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970
that from these living sepulchres might come the great pulse-beat of a mighty nation, buoyant, chivalric, progressive civilization. They gave up the comforts and pleasures of society, severed the tenderest ties of the human heart, home and kindred, the old altars where they prayed, the graves of their loved and lost, these the dearest things to a woman's heart, that we today might enjoy in their fullest fruition what they lost. We may *well be proud of the temper of these Texas heroines; their dear old hearts beat the prelude to the grand march of the empire. Their feet beat out the trail over the trackless prairie and across rugged mountains which has since widened into the great thoroughfares of commerce and travel ; their tender hands planted the first flowers on the graves of those whose bones first reposed under Texas soil. God bless you, our dear pioneer women. We treasure you as trophies fresh from the field of victory; may your declining years be rewarded with the gratitude and appreciation of all who enjoy the blessings, and privileges of this great country; may your last days be as the calm eventide that comes at the end of a quiet summer day when the sun is dying out in the west. We believe and admit it today that woman is heaven's 'ideal of all that is pure and ennobling and lovely here, her love is the light of the cabin home.' It is the one thing in the world that is constant, the one peak that rises above the cloud, the one window in which the light burns forever, the one star that darkness cannot quench— is woman's love. It rises to the greatest height, it sinks to the lowest depths, it forgives the most cruel injuries. It is perennial of life, and grows in every climate, neither coldness nor neglect, harshness nor cruelty can extinguish it. It is the perfume of the heart ; it is this that has wrought all miracles of art, that gives us music all the way from the cradle song to the last grand symphony that bears the soul away on wings of joy. In the