The secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.
I had hoped that the Women's National Council, a branch of which was formed in
Adelaide a few years later, would have made a great deal of the question of peace and
arbitration, just as other branches have done all over the world; and when the Peace
Society was inaugurated a short time ago I was glad to be able to express my sympathy
with the movement by becoming a member. As I was returning from a lecturing tour in
the south during this time, an old Scotch farm-wife came into the carriage where I had
been knitting in solitude. She was a woman of strong feelings, and was bitterly opposed
to the war. We chatted on the subject for a time, getting along famously, until she
discovered that I was Miss Spence. "But you are a Unitarian!" she protested in a shocked
tone. I admitted the fact. "Oh, Miss Spence," she went on, "how can you be so wicked as
to deny the divinity of Christ?" I explained to her what Unitarianism was, but she held
dubiously aloof for a time. Then we talked of other things. She told me of many family
affairs, and when she left me at the station she said, "All, well, Miss Spence, I've learned
something this morning, and that is that a Unitarian can be just as good and honest as
other folk."
