Produced by Al Haines
IN TIMES
LIKE THESE
BY
NELLIE L. McCLUNG
Author of "Sowing Seeds In Danny," "The Second Chance,"
and "The Black Creek Stopping-house."
TORONTO
McLEOD & ALLEN
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
_DEDICATION_
I
TO THE SUPERIOR PERSONS
Who would not come to hear a woman speak being firmly convinced that it
is not "natural."
Who takes the rather unassailable ground that "men are men and women
are women."
Who answers all arguments by saying, "Woman's place is the home" and,
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," and even sometimes
flashes out with the brilliant retort, "It would suit those women
better to stay at home and darn their children's stockings."
To all these Superior Persons, men and women, who are inhospitable to
new ideas, and even suspicious of them, this book is respectfully
dedicated by
THE AUTHOR.
Upon further deliberation I am beset with the fear that the above
dedication may not "take." The Superior Person may not appreciate the
kind and neighborly spirit I have tried to show. So I will dedicate
this book again.
_DEDICATION_
II
Believing that the woman's claim to a common humanity is not an
unreasonable one, and that the successful issue of such claim rests
primarily upon the sense of fair play which people have or have not
according to how they were born, and
Believing that the man or woman born with a sense of fair play, no
matter how obscured it has become by training, prejudice, or unhappy
experience, will ultimately see the light and do the square thing and--
Believing that the man or woman who has not been so endowed by nature,
no matter what advantages of education or association, will always
suffer from the affliction known as mental strabismus, over which no
feeble human ward has any power, and which can only be cast out by the
transforming power of God's grace.
Therefore to men and women everywhere who love a fair deal, and are
willing to give it to everyone, even women, this book is respectfully
dedicated by the author.
NELLIE L. McCLUNG.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE WAR THAT NEVER ENDS
II. THE WAR THAT ENDS IN EXHAUSTION SOMETIMES MISTAKEN FOR PEACE
III. WHAT DO WOMEN THINK OF WAR? (NOT THAT IT MATTERS)
IV. SHOULD WOMEN THINK?
V. THE NEW CHIVALRY
VI. HARDY PERENNIALS!
VII. GENTLE LADY
VIII. WOMEN AND THE CHURCH
IX. THE SORE THOUGHT
X. THE LAND OF THE FAIR DEAL
XI. AS A MAN THINKETH
XII. THE WAR AGAINST GLOOM
IN TIMES LIKE THESE
CHAPTER I
THE WAR THAT NEVER ENDS
If, at last the sword is sheathed,
And men, exhausted, call it peace,
Old Nature wears no olive wreath,
The weapons change--war does not cease.
The little struggling blades of grass
That lift their heads and will not die,
The vines that climb where sunbeams pass,
And fight their way toward the sky!
And every soul that God has made,
Who from despair their lives defend
And struggling upward through the shade,
Break every bond that will not bend,
These are the soldiers, unafraid
In the great war that has no end.
We will begin peaceably by contemplating the world of nature, trees and
plants and flowers, common green things against which there is no
law--for surely there is no corruption in carrots, no tricks in
turnips, no mixed motive in marigolds.
To look abroad upon a peaceful field drowsing in the sunshine, lazily
touched by a wandering breeze, no one would suspect that any struggle
was going on in the tiny hearts of the flowers and grasses. The lilies
of the field have long ago been said to toil not, neither spin, and the
inference has been that they in common with all other flowers and
plants lead a "lady's life," untroubled by any thought of ambition or
activity. The whole world of nature seems to present a perfect picture
of obedience and peaceful meditation.
But for all their quiet innocent ways, every plant has one ambition and
will attain it by any means. Plants have one ambition, and therein
they have the advantage of us, who sometimes have too many, and
sometimes none at all! Their ambition is to grow--to spread--to
travel--to get away from home. Home is their enemy, for if a plant
falls at its mother's knee it is doomed to death, or a miserable
stunted life.
Every seed has its own little plan of escape. Some of them are pitiful
enough and stamped with failure, like the tiny screw of the Lucerne,
which might be of some use if the seed were started on its flight from
a considerable elevation, but as it is, it has hardly turned over
before it hits the ground. But the next seed tries the same
plan--always hoping for a happier result. With better success, the
maple seed uses its little spreading wings to conquer space, and if the
wind does its part the plan succeeds, and that the wind generally can
be depended upon to blow is shown by the wide dissemination of maple
trees.
More subtle still are the little tricks that seeds have of getting
animals and people to give them a lift on their way. Many a bird has
picked a bright red berry from a bush, with a feeling of gratitude, no
doubt, that his temporal needs are thus graciously supplied. He
swallows the sweet husk, and incidentally the seed, paying no attention
to the latter, and flies on his way. The seed remains unchanged and
undigested, and is thus carried far from home, and gets its chance.
So, too, many seeds are provided with burrs and spikes, which stick in
sheep's wool, dog's hair, or the clothing of people, and so travel
abroad, to the far country--the land of growth, the land of promise.
There is something pathetically human in the struggle plants make to
reach the light; tiny rootlets have been known to pierce rocks in their
stern determination to reach the light that their soul craves. They
refuse to be resigned to darkness and despair! Who has not marveled at
the intelligence shown by the canary vine, the wild cucumber plant, or
the morning glory, in the way their tendrils reach out and find the
rusty nail or sliver on the fence--anything on which they can rise into
the higher air; even as you and I reach out the trembling tendrils of
our souls for something solid to rest upon?
There is no resignation in Nature, no quiet folding of the hands, no
hypocritical saying, "Thy will be done!" and giving in without a
struggle. Countless millions of seeds and plants are doomed each year
to death and failure, but all honor to them--they put up a fight to the
very end! Resignation is a cheap and indolent human virtue, which has
served as an excuse for much spiritual slothfulness. It is still
highly revered and commended. It is so much easier sometimes to sit
down and be resigned than to rise up and be indignant.
Years ago people broke every law of sanitation and when plagues came
they were resigned and piously looked heavenward, and blamed God for
the whole thing. "Thy will be done," they said, and now we know it was
not God's will at all. It is never God's will that any should perish!
People were resigned when they should have been cleaning up! "Thy will
be done!" should ever be the prayer of our hearts, but it does not let
us out of any responsibility. It is not a weak acceptance of
misfortune, or sickness, or injustice or wrong, for these things are
not God's will.
"Thy will be done" is a call to fight--to fight for better conditions,
for moral and physical health, for sweeter manners, cleaner laws, for a
fair chance for everyone, even women!
The man or woman who tries to serve their generation need not cry out
as did the hymn writer of the last century against the danger of being
carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, for we know that flowery
beds of ease have never been a mode of locomotion to the skies.
Flowery beds of ease lead in an entirely opposite direction, which has
had the effect of discouraging celestial emigration, for humanity is
very partial to the easy way of traveling. People like not only to
travel the easy way, but to think along the beaten path, which is so
safe and comfortable, where the thoughts have been worked over so often
that the very words are ready made, and come easily. There is a good
deal of the cat in the human family. We like comfort and ease--a warm
cushion by a cosy fire, and then sweet sleep--and don't disturb me!
Disturbers are never popular--nobody ever really loved an alarm clock
in action--no matter how grateful they may have been afterwards for its
kind services!
It was the people who did not like to be disturbed who crucified
Christ--the worst fault they had to find with Him was that He annoyed
them--He rebuked the carnal mind--He aroused the cat-spirit, and so
they crucified Him--and went back to sleep. Even yet new ideas blow
across some souls like a cold draught, and they naturally get up and
shut the door! They have even been known to slam it!
The sin of the world has ever been indifference and slothfulness, more
than real active wickedness. Life, the real abundant life of one who
has a vision of what a human soul may aspire to be, becomes a great
struggle against conditions. Life is warfare--not one set of human
beings warring upon other human beings--that is murder, no matter by
what euphonious name it may be called; but war waged against ignorance,
selfishness, darkness, prejudice and cruelty, beginning always with the
roots of evil which we find in our own hearts. What a glorious thing
it would be if nations would organize and train for this warfare, whose
end is life, and peace, and joy everlasting, as they now train and
organize for the wholesale murder and burning and pillaging whose mark
of victory is the blackened trail of smoking piles of ruins, dead and
maimed human beings, interrupted trade and paralyzed industries!
Once a man paid for his passage across the ocean in one of the great
Atlantic liners. He brought his provisions with him to save expenses,
but as the days went on he grew tired of cheese, and his biscuits began
to taste mousy, and the savory odors of the kitchen and dining-room
were more than he could resist. There was only one day more, but he
grew so ravenously hungry, he felt he must have one good meal, if it
took his last cent. He made his way to the dining-room, and asked the
man at the desk the price of a meal. In answer to his inquiry the man
asked to see his ticket. "It will not cost you anything," he said.
"Your ticket includes meals."
That's the way it is in life--we have been traveling below our
privileges. There is enough for everyone, if we could get at it.
There is food and raiment, a chance to live, and love and labor--for
everyone; these things are included in our ticket, only some of us have
not known it, and some others have reached out and taken more than
their share, and try to excuse their "hoggishness" by declaring that
God did not intend all to travel on the same terms, but you and I know
God better than that.
To bring this about--the even chance for everyone--is the plain and
simple meaning of life. This is the War that never ends. It has been
waged all down the centuries by brave men and women whose hearts God
has touched. It is a quiet war with no blare of trumpets to keep the
soldiers on the job, no flourish of flags or clinking of swords to
stimulate flagging courage. It may not be as romantic a warfare, from
the standpoint of our medieval ideas of romance, as the old way of
sharpening up a battle axe, and spreading our enemy to the evening
breeze, but the reward of victory is not seeing our brother man dead at
our feet; but rather seeing him alive and well, working by our side.
To this end let us declare war on all meanness, snobbishness, petty or
great jealousies, all forms of injustice, all forms of special
privilege, all selfishness and all greed. Let us drop bombs on our
prejudices! Let us send submarines to blow up all our poor little
petty vanities, subterfuges and conceits, with which we have endeavored
to veil the face of Truth. Let us make a frontal attack on ignorance,
laziness, doubt, despondence, despair, and unbelief!
The banner over us is "Love," and our watchword "A Fair Deal."