 AN HOUR'S TALK ABOUT WOMAN. NEVER has there been a period in the history of our country when social questions excited so profound and general an interest as at the present hour. The mind of the country seems to be in an almost anarchical condition. Speculatists are rife; theories without end throng the path of the intellectual inquirer; and the school, the state, the family, the church, are in turn questioned as to the reasons and justifications of their existence. The voice of denunciation is loud in the land against existing institutions, in advocacy of a complete change and wiser re-organization in all the objects of our belief, in all the forms of our life. Never was there the same petulant and resentful crusade waged against the memories of the past, against what are called in derision "time-honoured institutions." Not the least loudly and warmly discussed of these topics is, what has come to be styled the woman question." Its importance will justify any amount of consideration, even the largest; but it is questionable if that importance will vindicate the attitude and style assumed by some of the disputants. It may be the prejudice of an "old fogy; but, nevertheless, one shrinks from seeing a woman exposing herself upon the rostrum, or at the dinner-table, in the fact of Н |