During the thirteenth century, after the knights of Middle and Western Europe returned from their crusading expeditions in the Holy Land and settled again in their homes, they formed an association, the chief object of which was to raise the “standard of honor.” A spoken word was an inviolable contract; an ignoble deed, however slight, was considered so dishonorable as to relegate the perpetrator from the order of knighthood. To many, it may seem to have been an unmeaning pastime, this cultivation by these men of an ideal honor in themselves and in others. Yet this movement ushered in a grand era of poetry, both lyric and dramatic, of chivalry, and of learning. It formed the nucleus of right in many directions and created a new code of morals. In this same sense, and applying it to the elevation of the honor of woman, I joined this Association because I know that it is a good field in which women can work by helping to create a code of morals befitting our enlightened age, a code which shall govern our relations to all mankind, to our children, to each other as women, and to the State. The increase of wealth and the increase of an intelligent population producing more and more wealth--this is the bright side of our progressive age. But there is also the dark side of the picture--the increase of luxury and its twin brother, sensuality. In nature, as a rule, it is the female who nurses the young into maturity; in this case, it is the female who must stifle these twin brothers while they are yet in their infancy, so that they may never reach their dangerous maturity. Luxury carried beyond a reasonable degree of comfort vitiates human strength and thus enervates both body and mind; then temporary stimulation and relief are sought in the excitements of sensuality. By sensuality, I understand all indulgences which carry to excess the natural physical appetites. Man, with his greater physical force, is the aggressive element in this strife for gratification, and woman with her slighter physique, the passive. If we first make these points clear to ourselves, it will be easy to make them clear to others and to show to every woman the necessity of being on the defensive against these twin brothers, Luxury and Sensuality. All history teaches us that they have been the destroyers of nations in ancient times. Let us not deem that we are proof against their omnipotence. The defensive weapon can be none other than a code of morals as high and as idealistic as our present state of education and development will produce.