Some Visitors.

Manawatu Herald, 7 January 1896, Page 3

Some Visitors.

***' Daylreak, published by women in the interests of women, states : — We fre pleased to see that Lady Henry Somerset and Rlisa Frances Willard intend visiting New Zealand in their tour, and will address audiences in Wellington. They will visit all parts of the world during their trip, and, no doubt, will receive a hearty welcome from the women of this colony. Thsy will also give addresses in Christchurch, Auckland, and Dunedia,

Lady Henry Somerset is the President of tho British Women's Association. She was the daughter of Earl Somers and when she " came out " she wa9 a great heiress. In 1872 Lady Somers married Lord Henry Somerset, but the onion was an unhappy one and an amicable separation was arranged after the birth of a son. Lady Somerset spent some years in educating her' son prior to his being sent to school and then started a small temperance Booiety in the village she lived at the foot of the Malvern hills. "From Bpeaking to a few villagers, the tran* sition was not difficult to addressing a public meeting. She held Bible readings in the kitohens of the farmers on her estate, and held mother's meetings in the billiard room of the Castle. Soon she came across Miss Willard's touching tribute to her sister Mary, entitled "Nineteen Beautiful Years." Lady Somerset has declared "the simplicity, ..the quaint candour, and the delicate touches of humour and pathos were a revelation to me of a character that remained on my mind as belonging to one whom I placed in a niche among the ideal lives of whom I hoped to know more, and at whose

ghrine I worshipped." Lady Somer

set went to America where she met to Miss Willard and found all her anticipations more than realised.

It is said that no one born outside Rhe United States since the days of Jafayette ever received so enthuiaßtic a welcome from Americans as did Lady Henry Somerset when she visited the West. In America she remained some time and at Chicago took part in editing the Union Signal, the organ x»f the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She was also associated with Miss Willard in k. editing a memorial volume to the ' memory of Julia Ames. In a "character sketch "<a year or two ago, Mr Stead thus refers to the two ladies : — Miss Willard has naturally exercised over Lady Henry tb^^^scendancj which the elder wosßn' who has arrived exercises oveJnhe younger who has her position still to make. Miss Willard, although starting from the opposite extreme of politics, had arrived at pretty much the same conclusions as those to which Lady Henry had been driven. They were both broadly

evangelical in their conception of Christianity, without any of the repugnace and antipathy to Roman Catholicism which so often accompanies evangelical zeal. Both: were enthusiastic total abstainers, putting temperance in this age only second to the Gospel. Both also were profoundly convinced that, while beginning with the Gospel . the work of social regeneration must be as com prehensive and many-sided as are che evils which they sought to combat ; and both saw— what, indeed, it does not need a very profound perception to discover —that the approaching advent of women in the political sphere affords the chief ground for hoping that the future times will be better than these. So far it is probable that these two good ladies did more to confirm each other in the faith than anything else. What Miss Willard taught Lady Henry was the importance of the Labour movement to the tern perance and other social questions, and the immense possibilities that lay before the Associated Moral Be formers if America and Britain undertook the leadership of the pro« gressive forces of the world.