of any objection being made to her practicing as attorney on account of her sex."

The first woman since those days to ask for and obtain admission to the bar of this country, was Mrs. Arabella A. Mansfield of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in 1869. Her husband was admitted at the same time.

Mrs. Myra Bradwell of Chicago, who had studied law under the instruction of her husband, Judge J. B. Bradwell, was the next to apply for license to practice law. But the Supreme Court of Illinois, in 1869, refused her application, on the ground that she was a woman. She carried her case to the Surpeme Court of the United States, but, in 1873, it affirmed the judgment of the state court. Mrs. Bradwell never renewed her application for a license, although the Legislature of Illinois enacted that "No person shall be precluded or debarred from any occupation, profession, or employment (except military), on account of sex.” She founded the Chicago Legal News, which she edited, and in 1890 the Supreme Court of Illinois, on its own motion, granted to Mrs. Bradwell "a license as an attorney and counselor at law."

The next court case was that of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, of Washington, D. C., who graduated from the law school of the National University in 1873, and was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. She sought admission to the Court of Claims, with a client, and also to the Supreme Court of the United States, and was denied admission to both. She immediately took steps to secure the passage of a statute by Congress, which would give her admission to these courts, drafting the bill herself, and in two years had the satisfaction of seeing it enacted, and of obtaining admission to the courts that had refused her. Since then ten other women lawyers have been admitted to practice in the highest court of the land.

Thus, step by step, women have made their way into the legal profession, and one by one, the law schools have been opened to them. The number of women lawyers in the country is estimated at one hundred and fifty. In different parts of the

country, women have acted as "police judges, justices of the peace, grand and petit jurors, federal and state court clerks and deputy clerks, official stenographers and reporters for federal and state courts, special examiners or referees, court appraisers, court record writers, notaries public, legislative clerks, deputy constables, examiners in chancery, and examiners of applicants for admission to the bar, and state and federal court commis sioners, when many cases have been tried before them."

The admission of women to the theological schools and te the ministry is still hotly contested, and they have made less advance in this profession than in the others. In the West, the theological schools of the Unitarian and Universalist denominations admit women, and grant them ordination when they graduate.

The theological school of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N. Y., is open to women, and has graduated many. Its first woman graduate was Rev. Olympia Brown Willis, who was previously graduated from Mt. Holyoke Seminary, and from Antioch College, in the days when Horace Mann was president. Mrs. Willis was the second woman minister in the United States.

The Methodist denomination admits women to its theological schools, but denies them ordination. The Quakers, or "Friends,” as they prefer to be called, have always given women equal freedom to preach with men. There are about three hundred and fifty women preachers among the Friends at the present time, in our country. The Free-will Baptists also admit women to the ministry. There are indications that the orthodox Congregationalists are moving towards the admission of women to the clerical ranks. More than forty years ago, Rev. Antoinette Brown, a graduate of Oberlin, was ordained to Congregationalist ministry, by a council called for that purpose. Rev. Louise L. Baker, of Nantucket, Mass., was ordained by the deacons of her church, two of the four deacons being women. Later, Rev. Mary Moreland, of Illinois, and Rev. Amelia A. Frost, of Massachusetts, have been ordained and installed by a ministerial

council, according to the established usages of the Congregationalist church.

Rev. Augusta J. Chapin, now of Omaha, Neb., who was associated with Rev. Dr. Barrows in the management of the "Parliament of Religions," which was held in Chicago during the World's Fair, is the only woman minister of America who has received the degree of D.D. It was worthily bestowed. A graduate of a Michigan college, she was ordained to the ministry of the Universalist church more than thirty years ago, has been a settled minister ever since, receiving meanwhile, for work done, the degrees of A.M., Ph.D., and now of D.D. About fifty women have been ordained in the Universalist church, and twenty more or less in the Unitarian church.

Women have an especial fitness for the work of the ministry and the call for their service is most pressing. They constitute three-fifths of the membership of the Christian church to-day, and occupy many pulpits as lay preachers, or evangelists, where they are welcomed by resident pastors. The world has already lost much by the enforced exclusion of women from the work of the church, and it is beginning to comprehend this and to demand that they shall, in the clerical profession, as in others, be given an equal chance with men.

True Value of Character.

PROF. FRANK SMALLEY, PH.D., Syracuse University, New York.

F we were required to name four men who should represent both ancient and modern times and different nationalities, men whose lives and character are now a part of the history and heritage of the race, whom could we name that would better fulfill these conditions, and at the same time illustrate the theme of this chapter, than Lincoln and Gladstone, Seneca, the Roman philosopher, and Solon, the Athenian legislator? Mr. Gladstone's ability as a wise statesman may be passed over, and he may stand here as a type of intellectual brilliancy. No person who is acquainted with the writings of the great premier, and has read his speeches, will question the estimate that classes him among the greatest intellects of his generation. This will indeed contribute to his fame, but can anyone doubt that it is an insignificant factor in comparison with the spotless character that will be a potent inspiration to young men to the end of time?

Seneca, philosopher, also tutor and counselor of Nero in the early and only honorable part of the reign of that prince, was one of the wealthiest men of his day. He, too, was a man of large intellect, and, being imbued with the elevated sentiments of the Stoic morality, he has embodied many of these in permanent literary form. Seneca, however, is not remembered for his wealth, but for the high ideal of character manifest in his literary productions, and exemplified in his life. The former was an incident, and so considered by him; the latter has immortalized him. Abraham Lincoln is a type of the noblest

manhood in the highest station attainable to man. In him is conspicuously apparent the compatibility of political supremacy with the most unimpeachable integrity. Lincoln accomplished a great work. He was a man of wonderfully clear vision, of the highest qualities of statesmanship, of great wisdom in plan and action. But is it chiefly because of that work and of these qualities that he will always be held in affectionate remembrance by this nation? No. It is because he was "honest old Abe," and was always actuated by motives of the highest honor, that his memory will be a blessing, and a benediction to posterity.

The Roman poet may lament in his plaint that men thrive by crime while integrity shivers with cold and goes hungry, but, if his philosophy would but penetrate a little more deeply, he might find a solution of his difficulty like that found by the Hebrew poet when, in similar strain, he avers and deprecates the prosperity of the ungodly. Nor need we go so far as he, to consider the end of man; for a true estimate of the popular respect for honor and truth will convince one that it is not yet time to despair of the human race. Down in his heart every

man admires honesty and candor and condemns guile and insincerity. The popular notion of the sterling honesty of a certain man prominent to-day in public life is a more effective cause of his advancement than all the arts of the politicians, and has once and again baffled the efforts of wily opponents in his own party to keep him in obscurity. It pays even to have a reputation for honor, but it pays far better to have the article itself, for in the end men generally find their true level. Honesty is the best policy."

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Six hundred years before the Christian era, lived and labored Solon, the wise and popular lawgiver of Greece. His popularity was not that of a temporizing demagogue. It rested on the considerate judgment of the better classes which silenced selfish dissatisfaction, and it became so great that his fellow citizens willingly took an oath to abide by his laws; so much did they confide in his wisdom and motives. But his real greatness did