Further, even if a modern nation die, the cry of its women will not perish with it, as in those older days. I do not for a moment forget that the balance may be disturbed, and the flood of war devastate a modern kingdom, at any time; or that, if the lips of our guns were sealed and the red rain stopped for ever, commercial rivalry might bring a flagging race to ruin. That is quite possible; but the truth is that every one of these rival nations has the same agitation in its midst. No nation whose women have not yet stirred at the cry of reform has the remotest chance of rising to power. The cry is strong in Japan to-day, and will be heard in China to-morrow. It has loud and eloquent utterance in Russia, Italy, and Spain, and it will assuredly pass on to a renovated Turkey and Persia. Whatever powers rise or fall, civilisation cannot die again, and it is civilisation that faces the demand for change to-day. The cry died away on the lips of the women of Greece and Rome and medieval Italy because their civilisation perished, and a power rose on its ruins that had not yet reached the same height of culture. That, assuredly, will never happen again. If this is so--and, apart from a few yellow-peril fanatics, I know of no serious observer who doubts it--the comparison of the modern woman-movement with those of former times must lead to a very different conclusion from that of our superficial historical critics. England, or the greatness of England, may die, but this agitation is not a symptom, good or bad, of England's life alone. It is not a special feature of the life of Germany, or the United States, or any nation. It is a general feature of civilisation, and civilisation will never again evade the settlement of its moral problems by dying. Culture will go on, and the demand grows with culture. We cannot possibly see a third act to the drama as it was played on the earlier stage of history. There will be no fall of the curtain now on an unsolved problem.