Julia Ward Howe

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• The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness.
  • As quoted in Stories Behind the Hymns That Inspire America: Songs That Unite Our Nation (2003) by Ace Collins, p. 36

• Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
  To deck our girls for gay delights!
  The crimson flower of battle blooms,
  And solemn marches fill the nights.
  • Our Orders.

• The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed,
  Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed:
  'T was red with the blood of freemen and white with the fear of the foe;
  And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols know.
  • The Flag.

• I am confirmed in my division of human energies. Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build.
  • quoted in "1001 Greatest Things Ever Said About Massachusetts" - Page 392 by Patricia Harris, David Lyon - Reference - 2007

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

• Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
  His truth is marching on.
  • First lines of the published version, in the Atlantic Monthly (February 1862); Howe stated that the title “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was devised by the Atlantic editor James T. Fields.
  • Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
    He is trampling out the wine press, where the grapes of wrath are stored,
    He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of his terrible swift sword,
    His truth is marching on.
    • First lines of the first manuscript version (19 November 1861)

• I have seen him in the watchfires of an hundred circling camps
  They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
  I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
  His day is marching on.
  • All versions

• I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
  "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
  Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
  Since God is marching on."
  • Published version, in the Atlantic Monthly (February 1862)

• He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
  He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat.
  Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet!
  Our God is marching on.
  • Published version, in the Atlantic Monthly (February 1862)
  • He has sounded out the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
    He has waked the earth's dull sorrow with a high ecstatic beat...
    • First manuscript version (19 November 1861)

• In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
  With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
  As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
  While God is marching on.
  • Published version, in the Atlantic Monthly (February 1862)
  • In the whiteness of the lilies he was born across the sea,
    With a glory in his bosom that shines out on you and me,
    As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
    Our God is marching on.
    • First manuscript version (19 November 1861)

• He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
  He is wisdom to the mighty, he is succour to the brave,
  So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave,
  Our God is marching on.
  • First manuscript version (19 November 1861)

Mother's Day Proclamation (1870)

• Arise then... women of this day!
  Arise, all women who have hearts!

• We, the women of one country,
  Will be too tender of those of another country
  To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

• From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
  Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
  The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
  Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
  Nor violence indicate possession.
  As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
  At the summons of war,
  Let women now leave all that may be left of home
  For a great and earnest day of counsel.
  Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
  Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
  Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

• In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
  That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
  May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
  And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
  To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
  The amicable settlement of international questions,
  The great and general interests of peace.

What is Religion? (1893)

Speech at the "Parliament of World Religions", Columbian Exposition, Chicago World's Fair (1893)

• I only hope you may be able not only to listen, but also to hear me. Your charity must multiply my small voice and do some such miracle as was done when the loaves and fishes fed the multitude in the ancient tune which has just been spoken of.

• Before I say anything on my own account, I want to take the word Christianity back to Christ himself, back to that mighty heart whose pulse seems to throb through the world to-day, that endless fountain of charity out of which I believe has come all true progress and all civilization that deserves the name. As a woman I do not wish to dwell upon any trait of exclusiveness in the letter which belongs to a time when such exclusiveness perhaps could not be helped, and which may have been put in where it was not expressed. I go back to that great Spirit which contemplated a sacrifice for the whole of humanity. That sacrifice is not one of exclusion, but of an infinite and endless and joyous inclusion. And I thank God for it.

• It has been extremely edifying to hear of the good theories of duty and morality and piety which the various religions advocate. I will put them all on one basis, Christian and Jewish and ethnic, which they all promulgate to mankind. But what I think we want now to do is to inquire why the practice of all nations, our own as well as any other, is so much at variance with these noble precepts? These great founders of religion have made the true sacrifice. They have taken a noble human life, full of every human longing and passion and power and aspiration, and they have taken it all to try and find out something about this question of what God meant man to be and does mean him to be. But while they have made this great sacrifice, how is it with the multitude of us? Are we making any sacrifice at all? We think it was very well that those heroic spirits should study, should agonize and bled for us. But what do we do?

• I need not stand here to repeat any definition of what religion is. I think you will all say that it is aspiration, the pursuit of the divine in the human; the sacrifice of everything to duty for the sake of God and of humanity and of our own individual dignity.

• What is it that passes for religion? In some countries magic passes for religion, and that is one thing I wish, in view particularly of the ethnic faiths, could be made very prominent— that religion is not magic. I am very sure that in many countries it is supposed to be so. You do something that will bring you good luck. It is for the interests of the priesthood to cherish that idea. Of course the idea of advantage in this life and in another life is very strong, and rightly very strong in all human breasts. Therefore, it is for the advantage of the priesthoods to make it to be supposed that they have in their possession certain tricks, certain charms, which will give you either some particular prosperity in this world or possibly the privilege of immortal happiness. Now, this is not religion. This is most mischievous irreligion, and I think this Parliament should say, once for all, that the name of God and the names of his saints are not things to conjure with.

• I think nothing is religion which puts one individual absolutely above others, and surely nothing is religion which puts one sex above another. Religion is primarily our relation to the Supreme, to God himself. It is for him to judge; it is for him to say where we belong, who is highest and who is not; of that we know nothing. And any religion which will sacrifice a certain set of human beings for the enjoyment or aggrandizement or advantage of another is no religion. It is a thing which may be allowed, but it is against true religion. Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.

• From this Parliament let some valorous, new, strong, and courageous influence go forth, and let us have here an agreement of all faiths for one good end, for one good thing— really for the glory of God, really for the sake of humanity from all that is low and animal and unworthy and undivine.

Reminiscences (1899)

• We returned to the city very slowly, of necessity, for the troops nearly filled the road. My dear minister was in the carriage with me, as were several other friends. To beguile the rather tedious drive, we sang from time to time snatches of the army songs so popular at that time, concluding, I think, with
    John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground;
    His soul is marching on.
  The soldiers seemed to like this, and answered back, "Good for you!" Mr. Clarke said, "Mrs. Howe, why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?" I replied that I had often wished to do this, but had not as yet found in my mind any leading toward it.
  I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, "I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them." So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper. I had learned to do this when, on previous occasions, attacks of versification had visited me in the night, and I feared to have recourse to a light lest I should wake the baby, who slept near me. I was always obliged to decipher my scrawl before another night should intervene, as it was only legible while the matter was fresh in my mind. At this time, having completed the writing, I returned to bed and fell asleep, saying to myself, "I like this better than most things that I have written."
  • On her initial inspiration for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

• While the war was still in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed. The question forced itself upon me, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?" I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed.
  • On the Franco-Prussian War as the inspiration for her "Mother's Day Proclamation" of 1870 calling for mothers to arise as a social force against war in general.