The present era of American womanhood, indeed, may be classified as supremely that of concentration. Throughout our country are constantly springing up women's societies having definite aims and purposes, and the effort which was formerly diffused, and therefore unavailing, now tends from a consolidated source to a clearly discerned end. Whether for purposes of amelioration of sex-position or of general beneficence, women have learned the power which lies in concentration of effort and have penetrated the secret of the most effectual putting forth of the strength which lies in them. Organization among women is a thing of the last few decades, but already it has assumed such proportions that feminine influence, not individually but collectively asserted, sways the destinies of our nation in more ways than are perceptible to the casual observer. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, for example, was strong enough to procure the abolishment of the army canteen, even against the influence of the most powerful men in the army itself. That Congress, as a body, was in favor of the action is a belief which would find few thoughtful supporters; yet Congress gave the Temperance Union the legislation it desired, and that with but little opposition. In seeking the cause for this we touch the secret of the great power which is admittedly swayed by our feminine organizations, a power far greater than that belonging to any cognate ones of masculine membership. The secret is this: because of the purity and height of their aims, the councils of the women of our country have as ally that greatest of all influences, public opinion. Moreover, this public opinion always looks to the great end in view and but little to the wisdom of the proposed means to that end; therefore, it supports any movement which tends toward an amelioration of public morality, as in the example cited, even where the movement takes a direction which is too radical to effect its proper ends. Therefore, the womanhood of our country, as organized and concentrated, holds to-day in its hands a power which it must exercise with discretion and moderation, or there will result from its unregulated exertion chaos and cataclysm; yet a power which, properly exerted, will tend ever to the positing of higher standards of morality and nobler goals of power, and generally to the upward as well as the onward march of our nation and kind.