the Insury, the power of organized imperialism and profanism, led by a veritable Goddess of war. In later years Joan of Arc alone touches the grandeur of her inspiration and her passion. Even the patriotism of Jael and of Judith gives place before the titanic Majesty of Soul and power of onrushing purpose, before this love of husband, child, liberty and native soil, before the very being of womanhood, which wrought the spirit of Boadicea—Victoria as her name reads in Latin-into one flame of righteous fury. Dion Cassius gives us a picture of her as she ascended the general's tribunal terrible in the pitiless calm of her aspect, beautiful and royal in the Grace of her womanhood. Tall, robed in a Tartan dress-fitting closely to the bosom, and then flowing away in ample folds, her long golden hair falling far below her waist, and bound round her forehead with a golden coronet. Over her shoulders a martial cloak and in her hand a spear. Her voice tragic, deep and full, appeals not alone to the armies at her command stretched out beneath her, but to Heaven above, to Andraste the Dea of Syria, which the religion of Druidism includes:

"I thank thee! I worship thee! I appeal to thee a woman to a woman, O Andraste! I rule not, like Mitocris over beasts of burden, as are the effeminate nations of the east, nor like Semiramis over tradesmen and traffickers, nor, like the man-woman Nero, over slaves and Eunuchs,such is the precious knowledge these foreigners introduce amongst us, but I rule over Britons, little versed indeed in craft and diplomacy, but born and trained to the game of war. Men who in the cause of liberty stake down their lives, the lives of their wives and children, their lands and property. Queen of such a race, I implore thine aid for freedom, for victory over enemies infamous for the wanton

ness of the wrongs they inflict, for their perversion of justice, for their contempt of religion, for their insatiable greed; a people that revel in unmanly pleasures, whose affections are more to be dreaded and abhorred than their enmity. Never let a foreigner bear rule over me or these my countrymen: never let slavery reign in this island. Be thou forever, O Goddess of Manhood and of victory, Sovereign and Queen in Britain."

Was it only to a mythical Goddess that she called in her hour of need and of inspiration, this first Great Victoria of England? No, a presence more useful, more real, more potent than that. The woman within was crying out to that Great Principle of all life which the ages call God and which includes the feminine as well as the masculine qualities in one supreme incorporeal Deity. In the height of her spiritual assault upon error, she discovered, lay hold upon, and allied herself with this God-force, so unknown, so unuttered, yet so instinctively felt by her, a tower of strength, a principle unfailing. In the power of this feminine concept of God, Life, Purity, Freedom, Love, she drove her chariot into battle, yea rather drove it through the world, through the centuries, through time and space"Andraste! Andraste! I thank thee! I worship thee!" Her cry echoes down the battlefields of the ages, until at last in a golden era, in the years when a second Victoria reigned Queen and Empress over a vast British Commonwealth, from the far, far western continent of earth, from a New England, in a new world, answers a clear, Christian woman's voice in the meekness and power of prayer:

"Our Father-Mother God All-harmonious adorable One." If the world honours and rightly, the womanhood of Nazareth which was found worthy to receive and retain the revelation that God alone is the Father of Man, and to

bring forth, holy and beloved, the long desired Messiah in the strength of this revelation, shall not the spiritually quickened womanhood of our day also be honored, which hath received the revelation that God is also the Mother of Man, the only Cause and Creator, and which hath brought this Spiritual idea, this conception of redemptive truth to poor humanity, fettered as it is by such a tragedy of sorrow and suffering, in order that it might be inspired to arise and once more perform the works which the Master did?

In her Message to the Mother Church in 1901 (page 7), Mrs. Eddy writes:

"God being infinite Mind, He is the all-wise, allknowing, all-loving Father-Mother, for God made man in His own image and likeness, and made them male and female as the Scriptures declare; then does not our heavenly Parent-the divine Mind-include within this Mind the thoughts that express the different mentalities of man and woman, whereby we may consistently say, 'Our Father-Mother God." "

This was the truth which Boadicea seized from high Heaven and hurled upon her foes, oblivious of danger, fearless of death.

History shows that woman brought Christianity to Britain, and woman in Britain received it, planted and preserved it, and woman receiving through Christ her freedom and the development of her powers, maintains the purity and Spiritual animus of Christ's teaching; and in the fulness of time completes the revelation of God to man. This complete knowledge which feminine thought brings forth, as symbolized by the vision of a woman clothed with the sun in the Book of Revelation, is the

"man child," that Spiritual understanding of mankind as the divine image and likeness, which is to rule all nations with the "rod of iron" and which is "caught up unto God and to his throne."

Mark well these Islands of Britain. Her history can only be rightly interpreted from the standpoint of Spiritual destiny. When Boadicea appealed to God the FatherMother Principle of Being, when She cried, "Never let a foreigner bear rule over me or these my countrymen: never let slavery reign in this island," it was the unconscious but none the less valiant and victorious cry of a Queen of Joseph's line, and a disciple also of Christ, by virtue of an instinctive receptivity to "the Spirit of truth,” and a clear discernment of the "things to come."

CHAPTER VII

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN EARLY CHRISTIAN ENGLAND

A

"Grave on her monumental pile:

She won from vice, by virtue's smile,
Her dazzling crown, her sceptred throne,
Affection's wreath, a happy home;

The right to worship deep and pure,
To bless the orphan, feed the poor;
Last at the cross to mourn her Lord,
First at the tomb to hear his word:"

MRS. EDDY.

FULL four hundred years elapse between the foundation Church at Glastonbury and further historic records of Christian conversion, but round about A.D. 493 there are some interesting facts to be gleaned, and once more it is women who are the Spiritual torch bearers.

In that year, Clovis, the first King of the Franks, had married Clotilda, a Christian Princess of Burgundy. In a critical battle he made a vow that if Clotilda's God would help him he would become a Christian. Evidently the sign of God's presence and aid was not wanting, for he afterwards was baptized. His great granddaughter, Bertha, married Ethelbert of Kent, and had a place of Christian worship at Canterbury before Roman Augustine came. Bertha's daughter, Ethelburga, married Edwin, King of Northumbria, and had a place of Christian worship for herself before Edwin and his people were converted by Paulinus. And her granddaughter, Elflaed, married Peada of Mercia, and took with her the priests who converted the