been an intellectual gift that she had; it may have been a masterful character, or a heroic virtue, or a spirit of sublime self-sacrifice, or a faith so exalted that it has illuminated all the centuries. Each of these traits has its illustrious examples among the women of long ago. Passing ages of darkness, in which here and there the talent of a Countess Matilda or an Héloïse shone brightly through the mists of ignorance and superstition, we find the women of a new era delving side by side with men in the mines of classic lore, and bringing to their work the same enthusiasm, the same untiring patience. We find them, too, versed in all the learning of their time. If we are disposed to plume ourselves overmuch on our intellectual glories, it may serve as a lesson in humility to recall the wonderful women of the Renaissance, who filled chairs of philosophy and law in the universities, sustained public theses, spoke in Latin before learned societies, wrote pure Greek and studied Hebrew, preached in cathedrals were sent on special embassies and consulted on grave affairs of State by popes and kings. With all our latter-day prestige and the chivalry of modern men, it would be difficult to imagine Leo XIII or the German Emperor consulting a woman on serious questions of policy, or even listening to one unless she were a queen with power that must be reckoned with. If they did, it would be behind closed doors where no one could know it. Yet we have wise women and able ones. When men lost themselves in metaphysical abstractions it was the “new woman” of the Renaissance who lent wings to their minds and stimulated creation. A touch from her uncaged intellect thrilled the learning of the age and put into it a soul. A Vittoria Colonna inspires a Michelangelo, writes an immortal _in memoriam_, and brings poetry to the service of religion. An Olympia Morata pauses in her high intellectual flight to give an object-lesson in moral courage and the virtues of a gentle womanhood. A Catherine of Siena thinks as well as loves, writes as well as prays; the head of Christendom is moved by her wise counsels, and the currents of the world are changed.