The influence of women bears perhaps more strongly than any other power on the position and supremacy of a country. Corrupt women make a corrupt State,--noble, God-fearing women make a noble, God-fearing people. It is not too much to say that the prosperity or adversity of a nation rests in the hands of its women. They are the mothers of the men,--they make and mould the characters of their sons. And the centre of their influence should be, as Nature intended it to be, the Home. Home is the pivot round which the wheel of a country’s highest statesmanship should revolve,--the preservation of Home, its interests, its duties and principles, should be the aim of every good citizen. But with the “retrogression of social morality,” as Mr. Lecky phrased it, and as part and parcel of that backward action and movement, has gone the gradual decay of home life, and a growing indifference to home as a centre of attraction and influence, together with the undermining of family ties and affections, which, rightly used and considered, should form the strongest bulwark to our national strength. The love of home,--the desire to _make_ a home,--is far stronger in the poorer classes nowadays than in the wealthy or even the moderately rich of the general community. Women of the “upper ten” are no longer pre-eminent as rulers of the home, but are to be seen daily and nightly as noisy and pushing frequenters of public restaurants. The great lady is seldom or never to be found “at home” on her own domain,--but she may be easily met at the Carlton, Prince’s, or the Berkeley (on Sundays). The old-world châtelaine of a great house who took pride in looking after the comfort of all her retainers,--who displayed an active interest in every detail of management,--surrounding herself with choice furniture, fine pictures, sweet linen, beautiful flowers, and home delicates of her own personal make or supervision, is becoming well-nigh obsolete. “It is such a bore being at home!” is quite an ordinary phrase with the gawk-girl of the present day, who has no idea of the value of rest as an aid to beauty, or of the healthful and strengthening influences of a quiet and well-cultivated mind, and who has made herself what is sometimes casually termed a “sight” by her skill at hockey, her speed in cycling, and her general “rushing about,” in order to get anywhere away from the detested “home.” The mother of a family now aspires to seem as young as her daughters, and among the vanishing graces of society may be noted the grace of old age. Nobody is old nowadays. Men of sixty wed girls of sixteen, women of fifty lead boys of twenty to the sacrificial altar. Such things are repulsive, abominable and unnatural, but they are done every day, and a certain “social set,” smirk the usual conventional hypocritical approval, few having the courage to protest against what they must inwardly recognize as both outrageous and indecent. The real “old” lady, the real “old”