& - I'g/iW . i 1 III s inni 1 w w Htv a *--i <$ 1 i IjJSSw^f^jK ^U J DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY treasure %oom Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/affectionsgiftchOOsand Cerium'* §ift. . ■ - '' & M . ■ y - V M Cjjnsfmas, fUto-JJcar, BIRTH-DAY PRESENT. K E W Y R K : PUBLISHED BY LEAVITT & ALLEN, No. 2 7 I)F. Y Stkeet. CONTENTS. PART L Page Preface 1 The ArrROPRiATE Sphere of Woman . . 9 Tim: [nfuhqTOE of Christianity on WoHAM . . 34 Tim; CHRISTIAN Education OF Woman ... 50 CONTENTS. PART II. Causes ok Female Influence ..... 5 Subject continued . . . . . . 15 Importance of Letters to Woman . . . .23 Importance of Religion to Woman ... 35 Christianity the Source of Female Excellence . 40 Scripture Illustrative of Female Character . G4 Female Influence on Religion . . . . .78 Female Defects ....... 90 Subject continued . . . . . .104 Female Romance .... Ill Subject continued . . . . . . .125 Female Education . . . . . . 134 Female Duties . . . . . . . .152 PREFACE. It is a lamentable fact, that in addressing the fair sex, the writers of the present day are apt to take it for granted that mere amusement is the only object to be proposed, and that in pur- suance of this object, literature of the highest and most frivolous character is the only means which is likely to prove acceptable. The volume which is now offered to the ac- ceptance of our fair countrywomen, proposes a different object, to be attained by totally dif- ferent means. It is not true that women prefer amusement to instruction. On the contrary. their preference is generally in favor of the literature which is calculated to promote then- moral and intellectual improvement. Hence their fondness for the higher kind of poetry, and their strong attachment to devotional ex- ercises, and the higher productions of pulpit PREFACE. eloquence. Women are impulsive, generous, and devoted in their affections, and ready tc make any sacrifice for those whom they truly love. Let it once become apparent to them that by high mental and moral attainments, they will be able to benefit or to please the object of their affections, and they will promptly ad- dress themselves to the solid literary studies which are requisite for that purpose. It is the fault of authors, not of their female readers, that books intended for the perusal of ladies are so often utterly frivolous and useless. It is time that a new era should commence in the history of literature for ladies. They should be pre- sented with that which is truly useful, in an interesting and entertaining form, and they will not hesitate to give it their attention. The habits of ladies in the ordinary pur- suits of life, naturally lead them to prefer and pursue the useful, at the same time that they duly appreciate the beautiful. In their domestic avocations, such as housekeeping, needlework, gardening, the useful is the first consideration ; but the ornaments of dress, and the flowers of the parterre, nevertheless receive their due PUEFACE. in share of attention, and contribute to render ac- tive employment a source of real delight. That the female mind, duly cultivated, is capable of very high achievements, is witnessed by the admirable writings of such authors as Edgeworth, Barbauld, Hannah More, and Mrs. Somerville. But it is not for the purpose of attaining eminent rank as authors, that women in general should have cultivated and disci- plined minds. The supply of authors of both sexes will always be equal to the demand. On that head, therefore, w r e need not feel the least anxiety. But it is really important that women should have their minds highly cultivated and well disciplined, on account of the immense influence which they exert in forming the first tendencies of character, and in giving tone to society. The impulse which a man's moral course receives from a mother's instruction, is that which car- ries him forward through life in an upward or a downward course. The son of a weak, foolish, frivolous, uneducated mother, seldom turns out an upright and useful man ; but many brilliant examples may be cited of characters illustrious for talent and probity — men celebrated in the world's history, who have gratefully attributed all their success to early maternal influence. In giving tone to society female influence is not less potential. In those communities where the women are virtuous and educated, the gen- eral character of society is elevated, and the whole style of social intercourse is of a happy and improving nature. Any one may verify this by his own observation and reflection. On the contrary, where the women are ignorant, and devoted to dress and amusement only, the whole aspect of society is affected by this cir- cumstance, and the character of social inter- course is frivolous and contemptible. In com- munities where female virtue is wanting, the men are equally debased with the women, and h',nor, and patriotism, are hardly to be found. Countries so unfortunate as to sanction by cus- tom the want of female virtue, become a prey to tyrants, and remain in hopeless political slavery. The single example of Italy will serve to illustrate this truth ; while our own country is a noble example of the happy effects of fe- male virtue, in preserving the honor and stimu- lating the courage of freemen. PUEFACK. In the works which arc comprised in this volume, the writers have respectively proposed to themselves the noble object of forming the female character on the real and solid basis of religion ; and of building it up with the rich and durable material of high intellectual and moral culture. No young lady can read and study these works, without appreciating the advantages which they present towards the true education of the mind and heart. The principles laid down in them, the methods of study and rules of conduct suggested, the examples cited, and the general system inculcated, are such as com- mend themselves irresistibly to every candid and reflecting mind ; and if the readers of them will only apply themselves with sincere and earnest purpose to the practical use of the excellent advice and instruction which they con- tain, the benefits resulting will be great and lasting. Of the short treatise of Mr. Winslow, his honored name is a sufficient recommendation. The larger and more thorough work of Mrs. Sanford, whose name is less familiar to Ameri- -v can readers, is a standard book of its class. Having beetf written long after the popular treatises of Mrs. Chapone, Dr. Gregory, and others, who have given excellent counsel to young ladies, it is a decided improvement upon them all. It accommodates itself to the pro- gressive spirit of the age, and recognizes the more advanced and elevated position accorded to females in the present refined and educated age, than they could claim half a century since. While science and general intelligence are rapidly advancing, it becomes the female sex to respect a high standard of mental culture, and to endeavor with all their faculties to ren- der themselves suitable companions for educa- ted and intelligent men. And this is necessary not only in the highest, but in the middle, and even the humbler classes of society. Educated men are now to be found in all the various ranks of society, and they naturally desire the society of spirited and intelligent women. Mere prettiness and a few superficial accomplish- ments, may please the idler, or the mere plea- sure seeker, but the earnest, whole-hearted 1'REFACE. man, requires a companion for life, who can participate in his highest pursuits, and sympa- thize with his noblest purposes. Such women should form the society of our leading female circles in every community of the republic. Such women should give the tone to social intercourse throughout our be- loved and glorious country. THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. The dignity and virtue of the female character can- not be too highly estimated nor too sacredly pro- tected. It is often and perhaps justly remarked, that as woman was first in transgression, so she is first in obedience ; as she was first to introduce sin, so she is first to expel it. She is undoubtedly to sustain a most important part in reclaiming world. Her influence upon society is great, p liar, indispensable to its highest elevation. She is capable of exerting a benign and almost irresistible dominion over the affections and the conduct of the other sex ; but she can do it only by observing her appropriate sphere and putting forth her character- istic graces. The sacred writers have intimated that her consti- tutional susceptibility and ardor, so valuable when wisely directed and so evil when misguided, her spi- 10 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. fit of impulse and action, her passion for novelty and adventure pre lominating over cool discretion and cautious judgment, — as seen in the case of the first transgression, — is one essential reason why God re- quires that she shall " learn in silence with all sub- jection," and does not " suffer her to teach nor to usurp authority over the man." But this law of female subjection, implanted in the human constitution and enjoined by God, is misap- prehended, perverted or abused in all but Christian nations. All pagan religions crush the female sex into the dust; Mohammedanism makes them little superior to abject slaves ; and even the Jewish eco- nomy is inferior to the Christian in respect to their elevation and influence. It is a distinguishing glory of Christianity that it elevates females to their proper rank and full measure of influence in the best and most finished state of society. All great practical errors, which obtain ascendency over nations and over successive generations of men, have their foundation in certain truths ; — they are the misapprehension and abuse of principles true to nature. Now Christianity does not come to make war upon nature and to extirminate those principles, but to restore them to our right apprehension and to their true application. This is eminently the case in regard to the appropriate sphere of action and influence for the female sex. Nature had assigned to them a sphere distinct from and subordinate to that of man, though by no means less honorable and APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOflEAN. H important. Paganism had abused this principle of female subordination, so as to abase her, who was made to be " an help-meet " for man, to a condition of invidious inferiority and even of servile abjectness. Look at the condition of females in the Eoman empire at the time Christianity was introduced. Christianity removed the hand which pressed them down, and bade them rise to their appropriate sphere. But the reaction from long restraint and depression, the impulse of sudden elevation in their enthusiastic temperaments, soon carried them beyond their proper sphere, and produced a spirit of insubordination. They became radical. They were for levelling all distinctions between the sexes. Overstepping their own boundaries, they began to assume the preroga- tives of the other sex. To correct this alarming evil called for some of the most vigorous and burning strokes of the inspired pen. A tendency to ultraism is not peculiar to our day. Apostles, reformers, holy men of other ares, no sooner inculcated something true and important, than zealots began to push it to those extremes which called for scarcely less effort to keep it in its right place than was required to introduce it. If it was an abuse of nature and a horrible evil that woman should be depressed, scarcely less so was the oppo- site extreme, the process of unsexing, by which the peculiar attractions of the female character are sa- crificed, and the way thus prepared for the annihi- lation of the domestic ties and relations. 12 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. Although moral goodness is essentially the same in all, consisting in love to God and man, manifested in action, yet nothing is clearer than that woman was to move in a different sphere from that of man, and her moral virtues are to be modified by and adapted to the sphere in which she was made to move. If modesty and delicacy are becoming in both sexes, they are eminently the ornament of the female sex ; while all the moral virtues of either sex, though they bear the same name in each, are to assume the masculine or the feminine character according to the sex in which they exist. The same act which would be modest and delicate in a man would not always be so in a woman ; while, on the other hand, what may be very bold and energetic in a woman, might be very tame in a man. It is on this principle that we are accustomed to say of the man who partakes of the character appropriate to females, that he is effeminate; and also of the woman who partakes of the character appropriate to males, that she is masculine. These terms, we all know, are intended to designate something out of place, something undesirable and unlovely. We tolerate here and there an anomaly of this kind ; but we wish to see such cases " few and far be- tween." We should wisely consider the end of all things not far distant should they become universal. It may be difficult to trace the precise line of demarkation where the masculine character ends and where the feminine begins; but the general APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 13 distinctions between them, as well as the dangers to which females are exposed in this particular, are abundantly exhibited in the sacred Scriptures. As I wish to be guided by the counsels of divine wisdom in this somewhat delicate yet highly important sub- ject, I would proceed to call your attention " to the law and to the testimony." It is my simple aim to expound and apply the lessons of the Bible upon the subject before us. " Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak ; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law." 1 Cor. xiii. 34. Here it is declared to be according to the divine law that females should observe silence in the churches, and act in subordi- nation to the authority of man. "And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home ; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." 1 Cor. xiv. 35. It is here asserted to be inconsistent with female delicacy and modesty that they should speak in public. No exclusive reference is had to what is sometimes called a " church meet- ing." The apostle asserts a general principle for general reasons, as we shall see. There is no mys- tical reason why a woman should not speak in an assembly of the church rather than in any other assembly ; nay, there are some reasons why it would be safer and more proper for her to speak in a meeting of the church than in a promiscuous assem- bl y. This the apostle implies in a subsequent pas- 2 14 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. sage, as we shall show ; and if she ought not so much as to ask a question in a public meeting, but should do even that privately at home, much less ought she to undertake to advance her own opinions, and to dictate instructions and rules to others. It appears that there were some among the primi- tive matrons who, moved by a false zeal, encouraged the younger sisters in defaming and falsely accusing those who did not adopt their views and conform to their wishes ; the tendency of whose conduct was to displace sober-mindedness, to alienate wives from their husbands, children, and domestic duties, to promote indelicacy and a fondness of being from home ; insomuch that the pure lustre of Christianity was tarnished and the gospel reproached. Hence the apostle said to a minister of the gospel, " Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine ; that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in patience; the aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things ; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedi- ent to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." Titus ii. 1 — 5. The same apostle animadverts in terms of unqualified rebuke upon those who, meddling with things without theii proper sphere, spend their time, as he expresses it in " wandering about from house to house ; and no APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 15 only idle, but tattlers also, and busy bodies, speaking things which they ought not." 1 Tim. v. 13. The duty of wives to be subject to their husbands and to reverence them is inculcated in the following strong language. While instructing husbands to love their wives as their own bodies, instead cf treating them as the heathen do theirs, the apost,e says, " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church ; and he is the Savior of the body. There- fore as the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Let every one of- you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband." Eph. v. 22—24, 33. "But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man." " For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, bu the woman for the man. For this cause the v -man ought to have power on her head, because of the angels." 1 Cor. xi. 3, 8 — 10. That is, she ought to have a covering or veil on her head, in sign that she is under the power of her husband, on account of the irreligious who came to their assemblies as spies or lookers on. Here then is a promiscuous assembly, not an exclusive meeting of the church, and the apostle teaches us that here she must not only be in silence, but must even have on 16 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. the then customary badge of modesty and subjec* tion. Such then are inspired views respecting female delicacy and propriety, respecting her becoming defe- rence to the other sex, and her appropriate reverence and homage to her husband. She is even represented as the glory of her husband, as he is the glory of God. " For as much," says the apostle, " as he is the image and the glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man." How any person of sober mind can read such scriptures and not perceive that they recognise an important distinction between the ap- propriate virtues and duties of the sexes, 1 am una- ble to perceive. The doctrine is however by some confidently sustained and acted on, that all this dis- tinction is artificial, unchristian, an invidious preju- dice, and ought to be broken down. In his epistle to Timothy the apostle gives the following instruction: "In like manner also that women adorn themselves with modest ; )parel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not wi i broidered hair, or with gold, or pearls, or costly array, but, which becometh women professing godliness, with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being derived was in the transgression." 1 Tim. ii. > 14. Here the inspired writer instructs us that aPPK"0P11IATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 17 women should clothe themselves with modest appa- rel, not with those glaring and gaudy trappings which attract vulgar and wanton eyes, as the heathen W omen do ; and, further, that in public they should always be learners and never teachers, and that they should never assume the position of dictation or of authority over man. As a reason for this, he re- minds us that Adam was first formed; that Eve was then formed, to be his help meet, and not his teacher or govermss ; and as a further reason why woman should be slow to dictate and ready to leam in all matters of doubtful expediency or questionable right, he reminds us that her characteristic ardor and imprudence, her love of novelty and change, had once betrayed her into transgression — that "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression;" thus intimaJng that had she kept her proper place and been guided by the man, instead of attempting to guide him, the great disaster would not have befallen our race. The general idea is clearly maintained, that as man is possessed of a strong desire to gratify the woman, insomuch that he is liable to dethrone his better judgment and to follow her wishes, even if she leads him astray, as in the case of Adam and Eve, it is imminently dangerous that she, whose predomi- nant characteristic is not so much sound and compre- hensive judgment as curiosity and romantic impulse, should assume the reins. Thus, if language has any definite meaning, the Bible seems clearly to 2* B 18 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. teach that man should always sit at the helm, to lead public sentiment and control public movements ; while woman was to move in another but not less important or honorable sphere, where she was to put forth the peculiar and powerful influences of her personal virtues and acquirements. The apostle says, "I suffer not a woman to teach," &c. The term teach is the same as that employed by Christ when he said, "Go ye and teach," or disciple, " all nations," &c. This commission was given exclusively to men. Christ had many excel- lent female disciples, but to none of them did he extend this commission; and the apostle reminds some of the primitive sisters of this fact, at a time when they seem to have been inclined to forget., it. This remembrancer still speaks, and his message is as important and as binding as ever. The physical constitution of the sexes plainly indicates that, as a general rule, the more severe manual labors, the toils of the field, the mechanic arts, the cares and burdens of mercantile business, the exposures and perils of absence from home, the duties of the learned professions, devolve upon man ; while the more delicate and retired cares and labors of the household devolve upon woman. The intellectual and moral constitution of the sexes, as well as the Bible, instructs us that all the affairs of state, both civil and political, all the affairs of the church as respects both government and pub- he teaching, all the enterprises for evangelizing and APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 19 reforming the world, all the more public, literary and religious institutions, especially those embracing both sexes, should be headed and controlled by man ; while the more modest and retiring, though not less valuable and powerful, influences of her personal character and conversation upon her domestic circle, her neighbors and associates, and through them upon the world, together with the fruits of her intel- lect, imparted not in public lectures, but by private instruction, or communicated to the world through the medium of the press, belong to woman. The appropriate sphere and distinguishing duties of woman are then as follows : — Having given herself up to God, her first duty is to take care of her own house. Having severely rebuked the con- duct of those who, leaving the domestic duties, wander about from house to house, idle, tattlers, busy bodies, speaking things which tl.ey ought not, the apostle adds, " I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house ; give no occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully." 1 Tim. v. 14. Nor let any woman pronounce this an invidious and menial sphere of duty. Let her but consider how much the happiness of society and the progress of the world in all that is good depend upon domestic causes. Let her also know in what admiration she is held by those whose respect is most to be valued, who, on entering her house, behold an abode of neatness, order, cheerfulness, and hospitality ■ her children well clad and .smiling, her 20 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. table neatly spread with wholesome provisions, and every thing about her seeming to say, " Here is my happiness ; my husband is my best companion, my children are my jewels ; my house is my home, and no earthly pleasure excels that of rendering it a domestic paradise — a centre of attraction to my family, so that they are nowhere else so happy ; a place too of welcome and grateful reception to the stranger " — and she will see that this is second to no other secular sphere for honor or importance ; that she has no occasion to covet the chairs of state or the noisy scenes of public action. She will be satis- fied with the inspired description of woman in her true glory, — although the progress of art has some- what changed her occupation, yet the general duty is still essentially the same, — " She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor, yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself co- verings of tapestry ; her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land." Observe the hus- band, not the wife, is seen in the gates, the places of concourse, and is known by his respectable appearance imparted by the domestic virtues of his wife ; so that all who see him say, " There is the man who has a good wife to take care of him." " She maketh fine linen, and selleth it ; and deli- APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 21 vereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing ; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuous- ly, but thou exccllcst them all." Prov. xxxi. While thus administering neatness, order, comfort and happiness to her household, her hands may also go forth to embrace the poor and the afflicted ; she may, as did the holy women who attended on the ministry of Christ and his apostles, make coats and garments for the destitute, and visit the houses of sorrow and of want with her tender sympathies and benevolent aid. Thus the same passage of scripture which describes the domestic virtues says also, as we have seen, " She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she stretcheth forth her hands to the needy." But let it not be supposed that her agency is to be restricted to mere temporal affairs. She ought not, like a sister of old, to be " cumbered with much serving," to the neglect of other and higher duties. To " look well to the ways of her household and eat not the bread of idleness," to see that whatever her husband provides tells to advantage in the neat and tasteful apparel, the well-spread table, the com- fort and happiness of her family, is of course a duty 22 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. never to be neglected ; but more, much more than this, remains for her to do. It is hers also to nourish and adorn the young and growing minds ; to cause her instructions to distil upon them as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers that water the earth ; to bend and direct the infant t\\ ig in the way it should grow, that it may shoot erect towards heaven ; to put forth a mother's restraining and elevating influence upon her sons, that they "may be as plants grown up in then youth," and to bestow a mother's peculiar guardian- ship and delicate care upon her daughters, that " they may be as corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace ; : ' to exert a holy influence upon her husband, and by her sweet and tender sympathies to calm his anxious mind, smooth his ruffled brow, and cheer him on in the path of self- denying duty and of high endeavor ; to diffuse all around her, as she mingles in society, the pure and mighty influences of female piety, always savoring of delicacy, modesty, good sense, intelligence, and transparent benevolence ; and all this, if you please, adorned with a finished culture, sparkling with chastened and refined wit, and attended with what- ever may be most attractive and commanding in the peculiar graces and beauties of the female character. These are the noblest virtues of woman ; these are what render her what she was made to be, if we may credit the Bible, the help that is " meet " or suitable for man — such a help as he needs. And APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 23 who will say that they are not as important, as honorable, as elevated, and that they do not invite and give ample scope to as high intellectual and moral cultivation, as the distinguishing duties of men How sadly then do they mistake who suppose that the sacred writers depress the female sex when they so much restrict their influence to personal, essential, intrinsic elevation and goodness. This is in fact the only true excellence, the most glorious of all power. Even the man who must needs stretch for an office, or covet some public notoriety, to make himself felt in the world, or to secure honor, is but a sorry man ; how much more is she but a sorry n-oman who must needs resort to these adventitious means of influence or distinction. No: so far from depressing the female sex, it was the wise intent of Providence in this arrangement to elevate her to the highest point of the most excellent worth and influ- ence ; to protect her, who was to be the model of ah 1 that is lovely in character and the source of the most transforming and benign influence upon the world, from all temptation to seek the more outward and vulgar forms of honor — to shine in the adventitious distinctions of office, to challenge for her fair name a place in the rude ballot-box, or among the candi- dates for public office, or in the noisy halls of state ; to covet for herself a share with those who would shine in public exploits. Hers was to be pre-emi- nently the intrinsic worth, the essential honor, the 24 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. pure moral influence of personal excellence; always unaspiring, always modest and delicate, always gen- tle and kind, always full of mercy and good fruits ; whose subject is always most loved and admired where most known, and of course always most loved and admired at home, and then by all who know her. Who can tell how great the influence, how wide and lasting the blessing, which the woman of such a character will bequeath to the world, or how radiant the glory with which Christ will adorn her head in the last day ? But oh how fallen from this high elevation is she when, impatient of her proper sphere, she steps forth to assume the duties of the man, and, impelled by false zeal, with conscience misguided, does as even man ought not to do — when, forsaking the domestic hearth, her delicate voice is heard from house to house, or in social assemblies, rising in harsh un- natural tones of denunciation against civil laws and rulers, against measures involving political and state affairs of which she is nearly as ignorant as the child she left at home in the cradle, against churches and ministers, perhaps her own pastor, and certainly all who dissent from her views ; expecting to reform politics and churches, and to put down every real and supposed evil in them, by the right arm of fe- male power, and clamorous for the organization of female societies for this specific object ; not slow to anathematize all who do not submit to her dictation, in the stereotypp phraseology of certain modern MTROPRiATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 25 charity, as " time-serving men" and " canting hypo- crites ;" and withal very sure that the world will never go right till women take the lead ! What a Bad wreck of female loveliness is she then ! She can hardly conceive how ridiculous she appears in the eyes of all sober, discreet, judicious Christian men, or how great the reproach she brings upon her sex. Despite of gallantry, her power over the minds of men is then at an end ; she must henceforth "fight as one that beateth the air." Men will smile or pity, and let her pass on ; for to expostulate or argue they will soon find to be in vain, inasmuch as she is certainly right, has nothing to learn, and is bent only on teaching. But I would treat this subject with great tender- ness. Many of those who have fallen into this mis- taken and unhappy course were originally moved by good feelings and benevolent motives. But they fell under the influence of bad teachers. Some flaming periodical or plausible and exciting lecturer kindled up a false fire in their too credulous and susceptible but well meaning bosoms. They are misguided. They verily think they are " doing God service." They perhaps even covet to be " persecuted for righteousness' sake," and consider every effort to cor- rect their way as this kind of persecution. They very sincerely suppose that they are far in advance of their unenlightened, less philanthropic, or more timid sisters. They are willing to brave public sen- timent at all hazards. They have entire confidence 3 26 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. in tho righteousness and the success of their cause. As to their logic and their arguments, they cannot be resisted ; they have already seen some strong men "■ quail under them." They have only to go forward with increasing effort — to throw themselves boldly into this Thermopylae. The sacrifice is de- manded, and they are ready to make it. They un- fortunately suppose that the public odium which they encounter for stepping out of their appropriate sphere is nothing more nor less than the hostility of sin to the cause of truth and righteousness. Far be it from me to impugn motives so long as any favorable construction remains for them ; and those persons who are actuated by such views and motives as these are surely rather to be pitied than reproached. Some will only be spurred on to more desperate steps by whatever may be said to restrain them ; others will see their error, retreat to their appro- priate sphere, and recover the character which they had wellnigh lost. To some a faithful exposition of the gospel upon this subject, as well as upon all others, will prove a " savor of life unto life ; " to others, of " death unto death." But here, as in all other cases, our hope is mainly to save those who are not far gone and fully committed, and who of course are yet susceptible to instructions from the Bible respecting their duty. So long as they retain the characteristic graces of their sex in lively exer- cise, so long as delicacy and modesty and the finer feelings of retiring and unostentatious benevolence APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 27 nave the ascendency over them, if they are well in- formed of what is passing, they will be quick to dis- cern the meaning and the importance of the inspired lessons upon this subject. Such, in a high degree, God be thanked, is still the character of most of the female sex in our country. But those females who suppose that no bad in- fluences are at work among them, who suppose that no alarming danger threatens them, who suppose that there are as yet none on whom the inspired rebukes upon this subject justly fall, and who of course suppose that such cautions and admonitions as this discourse humbly attempts are uncalled for, have not diligently observed the " signs of the times." It may be very well. They have been, perhaps, attending exclusively to their own affairs ; and the very fact that they do not at once see the importance or the application of these instructions, may be evidence that they themselves do not need them except as preventives. The principle of pre- vention, rather than of cure, is the apology for pre- senting this subject at the present time. It may not be the duty of every person to watch the signs of the times, but it is certainly the duty of some to do it ; and those whom God has set expressly as watch- men to his people, and to whom he has said, " Hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me," must not withhold the warning when they see the evil approaching. They must anticipate its arrival. Let the admonitions of the gospel upon this subject 28 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. go before and prevent the threatening evil. Let its salutary voice of warning be heard in all the land before the plague has spread over it and killed, wherever it can, the " presiding genius " and the " potent charm " of the " fair sex," and thus laid all domestic piety and happiness, nay the domestic con- stitution itself, in a deep and dark grave. For surely as this unsexing process goes on till it becomes uni- versal, not an individual will remain for man to love with the true conjugal affection, unless himself first becomes a woman. Have we yet to learn that similar magnets repel ? And even if man could succeed to engage his affections to so unnatured and repulsive an object as a woman that has lost the characteristic graces of her sex, who in his right mind would hazard his hand and happiness with one that has already entered upon a course so ominous of domestic trouble? Is it not well known by the cautious observer, that the woman who is what the apostle calls " a busy-body in other men's matters" has left an unhappy home ? — first rendered such by her own neglect or indis- cretion or peevishness, and from which she now flees in search of happiness. Depend upon it, it is generally the case that the woman who is :iuch abroad has left an unhappy home. It may be supposed by some that these instructions have no application to any but married females. It is true that those who have no families to care for may have more >lme than wives and mothers have APPROPRIATE SPHERE Ol- WOMAN. 29 to devote to matters abroad. But how many have not parents, or brothers or sisters, or home, to bless with most of their presence and attentions ? Those who can command a larger part of their time to de- vote to christian conversation and to deeds of kind- ness and charity abroad, in ways comprehended in the appropriate sphere of female action, may con- sider it their privilege and duty to do it. It is our happiness to know some such women, who, although not mothers of families, are " mothers in Israel," whose characters savor of nothing but the strictest female propriety and the highest excellence, whose time is nevertheless mostly devoted to benevolent deeds among the ignorant, the destitute, the vicious, or the afflicted. Such are deserving of all praise. Those who would see one of the happiest illustra- tions of this will do well to read the life of Hannah More. It is unnecessary to attempt to define the exact line over which the graces of female character forbid woman to step, but from the scriptures which we have introduced we may easily trace its general di- rection. It respects both the things which she does and her manner of doing them. To perform deeds of personal charity and kind- ness to the destitute and afflicted ; to converse modestly or to employ the pen upon subjects which engage her mind and interest her heart ; to assist in the circulation of approved religious tracts ; to act the part of a personal or a private teacher, whether 3# 30 APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. secular or religious ; to engage in small social cir- cles of her own sex in the duties of devotion and of christian conversation ; to solicit charity for approved benevolent objects, by private application — deeds like these, if performed with the spirit and manner which become her, appear to be comprehended with- in the sphere which the Scriptures assign to the female sex ; and I know of no female virtue on which they necessarily encroach. But when females undertake to assume the place of public teachers, whether to both sexes or only to their own ; when they form societies for the purpose of sitting in judgment and acting upon the affairs of the church and state ; when they travel about from place to place as lecturers, teachers, and guides to public sentiment ; when they assemble in con- ventions to discuss questions, pass resolutions, make speeches, and vote upon civil, political, moral, and religious matters ; when they begin to send up their names to gentlemen holding official stations, gravely declaring their own judgment in regard to what they ought to do, and informing them, with solemn men- ace, what they have themselves determined to do if they do not yield to their wishes — even to repeat the expression of their sentiments until they do yield ; when they attempt the reformation of morals by en- gaging in free conversation and discussion upon those things of which the apostle says " it is a shame even to speak; " when they encourage meetings and measures like the above, either by their presence, APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 31 countenance, or service ; — in short, when the dis- tinguishing graces of modesty, deference, delicacy and sweet charity are in any way displaced by the opposite qualities of boldness, arrogance, rudeness, indelicacy, and the spirit of denunciation of men and measures, so that they give any just occasion for being denominated, by way of distinction, " the female brethren " — it is then no longer a question whether they have stretched themselves beyond their measure and violated the inspired injunction which saith, " Let the woman learn in silence with all sub- jection ; but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." And why should any woman thus sacrifice her- self? Does duty demand it ? Must she do it for conscience' sake ? However good the object, it can- not be duty to seek its promotion by such means as these. The end can never justify the means, in the estimation of any whose conscience is not per- verted. Does she do it for the sake of the suffering or the oppressed, or to correct moral evils and ex- terminate vice ? There is " a more excellent way" to do this, and also at the same time to promote and elevate her own character ; a way clearly indicated, as we have seen, in the word of God. It can never be the duty of any one to attempt to benefit others at the sacrifice of her own character. Is her object personal distinction ? Let her contemplate such characters as Hannah More and Isabella Graham, than which lovelier and brighter never shone upon 32 APPROPRIATE SriIERE OK WOMAN. earth, in contrast with those who have acquired an unenviable distinction in these unchristian ways — the Royals and the Darusmonts of our day — and she may see that the surest way to true glory is the one ordained for her by God . The world has had enough of Funny Wrights ; whether they appear in the name of avowed infidelity, or of civil and human rights, or of political economy, or of morals and religion, their tendency is ultimately the same — the alienation of the sexes, the subversion of the distinguishing ex- cellence and benign influence of woman in society, the destruction of the domestic constitution, the pros- tration of all decency and order, the reign of wild anarchy and shameless vice. Thomas Paine could not desire better disciples ; nor would it much con- cern him in what name or cause they might profess to appear, since the ultimate effect is one and the same. May those who emulate the noble example of the Mores and the Grahams of both continents be greatly multiplied. May the " daughters of America," ob- servant of the true dignity and glory of their sex, consecrating their earliest and best affections to the Savior, increase the excellence and power of their influence a thousand fold. The universal reign of domestic happiness, the end of all oppression, the extermination of vice, the conversion of souls, to- gether with the growing spirituality and vigor of the Christian church — the approach of the Redeemer's kingdom, bringing whatsoever is pure and lovely APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF WOMAN. 33 and of good report — will then be rapidly hastened. Zion will begin to " look forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." She will put on ber " beau- tiful garments ; " her " righteousness will go forth a • brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burn eth ; " paradise, lost by the fall, will hasten its return It will then appear that the sacred influence of pious females, acting in their appropriate sphere, is second to no other human influence for excellence or im- portance in accomplishing the renovation of the world ; for " the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." i: THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON WOMAN. " And of the chief women not a few,' The abject condition of the female =ex in all out Christian countries is universally known and admit- ted. In all savage and pagan tribes the severest burdens of physical toil are laid upon their shoul- ders : they are chiefly valued for the same reason that men value their more useful animals, or as ob- jects of theii sensual and selfish desires. Even in the learned and dignified forms of eastern paganism, " the wife," say.s one who has spent seventeen years among them, " is he slave rather than the compan- ion of her husband. She is not allowed to walk with him, she must walk behind him — not to eat with him, she must eat after him, and eat of what he leaves. She must not sleep until he is asleep, nor remain asleep after he is awake. If she is sit- ting and he comes in, she should rise up. She should, say their sacred books, have no other god on earth than her husband. Him she should wor- ship while he lives, and, when he dies, she should INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, kC. 35 be burnt with him." — " As the widow," in case she is not burnt, " is not allowed to marry again, is often considered little better than an outcast, and not un- frequently sinks into gross vice, her life can scarcely be considered a blessing." The same author re- marks that " there is little social intercourse between the sexes, little or no acquaintance of the parties be- fore marriage, and consequently little mutual attach- ment; and as there is an absolute vacuity and dark- ness in the minds of the females, who are not al- lowed even to learn to read, there is no solid foun- dation laid for domestic happiness." If we pass into the dominions of the crescent, we find the condition of females, in some respects, rather worse, it would seem, than better. For in pa- gan India, debased and abused as woman is, she is still allowed some interest in religion, and some com- mon expectations with the other sex concerning the future state. But in Mohammedan countries, even this is nearly or quite denied her. " It is a popular tradition among the Mohammedans, Avhich obtains to this day, that women shall not enter paradise ;" and it requires some effort for the imagination to conceive how debased and wretched must be the condition of the female sex, to originate and sustain such a hor- rible and blasphemous tradition. Even in the refined and shining ages of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where the cultivation of letters, the graces of finished style, the charms of poetry and eloquence, the elegancies of architecture, sculpture 3G INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY painting, and embroidery, the glory of conquest and the pride of national distinction, were unsurpassed by any people before or since, even then and there what was woman but the abject slave of man ? — the object of his ambition, or his avarice, or his lust, or his power ? — the alternate victim of his pleasure, his disgust, or his cruelty ? — the creature of his caprice ? — and, what is still worse, the menial slave of her own mental darkness, moral debasement, and vicious indulgences ? If history does not lie, the answer is decisive. This, and almost only this, was she. So far down as the close of the sixteenth century, a Latin author wrote a book to prove that women are not rational beings, have no souls, and that there awaits them no future life or happiness beyond the grave. This may have been intended as a severe humor, a sarcastic argument for a particular end, rather than a serious confirmation of so shocking a dogma ; yet such was its influence that Simon Gedicus, a Lutheran divine, deemed it important to write a serious confutation of this work, in 1595, " wherein," says a certain author, "women are re- stored to the expectation of heaven, on their good behavior." Such then is the debased and forlorn condition of woman as the ruins of the fall have left her, and wherever the benign influences from a better world have not reached her. But how gloriouslv does Christianity reverse all this. As if to set her on high forever, the natural pa ON WOMAN. 37 rent of the world's Savior was a woman ; — the tears of joy that bedewed his infant cheeks were a wo- man's tears , — the arms that fondly clasped the sweet babe, and laid him softly down to slumber in the manger, were a woman's arms; — yes, and it was a woman who first felt the redeeming and elevating power of Christianity, and with exultation sang, " My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior; for he hath re- garded the low estate of his handmaiden ; for be- hold, from henceforth all generations will call me blessed." Not only was the Savior's childhood protected and blessed by female care, but through his whole life women were in constant attendance upon his minis- try. It was woman's hospitality which furnished his table ; woman's penitence which washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head ; woman's sorrow which bewailed and lamented him, as he ascended with mournful steps to Calvary; woman's love, stronger than death, which followed his body to the sepulchre to see how it was laid ; woman's fidelity which prepared spices and ointments to embalm it ; woman's faithful piety which was earliest at the sepulchre, had the first view of the risen Savior, and proclaimed the glad tidings to the world. When, in obedience to the command of their risen Lord, the disciples went forth and proclaimed the gospel, women were among the first and most 4 38 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY zealous believers ; and our text records, to the honor of their sex, that when Paul had spent three Sab- baths in one of the chief cities of Macedonia, rea- soning with the people out of the Scriptures, open- ing and alleging that it was needful that Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead, " some of the people believed and joined themselves to Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.'''' They were the chief women, and not a few of them, that received the Son of God and joined themselves to his people. While, as the context informs, the Jews, who believed not, moved with envy, and certain vile fellows of the baser sort, could find no better thing to do than to lift up their impotent and blood-stained hands against Jesus Christ, these chief women, of noble spirit, together with the devout Greeks, gave their hearts and their hands to speed the cause of human redemption. It has ever been a favorite taunt of infidels and scorners, that Christianity is so much embraced by women. " It is a religion," say they, " for women and children ;" thus associating women with children, making puerility of intellect and feebleness of un- derstanding characteristic of their sex. We need not here pause to rebuke the scandal which, in their zeal to injure Christianity, they thus cast upon the female sex ; but would only say, that if there were any meaning or force in it, so far from being a re- proach to Christianity, it were rather an honor to ON WOMAN. 39 the female sex, that so many of them have the dis- cernment and the moral sense to see the beauty and yield to the claims of divine truth. There are natural reasons, however, as I conceive, why there are more converts to Christianity from among women than men, of such a nature as at once to break the teeth of the infidel's scandal, and take from woman all dangerous occasion for glory- ing. I suppose the fact that more women than men do become pious, will not be doubted. St. Augustine denominated them in his day, it is said, " the devout sex;" and whether that designation was originally intended only for those specially consecrated or not, it certainly applies with much truth and propriety to the sex, as such, in every age. It is believed that in most of the Christian churches of both conti- nents there are more females than males ; and that if the aggregate of all the true believers and faithful followers of Christ upon the face of the earth could be taken, the number from the female sex would much exceed that from the other. But there are causes for this, which go to show that it implies no superiority in the one sex over the other, or any inap- titude in the Christian religion to intellects of both sexes and of all grades. The principle is this. — Religion does not come and take possession of the human soul by any accident or caprice, nor by any physical violence. It is the result of consideration, thought, reflec- tion, bestowed upon the subject in sufficient relative 40 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY measure to secure, through divine influence, the moral change in question. Hence absorbing devo- tion to any other object, or subjection to any vice, will operate to resist the Spirit and repel religion. The causes by which we are induced to embrace Christianity are of two kinds, natural and super- natural. By the former I designate all that is com- prehended in means, by the latter the influence of the Holy Spirit. I believe the latter influence to be always essentially concerned in regeneration, and in every stage of sanctification, but that it ordi- narily operates in connection with means. Now if we should suppose the same intellectual adaptation of Christianity to the male as to the female intellect, and the same influence of the divine Spirit upon each, but yet if at the same time the natural causes should in the one case be superior to what they are in the other, there would still be seen to be a sufficient reason why there are more numerous ex- amples of Christian piety among women than among men. Let us then proceed to notice some of the natural causes which operate in favor of female piety. 1. Women are less exposed than men to those vices which are incompatible with Christian piety ; such as intemperance, licentiousness, gambling, and all kinds of debauchery. The constitution and habits of civilized countries throw up a very high and strong fortification around female virtue. If man is willing to be vicious himself, he is not wil- ON WOMAN. 41 ling that woman should be ; at least, he will despise her and cast her out from society if she is. Men may indulge in vices to some extent, and yet hold high their heads, and move and shine in society. They may practise them in secret ; in places remote from home, where they are not known ; under co- vert of darkness and pretence of business ; in com- pany with those whose voices are never heard in the society in which they move ; — and even if their vices are known, unless they are excessive, the fair sex, so kind and forgiving arc they, still admit them into their society, and give them the smile of indul- gence. But these are things which woman cannot do. She cannot, in the first place, practise vices without being known, as men can ; and, in the second place, if she is known to be in any degree vicious — if a single vice is found upon her — the star of her beauty is set, her fair name is blighted forever, she is an outcast from society. Hence the footsteps of female virtue are peculiarly guarded, circumspect, cautious ; the barrier against vice is too high to scale, the gulf beneath too deep and awful to plunge. Some, in- deed, do surmount the barrier and fall ; but their fall is like that of Lucifer. They are henceforth known only as objects of commiseration, disgust, and almost hopeless wretchedness. Even the man who seduced her from the paths of virtue is one of the first to despise her and to cast her down to remedi- less ruin ; while he turns away from her, and goes 4* 42 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY back into society again, to play the gentleman there ! Now the number of men who indulge in those rices which do not depose them from a standing in society, but which would depose females, is probably considerable ; but while they do not exclude them from the society of their fellow-men, they do fatally exclude them from the kingdom of God. It is not necessary that a man, in order to ruin his soul, should indulge in the most open, abominable, de- testable excesses of vice ; it is only necessary that he should indulge in occasional, concealed, and more refined vices, those which society agrees to wink at. " For this ye know, that no lewd nor unclean person, nor drunkard, nor whatsoever defileth or worketh abomination, hath any part in the kingdom of Christ or of God." Any vice, no matter what its form and complexion, cherished, and not renounced, will exclude a man from the kingdom of God as effectually as if ten thousand iron gates were bolted and barred against him. Hence the Savior said, " If thy right eye shall cause thee to sin, pluck it out, and cast it from thee ; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand shall cause thee to sin, cut it off, and cast it from thee ; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." Suppose, now, that two individuals of similar ON WOMAN. 43 mental constitution are sitting under the preaching of the gospel ; but the one, in order to become a Chris- tian, must cut off his right hand and pluck out his right eye ; the other has no such sacrifice to make. Is it not, then, reasonable to suppose that the same truth, the same argument, the same conviction, and the same measure of divine influence, will be much more, likely to secure the conversion of the latter than of the former ? Undoubtedly. Such is found to be the fact. And it remains for eternity to reveal thousands of conversions to God from among females as the consequence of that virtue by which, as a sex, they are protected ; and thousands of ruined souls from among men, as the fruit of those vices to which, as a sex, they are exposed, and to which they wick- edly yield. 2. Women are less exposed than men to the ab- sorbing passion of gain. So predominant and ruin- ous i6 this passion, that the Scriptures have styled it " the god of this world," and they have represented it as having a mighty influence in blinding the minds of men to the glory of the gospel. " If our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost ; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the'light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them." " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Mammon, you well know, was the Syriac god of wealth. It devolves mainly upon men to provide for their 44 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY families the necessary supports of life. It is theirs to cultivate and dispose of the fruits of the earth ; to control the operations and secure the proceeds of the mechanic arts ; to prosecute and realize the avails of the learned professions ; to move around the wheels of mercantile enterprise and catch the falling bounty ; to sieze, with eagle-eye, the distant gain, and speculate in houses and lands and stocks. For woman to do this, would ordinarily be quite out of place and character. Now how easy and natural it is, in a world like this, fallen as we are, for a reasonable and proper desire of gain, in them so much devoted to it as men are, to degenerate into an absorbing passion ; so that pos- session, instead of being made a subordinate means to the true end of existence, becomes itself the ulti- mate object, the god and portion of the soul ; to which all that is truly good, both in this life and in that which is to come, must be sacrificed. What are those vices, to which I have just alluded, but constitutional and innocent desires, when rightly restrained and governed, let loose and run mad ? And what is the passion of avarice but the same thing ? Now are not men immeasurably more ex- posed and addicted than women to both of these iniquities ; and do not both of them equally and fa- tally exclude the soul from heaven ? Hath not the voice of inspiration declared that this idolatrous love of money is a " root of all evil," causing those who indulge it to resist the truth and pierce themselves OIS WOMAN. 45 through with many sorrows ? And does not the very same Scripture say, " This we know, that no lewd nor unclean person, nor covetous, hath any in- heritance in the kingdom of Christ ? " 3. Women are less exposed than men to the lust of civil poivcr, office, dominion. In all but hereditary governments, they are entirely excluded from posts of civil distinction ; and there, of course, is little or no room for the desire or pursuit of them, since all is hereditary and fixed. I do not say that the desire for a public post of honor and influence is ;d\vays and of necessity sinful, anymore than is the desire for pleasure or for property ; but this I say, that in the existing state of the world, when so much chicanery and iniquity are practised to secure office ; when, for this object, so much envy, and slander, and shuffling, and strife, and wrath, are indulged; when of the men in power so few regard the precepts of Christianity, and office is so commonly held, not for the public good or the glory of God, but to gratify the lust of power and ambition ; it is, as our Savior said of the man devoted to riches, among the almost impossible things for a man in pursuit of a public office to enter the kingdom of heaven. And yet, what multitudes of men in our country whose hearts are at this moment burning with the lust of office ! How many have entirely sold themselves to this god ! To this they live and breathe and have their being. To this they offer their morning and eve- ning devotions, and pay their costliest sacrifice. Tt 46 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY engages, their first and their latest thoughts ; it even induces them to profane the Sabbath with the read- ing of political news, and with forming their unhal- lowed schemes of ambition ; it tempts them to do many things which their own consciences condemn, and which they know full well they must not do, if they would be the followers of Christ. " How can a man repent," one has justly said, " whose soul is engrossed with the wily policy of ambition ; who seeks ofhce, fame, applause ? — on whose favor flatter- ers hang, and around whose steps thousands are offering the incense of adulation ? — whose very business is a species of evading the right way of honesty, and travelling in just such a devious path as the sinner loves to tread ?" " Where is the man that would not rather climb the steeps of praise, with incense burning around him, and the multitude ren- dering homage at his feet, than be found pleading for mercy with bitter tears, like David, the best of kings, or weeping in the prayer meeting, or in his office, or counting-room ? " Upon this great field of public strife, this land of war and blood and death, where such multitudes of men peril their moral in- terests and even lay down their lives in sacrifice, where the glories of heaven and the terrors of hell are equally unheeded, the gentle and unaspiring steps of woman do not enter. She treads a more quiet and virtuous path, where, instead of the noise of po- litical strife, the shouts of conquest, and the groans of defeat, she is saluted with tidings from a better ON WOMAN. 47 world — where the silent and powerful language of truth, the voice of God, the entreaties of the Savior, the deep and solemn echoes from eternity, fall on her listening ear and enter her heart. 4. Women are more at home than men. More se- cluded from the agitations of society, the strifes of ambition, the clamor of business, the excitements and perils of war and of military prowess, she is ordinarily more favorably crcumstanced for calm and serious reflection. Less exposed to the feverish air of the world, she is thus enabled to breathe more of the cool and healthful atmosphere of a better clime. Of all places upon earth, the calm domestic retreat, in connection with the sanctuary, is most favorable to virtuous contemplation, to moral elevation, and true Christian piety. It is not in the midst of the rush of business, or the agitations of civil and political life, or the shouts of armies and battles, or any of those out of door scenes in which so large a portion of man's life is spent, that serious and salutary thoughts of God, of death, judgment, and eternity, are wont to visit the soul. No — it is in that more favored place — home — nearest the sanc- tuary and nearest heaven ; the rightful dominion of woman ; where she passes, unmolested, most of her time ; where she finds most of her employment, and where she shines in her purest and brightest lustre. When I preach the gospel to women, I encourage myself with the thought that they will go home to think upon it ; but when I preach the gospel to men, 48 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY I am often disheartened with the fear that they will go out into the bustling world and forget it. 5. Women are more exposed than men to those sufferings and trials which render religion pecu- liarly acceptable. That sufferings of various kinds are among the means ordained and adapted to bring us to Christ, is a doctrine taught both in the Bible and by our own experience and observation ; and that by far the greater portion of human sufferings falls to the female sex, is a fact equally known and admitted. If we speak of physical sufferings, the delicacy and frailty of her frame, the susceptibility of her nervous system, together with the more peculiar and exclu- sive sufferings of her sex, enhanced and embittered as they are in consequence of the apostasy, accord- ing to the declaration, " I will greatly multiply thy sorrows," &c, prolonged through all ages and ex- tending to all ranks and conditions, there is in them much that is calculated to wean her spirit from the flesh, and induce her trembling and anxious soul to seek for sympathy and safety in Christ. While the more sturdy frame and iron nerves of man, and his exemption from the most and the severest of the ills that flesh is heir to, are by him too often perverted to an occasion of forgetting that his breath is in his nostrils and his foundation in the dust. If we speak of mental sufferings, the liveliness and keenness of her susceptibilities ; her imminent exposure to those defeats, griefs, and disappointments. ON WOMAN. 49 which most severely sting the heart, and for which there is no earthly antidote ; the silent anguish of mortified vanity, of cruel neglect, of disappointed love ; the bitter sorrows of her soul, while realizing in her own painful experience the utter emptiness and deceitfulness of the world, and not being able like men, to go out and plunge into the scenes of care and ambition to divert her mind and forget her afflictions ; her peculiar helplessness and depen- dence in her afflictions ; — are all calculated to dis- engage her affections and hopes from earthly things, to lead her chastened and subdued spirit to Jesus, to open her mind to the sweet invitation of his grace, as it falls gently upon «her ear, " Come unto me, ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." True she often has her gay morningj but how soon is it frequently overcast ; how soon does the beauty fade, the enchantment end, the dream of vanity and of gaiety vanish away! The caprice of human flattery and the treachery of human friend- ships, are calculated to make her realize the worth of that honor which cannot perish, and the value of that Friend who never forsakes. She turns away from earth, gives her mortal interest up, reclines her head upon the bosom of Jesus, and is happy. 6. Women are more accustomed to subjection ; men to rule. If a confiding and submissive dis- position is characteristic of woman, a dictatorial and unyielding disposition is characteristic of man. The spirit of the Christian religion is a spirit of sub- 5 D 50 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY jection to a superior and righteous authority. So characteristic is this of true piety, that the first decla- rations of our Savior pronounced blessings upon the poor in spirit, the meek, the lowly, the submissive, the unaspiring ; and so important was the inculcation of this sentiment by example as well as precept, that he declared that he did not himself come to be ministered unto, but to minister — not to be served, but to be himself servant to all. Immediately subsequent to the fall it was declared to the woman, " Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." In every succeeding age and nation, this declaration has been verified. And the new dispensation, not repealing this ordi- nance, requires it as a Christian duty of women to be obedient unto their husbands. In the ordinary and more appropriate state of things, it is man's to assume authority and hold dominion, in every condi- tion, from the family up to the throne of nations. It is his, more appropriately, to sway the sceptre over empires ; to head and control armies; to pre- side in courts ; to enact laws ; to direct the civil and social affairs of his town or neighborhood ; to gov- ern his own household. Now the pride of domin- ion, the liberty and the disposition to govern rather than to be governed in the secular affairs of the world, is too often made an occasion among men of inducing them to resist the yoke of the divine government, to say of Jehovah and his Anointed, " Let us break their bands asunder and cast away ON WOMAN. 51 their cords from us." It is represented in the Scriptures as one of the greatest obstacles to the conversion of men to God, that such is their pride of dominion, that they are unwilling to be subject even to the government of Jehovah. Hence the prophet, speaking of the time when this obstacle shall give way before the power of the truth and Spirit of God, declares, " The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of man shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." When the gospel is preached to women, and they are called upon to submit themselves to the divine government, they are only summoned to do that which is analogous to what they have been doing all their lives long. In infancy and childhood, they are subject to their parents ; in maturer years, they are subject to their husbands ; in almost all nations and all conditions, the possibility or the acknowledged propriety of dominion is not hers ; insomuch that to usurp authority and exercise dominion over men and over society is almost universally acknowledged to be, in a woman, entirely out of place. How much more natural and easy then, humanly speaking, for those thus trained and accustomed to subjection from infancy through all their lives, to become subject to Christ, than for those who could scarcely brook even parental authority in childhood, and whose subse- quent life is a constant aspiration after an exercise of supremacy and dominion. 52 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY These, I apprehend, are the most important natu- ral causes operating to secure more examples of Christian piety among women than among men. They are of such a nature as to imply no mental imbecility on the part of women, and no intellectual flaws or accommodating weakness in Christianity, as infidelity has sneeringly averred ; — they are such as any sound mind, understanding the nature of cause and effect, would expect to result in larger ac- cessions to religion from the female than from the male sex, allowing them to possess the same mental constitution and supposing Christianity to be a sys- tem of truth. Thus the calamities of the apostasy, which seem in some respects to have fallen more severely on women than on men, seem to result in securing a larger number of them to that grace which bringeth salvation. I shall conclude this chapter with two or three inferential remarks. If Providence has thus rendered it more easy for women to embrace religion than for men, then they are more guilty if they do not. The vigorous intellectual nerve acquired by men in the sharp en- counter of life being favorable to the active rather than the passive virtues, gives some peculiar ad- vantages for religion to men, but the advantages decidedly predominate upon the other side ; and al- though Providence has done enough for every indi- vidual, whether man or woman, to render impiety inexcusable, vet i is manifest that eminent advan ON WOMAN. 53 tages must bring eminent guilt, if they are not im- proved. Has Providence thrown a barrier very high and strong around female virtue, thus protecting her in an eminent degree from those vices which repel re- ligion ? Has he in a great measure delivered her from exposure to the absorbing passion of gain, the god of this world, which blinds the minds of many that believe not ? Has he saved her from the perils attending the race of public ambition, office, power, and dominion ? Has he given to her a tender frame, endowed her with keen and lively sensibility, and laid those sufferings and trials upon her which are eminently adapted to make her feel the need of Christ ? Has he placed her in those circumstances of subjection, from her youth up, which render sub- jection to his authority comparatively natural and easy ? To persist in impiety against all these, to overleap all these barriers against perdition and still go the downward way to ruin, must involve peculiar guilt and aggravated condemnation. It is further to be remarked, that as Christianity has done so much for woman, she ought in return to do much for Christianity. Every thing that can render her life desirable she owes to Christ. Think for one moment, reader, of the hole of the pit from which Christ has taken you. Think of what would be your present condition, had it not been for the Christian religion. You might have been with the debased and wretched victims of pagan oppression, 5* 54 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY cruelty, and lust ; burning alive upon the funeral pile, or sacrificed by hands of violence and pollution, or cast out and neglected to pine in solitary and hope- less grief. Or, with the female followers of the false prophet, or in more refined but unchristian nations, you might have been little else than the slave or the convenience of man, and left to doubt whether any inheritance awaits you beyond the grave. From these depths of debasement and wretchedness Chris- tianity has taken you and placed you on high, to move, and shine, and rejoice, in the sphere for which the Creator designed you. Not only has it made your condition as good as that of man, but in a moral view in some respects superior to it. How much then do you owe to Christ ! To turn away from him with indifference or neglect, what ingratitude is this ! How preposterous, how base, how unlovely, is female impiety. There was much sense in a re- mark made by an intelligent gentleman, who, al- though not pious himself, said, " I cannot look with any complacency upon a woman who does not manifest gratitude and love to Jesus Christ. Above all things, I hate to see so unnatural an object as an irreligious woman." Such being the constitution and circumstances of woman, it is the manifest intention of God that she should be pre-eminent in moral excellence, and, through the influence of this, take a glorious lea in the renovation of the world. This she has some extent ever done. Let all females of Christian ON WOMAN. 55 lands consider well their high calling, their solemn responsibility, and their glorious privilege. While many of their sex have proved recreant to their trust, and wasted life in vanity and in vice, others, an illustrious constellation, the holy and the good of ancient time, the mothers and the sisters in Israel, " the chief women not a few" of apostolic times, the' bright throng that have since continued to come out from the world and tread in the steps of Jesus, and lead on their fellow-beings to the kingdom of purity and joy, have proved to us that as woman was first to fall so she is first to rise. Yes, though it is not hers to amass wealth ; to aspire to secular office and power; to shine in camps and armies; to hull the thunders of our na- vies, and gather laurels from the ocean ; or to re- ceive the vain incense offered to public and popular eloquence ;— yet hers it is, to be robed with the beauty of Christ ; to shine in the honors of good- ness ; to shod over the world the sweet and "holy influences of peace, virtue and religion ; to be adorned with those essential and imperishable beauties, those unearthly stars and diadems, whose lustre will sur- vive, with ever increasing brightness, when all earthly glory will fade and be forgotten. Ccme then, reader; come to your high duty, your glori- ous privilege ; come and be blessed forever ! THE CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. ' That our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." The elevated and shining character of the female sex as here contemplated is recognised among the blessings of a prosperous state of religion. It is at once a means and a result of the most perfect and happy condition of society. Utility and ornament in the female character are here united. Our daugh- ters are to be, not as in pagan and savage nations, the abject subjects of menial toil, drudgery, and sen- suality ; nor yet, as in luxurious and corrupt civilized communities, creatures of idleness, vanity, and plea- sure ; they are to sustain at once the relation of substantial utility and of the most beautiful orna- ment. They are to be corner-stones, and corner- stones polished, and polished after the similitude of a palace. The figure is highly expressive. Con- sidering the kingdom of God, as manifested in a truly religious and elevated state of society, under the similitude of a palace, and Christ as the chkf corner-stone, the daughters are to hold their place CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. • 57 among the lively corner-stones built upon him. They have a place with those on whom the support and strength of the building depend. But they are also to be polished, or, as it may be rendered, hewed, wrought, and finished with great care and beauty, as becomes the corner-stones of a palace. That our daughters may sustain as important a part as our sons in perfecting human society and promoting or blessing the kingdom of God, the ex- amples in the Scriptures fully prove. That they may embalm themselves in the happy recollections of thousands after them, send the sweet odor of their name and the excellence of their influence down through all succeeding ages, you have only to con- template in proof the example of Sarah, who through her faith and piety became a source of unspeakable blessings to unborn nations ; of Rebeccn, the wife of Isaac ; of Rachel, the daughter of Laban, wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph ; of Hannah, the mo- ther and spiritual guardian of Samuel ; of Esther, the royal princess and the savior of her nation ; of Ruth, whose steadfast piety secured, through her descendant David, the richest blessings to the world ; of Elizabeth, " righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless," the honored mother and guardian angel of the great forerunner ; of Mary, the " highly fa- vored among women," whose soul did " magnify the Lord," and whose spirit did rejoice in God her Savior; of Lois and of Eunice, whoee "unfeigned 58 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. faith" and holy instructions stand upon the sacred record as manifested in the character of one of the brightest apostles of Christianity; and of others, a long and brilliant roll, on sacred and profane record, whose wisdom, piety, fidelity, and eminent ser- vice, have placed their names high among the stars that never fade. The ascent of a nation from the savage to the civilized state is in a great measure effected through the Christian influence of woman ; it is through her influence perverted, in a great measure, that a descent is thence made into the gulf that yawns upon the opposite side. From the high state of civilization and refinement,' a descent to ruin is usually commenced with the false education, the in- dolence, the luxurious habits, of the female sex. Now the object is, to arrest the female character, as it exists in the present state of society ; to preserve what is right in it, and save it from depreciating ; to do this by pointing out a way in which Avoman may continue to ascend higher and higher in excel- lence and usefulness, and by affording her sufficient motives to do it. Let us here leave those examples of female character which peculiar circumstances have rendered conspicuous, and proceed to notice the qualifications by which all our daughters may be- come what the sacred writer discribes. Nature and circumstances will of course modify the general rules and instructions. All are not to be trained in the same particular manner, nor to occupy the same CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 59 position in society. Yet all may be truly good, useful, honorable, blessed of God, in their respective spheres and callings ; all may be, in some important sense, as corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace. To this end, 1. Early and continual attention must be paid to their health. Their energy of character, their effi- ciency their intellectual activity, their disposition, the type of their piety, the health and peace and happi- ness of their families, all depend very much upon this. It is not among the least evils of luxurious and refined society, that such habits are indulged as tend to deteriorate the health of females. Instead of being the active, vigorous, efficient daughters and matrons of simpler times, of high-toned health, bounding spirits, long and useful life, and almost fadeless beauty, they degenerate to a feeble, inactive, sickly, short-lived race. The consequences to the domestic state, to their children, and to the morals, piety and happiness of society, are disastrous in a high degree. I cannot here enlarge upon them. It is enough to say, that all those habits which are prejudicial to health must be from infancy resolutely shunned by those, who would aspire to the honor which our subject contemplates. AVhatever of irregularity in the disposition of time, late retiring and late rising ; whatever of evil to the body in the modes and refinements of dress ; whatever of enervating and wasting indolence ; whatever of frequent and exciting entertainments, 60 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. which exhaust the nervous system and are followed by ennui and mental vacuity ; whatever indulgences of the table, which feed a morbid and destructive appetite ; in a word, whatever tends not to the high- est and most prolonged health and vigor of both body and soul, must be resolutely and forever shun- ned by her who would become the highest ornament and the true glory of her sex. Much is said of the evils to health resulting from modern modes of dress — perhaps too much ; although the testimony of such scientific and valua- ble authority as the medical profession, is certainly deserving of very serious attention. Some have probably carried their opinions on this subject be- yond due bounds ; such is the known and pardona- ble tendency of minds strongly enlisted on a particu- lar subject. But let no one despise or neglect the testimony of sober facts ; and there are enough of them to prove, that there is more of truth than fancy in the doctrines upon this subject now currently maintained by physicians. The proprieties of taste and refinement need not be, and certainly should not be, sacrificed in the matter of dress, any more than in any thing else ; and, without descending to further particulars, which would better become a secular lecture than this place and occasion, it may suffice to say, that such a style of dress as preserves the symmetry and integrity of the human system, and protects it thoroughly from our rugged climate and ever changing weather, is essential to the sound- CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 61 est health ; and that whoever barters this to please vanity or custom, makes a dear and most unchristian bargain. There are more evils to health however, in my opinion, resulting frcfn the exposures and intem- perate excitements of frequent and late assemblies of gaiety and pleasure ; from indulgence in eating and drinking ; particularly from the use of confec- tionary, of highly seasoned dishes and of stimulating drinks, and the habitual use of coffee and strong tea. All of these things tend strongly to irritate the nervous system and to impair the constitution. But most of all, a want of vigorous, habitual, appropriate exercise, is impairing the energy and undermining the health of multitudes ; it is sending to an early grave its annual hecatombs of female victims. The law cf exercise has never been re- pealed ; it is still equally binding on both sexes. The human system must have exercise, or it must languish. But modern abbreviations of female labor, in the inventions and so called improvements of the mechanic arts, together with the notions of delicacy and refinement which obtain in cultivated society, have exonerated a large portion of females from the necessity of manual labor. But if they are not under necessity to exercise to secure the objects of labor, let them still consider that they are under the same necessity as ever to exercise to secure the object of health. In all suitable ways, and by all available means, 6 62 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. let them, as one of their first and most important objects, secure and preserve sound and vigorous health. 2. The next qualification is a habit of industry. This is essential to every productive virtue ; it should be early formed and vigorously maintained. The temptations with young women in the present state of society to neglect it are numerous, and too often fatal. How many of our daughters, because their parents are able to support them, or because the mothers or servants assume the burden of domestic care, or because they are looking for some connec- tion which will exempt them from the necessity of personal effort, form habits of fixed and hopeless indolence ! This evil is by no means confined to anyone class. It is the pride of the rich, it is the ambition of the poor, to appear above the necessity of effort. But it is a false and pernicious sentiment. We were made for action; we are never in true honor but when actively engaged to the extent of our ability in accomplishing some good ; and this is as true of woman as of man. Because it devolves on the man mainly to provide support for his family, does it therefore follow that wives and daughters have nothing or little to do? By no means. There still remains a most important service for them, and they are still as sacredly bound to make the most they possibly can of all their time and strength, in some useful employment, as if they were compelled CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. t>3 # to do it for their daily bread. To be diligently and usefully employed to the extent of her ability is one of the first lessons to be inculcated upon the little miss, and to be continually impressed upon her through all the subsequent periods of her childhood, youth, and womanhood. Considering the great proneness to indolence in all human beings, and the fact that fashion and respectability so much sanction it in certain classes of females, it may be regarded as one of the most besetting and dangerous vices of our young women at the present time. There is with multitudes of them an enormous waste of energy, physical, intellectual, and moral; the sin of burying the talent is with them a crying sin. But the blame is not wholly theirs. The vices entertained by many of the other sex, and false no- tions of refinement encouraged by society at large, have contributed to make our daughters suppose that it is essential to the character and standing of a lady to be as indolent and useless as possible. The least that she can know experimentally of the manner in which even hc»- own daily food is pre- pared, or her own clothes made ; or of the more severe and useful labors of the mind, whether in acquiring or importing knowledge ; or of the wants and reliefs of the poor and needy ; — and the more she spends her mornings in bed, her evenings at novels or amusements, her mid-day hours in saunter- ing and lounging about, or exposing her person in the streets, — the more of an accomplished lady is 64 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. she ! What notion can be more false and pernicious ? Yet I need not tell you it is popular, common, ex- tending to all classes and conditions of society. Many of all classes are aiming to bring up their daughters in this way. So countenanced is it, that the daughters of the poorest as well as of the richest often blush to have it said or supposed, that they have been engaged in some useful employment. I repeat it, the fault is not so much in the young women as in those who have the charge of bringing them up, and in public sentiment. For a young man to be use- fully engaged, is necessary to his good standing in society ; but for a young woman to be thus engaged, is not only not necessary, but rather prejudicial to her character as a refined and accomplished lady ! This public sentiment falling in with the natural disposition to idleness, is it strange that the result is a wide-spread and most melancholy paralysis of female energy ? I speak within due and considerate limits when I assert, that in a large class of females not one-tenth part of useful results are accomplished by their existence, which might be accomplished. Their lives, compared with what they might be, are almost a barren waste, a dead blank on the scale of being. Instead of being any thing that resembles corner-stones polished after the similitude of a pa- lace, their history is rather that of hothouse plants. They spring into being, vegetate, and are gazed at, perhaps admired, for a little season ; they then fade and vanish away forever ! CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 65 The evils of this indolence in females extend to every thing with which they have to do. A grass- hopper becomes to them a burden. To accomplish even a little thing costs them a prodigious and most exhausting effort. They cannot endure to study ; — hence they must have teachers that will save them fiom the necessity of it, and yet by superficial means flatter them and their parents with a fine show of learning. They cannot endure to think; — hence they must have books of the most light and popular character; addressed principally to their imagina- tions and feelings. They cannot endure any do- mestic labor; — hence they must remain in ignorance of the things to be done in their own households, and thus subject themselves and their families to those numerous troubles from servants, which result from the ignorance and inefficiency of the mis- tress; to say nothing of the sacrifice of property in domestic wastes, for the want of some one to look well to the ways of her household. They cannot endure to walk ; — hence they must be provided with a coach, not only when it is really necessary, but when. they might as well walk, and when walking would comport much better with their means. They have not sufficient energy to sympathize with the cares, the duties, and trials of their husbands ; — hence their husbands must bear their burdens alone, un cared for and unaided ; and sometimes even experi- ence the influence of their wives as a dead weight 6* E 66 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. upon them, to bring down their tottering resolution to the dust. They cannot endure to look after the education of their children ; — hence their little ones must be committed entirely to others to toil for them alone, (thankless task !) or their young minds must be permitted to shoot up at random. They have not sufficient knowledge to- select the best teachers ; — hence their children must take their chance. They have not sufficient resolution to govern their chil- dren ; — hence they must, so far as the mother is concerned, go ungoverned, and perhaps, as a conse- quence, be ruined. And, finally, they sometimes be- come so irresolute that they cannot, without a ghostly effort, even return their neighbor's friendly call ; and the consequence perhaps is green-eyed jealousy and a breach of friendship. All is full of evil, trouble, disaster, resulting from their indolence and ineffi- ciency. Their suns rise and set ; weeks, months, and years run on ; they bring almost nothing to pass, and yet they complain of having so much to do ! They are laboriously employed in doing no- thing. Their health becomes feeble ; their spirits droop ; they become nervous, peevish, unhappy ; — instead of shedding light and joy over the domestic circle, they render it unhappy. Yes, the beautiful and admired daughter, or the engaging wife and mother, as she appears in the excitements of the drawing- room or the assembly, too often retires to the do- mestic circle, where most of all she should make her excellence to be seen and felt, there to exhibit the CHK1STIA.N EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 67 bitter fruits of selfish indolence in the everlasting sighs and complaints of peevish discontent ! As then you would secure the well-being of your daughters, and of all with whom they may have to do, be surv. to trainWthem to industry. Never al- low them to think that their hands are too good to perform any useful work, or that any task is too la- borious for their perseverance to accomplish, or any study or art too hard for their minds and their in- dustry to master. Let them early learn and ever remember the motto, " Labor ■pcrtinax omnia vincit ;" and let the great motives and encouragements to in- dustry be kept constantly before them. With care- fulness never to overtax their powers, let the hours of every day be sacredly appropriated ; let not a single hour be lost. Let them rise early and enter directly upon the assigned duties of the day, and pass with the most exact economy of time through the successive hours for domestic duties, study, giv- ing or receiving necessary calls, exercise, miscella- neous reading, devotions, dren ; in administering relief to the needy and sym« pathy to the afflicted ; in promoting religion by their assis'ance in Sabbath schools, by their intelligent Christian conversation, by their prayers and their cheering sympathy ; in a word, in securing and sustaining the elevated character and influence re- quisite to their successful promotion of the noblest and most valuable interests of our existence. With- out this, therefore, they fail to rise to the proper dignity and glory df their sex. Mothers ! in the name of religion and humanity. I charge you, teach your daughters industry. No matter how much of wealth and beauty and refined accomplishments they have ; without this virtue, they are unfit to be either wives, or mothers, or members of society,— without this, their husbands, their children, the society of which they are to be members, will suffer a greater loss in respect to them than can be atoned foi — greater than my pen shall attempt to describe. 3. The next qualification is a well-cultivated in- tellect. I do not think that the uses of female edu- cation, and the vast motives to it, have ever been sufficiently considered. When the sphere of wo- man's duties and the important uses for her intel- lectual culture are well understood, it will be seen to be in many respects more important that she should have a sound and thorough education, than that the other sex should. Tf man is more engaged CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 69 in transacting business, securing the necessities of life, protecting rights and justice, woman is to be more engaged in the higher life and cultivation of the soul. If the brothers must spend most of their time in the field or the shop, the sisters are to pre- serve the intellectual atmosphere of the house. If the husband must look after his property and pro- vide his children with bread, the wife must look af- ter the minds of her children and provide them with knowledge. If the husband must do most for their physical, the wife must do most for their intellectual, natures — inspire them with noble sentiments, with lofty ambition, and implant the elements of great- ness in their opening minds. She must be a foun- tain of knowledge to her family ; but how can she do this, unless her own mind is elevated and enlarged with knowledge ? The streams cannot rise above their fountain. She is moreover to be a permanent compayiion to her husband, his richest and most intimate source of interest and joy through life ; — how important then that she should have those mental resources by which she may retain her hold upon his respect, confidence, interest, and affection, after the novelty and romance of other charms have passed away, (as they very soon do) and nothing but the severer and more abiding excellencies of the mind remain to interest. If we except those men professionally devoted to teaching, the intellectual character of a coir "junity 70 SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF gentle, affectionate, confiding creatures, who, though they make no noise in the world, are capable of great efforts. She is one of those whom, following their quiet and unassuming course, God delighteth to honor. She, like Hannah, reposed all her cares in the bosom of her God ; and He heard and reliev- ed her. The tenderness of female piety is every where affectionately exhibited in the holy women in the Bible. How different is their devotion from the imaginative mysticism of the enthusiast. It is, in- deed, glowing and affectionate ; but it is calm and reverential. We see Mary, gazing on her Divine Master, listening to every word that fell from his lips, pouring her costly ointment on his head, watching his last agony, prostrating herself in almost speech- less joy before his risen form ; but all these actions, whilst they denote the tenderness of the friend, mark also the respect of the disciple. And Martha, too, though she, on one occasion, mistook the way to pay honor to him, whose thoughts were not of this world ; what can be more affectionate than her greet- ing at the tomb of Lazarus ? And what more bles- sed than the memorial of each, " now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ?" The piety of these holy women was of a subdued and chastened character ; and whilst it chained their hearts to the object of their affections, it never suf- fered them to forget their homage. And their lan- guage, like their sentiment, was that adoration. FEMALE CHARACTER. 71 They indulged in no undue familiarity, they did not adopt the language of earthly passion ; but, whilst they consecrated to Christ their choicest affections, their manner of addressing him was such as became dependent creatures. They reverenced and wor- shipped as well as loved. And they persevered in their attachment to the end ; for they were the latest to linger at the cross ; they received his dying words ; and though they understood not yet the mystery of a crucified Messiah, they paid the last tribute of re- spect to Jesus of Nazareth. Their spirit descended on their sisters in the Christian church. It was this that warmed their hearts, and prompted their kindness to the members of Christ's body. It was this that characterized the benevolent and painstaking Dorcas, and the atten- tive and devout Lydia ; that induced Priscilla to " hazard her life " for the apostle of the Gentiles, and Phoebe to succor him in his necessity; and that obtained for the " beloved Persis," and for the little band of Roman disciples, the honorable commenda- tion, that they " labored much in the Lord." Theirs was not a mere holiday profession, or a transient emotion ; it was not a tribute to the eloquence of Paul, the earnestness of Peter, or the sweetness of John; it was a principle that triumphed over weak- ness, and bestowed a supernatural courage ; that enabled the tender and delicate woman to meet even the severest trial, and to stretch forth her hand for the martyr's crown. 72 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. vate ihe mental character of society. It is owing to the respect, the admiration, the love, the chival- rous deference, in which refined and well-educated females are held by the other sex, and in a tr.ily Christian community ever will be held. To make my meaning plain, can you suppose that the intellectual acquirements of Miss Martineau would eA r er have exerted the influence they have, had she been a man. Now if her attainments, by no means extraordinary, not equal to what thousands of men in both continents have made, and attended with so much pedantry and so much else that is of- fensive to true taste and propriety, procured for her so much attention, respect, and homage from men both in Europe and America, what might be expect- ed from that cultivation of the female intellect which I am advocating, associated with the character which all love to contemplate ? In the presence of a re- fined and accomplished lady, whose conversation, flowing out with artless simplicity, develops the treasures of a rich, thinking, cultivated, sparkling intellect, we feel ourselves to be almost in the pre- sence of an angel of light ; and nothing can surpass the inspiration which we thence feel to aspire after mental excellence. This may be said to be owing to the fewness of examples of eminent intellectual cultivation among women ; yet if this be in part allowed, it still cannot be doubted that if there were among them as many examp^s of as high intellectual cultivation as there CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 7.j are among men, the influence resulting therefrom to elevate society would be vastly greater than that resulting now from the intellectual cultivation of the other sex. But we must not dwell longer upon the impor- tance of female education. A word or two 'we must say upon the kind of education" desired, and the fea- sibility and manner of obtaining it. It is not that popular, hasty, superficial style of education, so un- happily current, which at all meets the object now contemplated. This is frequently almost worse than none, inasmuch as it feeds vanity without enriching or strengthening the mind. It is that education which, commencing with the youthful intellect, and conducting it thoroughly on through the successive stages of discipline in the elementary and thence to the higher studies, teaches it to fix its attention, to think, to investigate, to reason, to generalize, and if possible to originate ; which furnishes the mind with first principles and a knowledge of the class of facts comprehended under them ; which renders the mind patient, persevering, strong, and far-reaching ; which stores the imagination with the choicest imagery ; which creates such a mental taste for what is truly rich and intellectual as to render insipid the light, frothy, dissipating productions of frivolous minds, so unhappily prevalent and so ruinous to the mental character of this age ; which begets a strong and healthful relish for whatever is rich in thought, sound in argument, chaste in imagery, classical in style, 7 74 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. original in conception, sparkling in wit, powerful in evidence, lucid in truth, and important in principle ; which causes one to come, as to an intellectual ban- quet, to the productions of the greatest and noblest intellects of all ages, and to feel a delightful sympathy in them. A mind thus educated need not resort to the dreamy, feverish, nervous excitements of thea- tres, novels, and idle tales, nor yet to the dissipating amusements of the assembly or the ball-room, to gratify her vanity, in order to find pleasure ; — it would be like turning aside from pure, gushing foun- tains from the rock, to a puddle of filthy water, to assuage thirst. No : the excellent men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, the truly great and noble minds of every age that still live and speak, together with her own disciplined and well-stored mind, are to her an everlasting source of the most elevated and abundant of all earthly enjoyment; while she is herself also to her family and to the society in which she moves, in her intellectual influence upon them, as the sun when he walketh in brightness. Nor let this be deemed chimerical. It can be done. It has been done in a good measure in some instances ; it may be done to a very great extent in all. The treasures of the female intellect have scarcely begun to be developed. For nearly six thousand years a deep slumber has rested upon the minds of the better part of creation. I believe that Providence has a benevolent design in abridging the CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 75 toil of female hands, and that too beyond what can ever be expected in regard to the more appropriate labors of men. The labors of the farm, of merchan- dise, of navigation, of the professions, and of many of the mechanic arts, cannot be much reduced ; while the operations of the cards, the wheels, the looms, the needles, &c, which occupied three fourths of the time of our mothers, are now taken entirely out of the hands of most of our daughters, leaving them no more manual labor to perform than is im- portant to their health, and compatible with the high- est intellectual cultivation. With due attention to health, and with those habits of diligence of which I have spoken, our daughters may faithfully learn and practise all the duties of manual labor which devolve upon them, and yet hav.9 sufficient time to secure the most thorough and finished education. Let it be early understood by them that the promises of beauty and of external accomplishments, the attrac- tions of wealth, and a favorable marriage, are among the things above which their thoughts and aims must rise. If these are allowed to hold some sub- ordinate place of consideration, they are not at least the things on which a mind that would be truly emi- nent and excellent, must place its dependence. The young woman who places her dependence upon these, may lay her account with an inglorious and "probably a wretched life. Let her then be placed in due season under a course of intellectual discipline. Let eight or ten 76 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. of the twenty-four hours be appropriated to sleep ; six or eight to meals, devotions, recreations, and manual labor; and the remaining eight to study. Let the mother hold a vigilant eye upon her, to inspire and secure the faithful performance of every -duty in its time and place, and let her always co- operate with the teacher in her education. Let no possible sacrifice be thought dear, to secure the most competent and thorough teachers ; let her be gradu- ally handed along up through the successive stages of mental discipline and of knowledge, never ad vancing to the next till the preceding is perfectly mastered, always resolved to conquer and always aiming at the solid growth of mind ; and not many years will pass before she will have acquired such taste and habits, as that she will move onward and upward by her own impetus. She will need no urging ; — she will only need guiding and restrain- ing. By the time she has reached the period of womanhood, she will have accomplished more do- mestic service than is now accomplished by nine tenths of our daughters in the same time ; and she will have acquired an education equal to that ob- tained by most of our young men who graduate, and far better than that obtained by many of them. Tha* she will have better preserved her health, secured more enjoyment, and laid the foundation for more in years to come, than is done in the mean time by the daughters of idleness, dissipation, and gaiety, it is scarcely needful to add. That she will have been CHRISTIAN EDUC: HON OF WOMAN. 77 a sour:e of less expense to her father is also more than probable. That she will have secured a most important qualification towards becoming a rich trea- sure to her husband, a blessing to her children, an ornament to her sex, and a corner-stone in the tem- ple of God, polished after the similitude of a palace, who is prepared to doubt ? Because this has been so seldom done, let none say it cannot be extensively done. And because female education has been so little applied to useful ends, let none conclude that it is therefore of neces- sity useless. I am sure that I do not dream. Hav- ing been for several years engaged to some extent in teaching, and having had the charge of the edu- cation of females, as well as males, in every stage of progress from the lowest to the highest branches, 1 have uniformly found that their intellects were as active, vigorous, comprehensive, quick to learn and slow to forget ; as competent to grasp and master the highest studies of mathematics and philosophy ; to acquire the knowledge of logic, rhetoric, and composition ; or to surmount the difficulties of the dead languages, as those of the other sex: and often even more so; owing, probably, to more diligent application. I have had female pupils who, by a course of vigorous discipline, have in less than one year acquired such an impulse for knowledge, that it was rather needful to restrain than to urge them, and only the delightful task of directing their upward movement remained for the teacher. Ob- 7* 78 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF WOMAN. servation and experience have convinced us, also, that to all those noble and important uses which I have specified, female education maybe successfully applied ; and that it must be applied to them, before Christianity can obtain its highest end, or society reach its most perfect state, or woman shine in her truest and brightest lustre. 4. The fourth and last qualificatioi vo be men- tioned is religion. I mention this last, not because it is least, but because it is greatest, and is the crown and glory of all the rest. It is that without which all the other qualifications of woman will only give her greater power to do evil while she lives, and sink her deeper in perdition when she dies. " Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain ; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." Indeed ah her other qualifications should be sought from the impulse of religious motives. She should be taught to consider it a religious duty to take the best pos- sible care of her health, that she may the better and the longer promote the object of her existence and that of her fellow-beings. She should be taught the duty of industry, that she may make the most that she possibly can of all her time and opportunities, to render herself and mankind as excellent and as blessed as possible. She should be taught to culti- vate her intellect, because that intellect is to exist forever, and its cultivation here is to affect its condi- tion hereafter ; because it is the grand instrument for diffusing truth and knowledge and moral influ- christian education of woman. 79 ence; and because the humeri mind is the nolJest work of God upon earth, and has the impress of the divine image, so that to waste it is to sacrifice that whose value is above rubies. First of all, then, she should be taught her relation to God and to his kingdom. She should take the law of God for her rule of action, and submit her- self implicitly to his will. She should give her soul to Christ, trusting in his grace alone for salvation, realizing that she has been bought with the price of his blood. With grateful, confiding, and rejoicing heart, she should devote all her powers to him and to his service forever. She should commune much with God in daily prayer, seeking above all things the enlightening and renewing influences of his Holy Spirit. Often should she bedew the Savior's cross and sepulchre with tears of gratitude, peni- tence, and joy. She should ascend the mount of transfiguration, breathe the atmosphere of heaven, gaze upon the immaculate glories of Christ, till she is prepared to come down into society with her coun- tenance irradiated and her eye kindling with the joys of that oetter world. She should educate her conscience with the utmost tenderness and care. She should aim ever to keep it void of offence towards God and man, sprinkled from dead works, so as faithfully to chide all delin- quency and commend all duty ; she should attend to it as the voice of the Divinity, ever speaking, and speaking to be heard, in her bosom. She should WOMAN SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC CHARACTER. MRS. JOHN SANDFORD. CAUSES OF FEMALE INFLUENCE. The changes wrought by Time are many. It in- fluences the opinions of men as familiarity does their feelings ; it has a tendency to do away with super- stition, and to reduce every thing to its real worth. It is thus that the sentiment for woman has under- gone a change. The romantic passion which once almost deified her is on the decline ; and it is by intrinsic qualities that she must now inspire respect. She is no longer the queen of song and the star of chivalry. But if there is less of enthusiasm enter- tained for her, the sentiment is more rational, and, perhaps, equally sincere ; for it is in relation to hap- piness that she is chiefly appreciated. And in this respect it is, we must confess, that she is most useful and mest important. Domestic life is the chief source of her influence ; and the greatest debt society can owe to her is domestic comfort ; for 1* 6 CAUSES OF happiness is almost an element of virtue ; and no- thing conduces more to improve the character of men than domestic peace. A woman may make a man's home delightful, and may thus increase his motives for virtuous exertion. She may refine and tran- quillize his mind, — may turn away his anger or allay his grief. Her smile may be the happy influence to gladden his heart, and to disperse the cloud that gathers on his brow. And in proportion to her en- deavors to make those around her happy, she will be esteemed and loved. She will secure by her excellence that interest and regard which she might formerly claim as the privilege of her sex, and will really merit the deference which was then conceded to her as a matter of course. Her influence is, therefore, now, in a great meas- ure, dependent on herself; and it is both her duty and her interest to cultivate those qualities which will render her most agreeable. For she can never hope to effect any thing towards the improvement of others unless she first obtains their regard ; nei- ther will her opinion be of weight, or her wishes much respected, unless, by her own amiable and judicious conduct, she merits such attention. Perhaps one of the first secrets of her influence is adaptation to the tastes, and sympathy in the feel- ings, of those around her. This holds true in lesser as well as in graver points. It is in the former, in- deed, that the absence of interest in a companion is frequently most disappointing. Where want of con • FEMALE INFLUENCE. 7 geniality impairs domestic comfort, the fault is gene- rally chargeable on the female side. It is for woman, not for man, to make the sacrifice, especially in in- different matters. She must, in a certain degree, be plastic herself if she would mould others. And this is one reason why very good women are sometimes very uninfluential. They do a great deal, but they yield nothing ; they are impassible themselves, and therefore they cannot affect others. They proceed so mechanically in their vocation, and are so frigid to every thing beyond it, that their very virtue seems automatical, and is uninteresting because it appears compulsory. Negative goodness, therefore, is no' enough. With an imperturbable temper, a faultles? economy, an irreproachable demeanor, a woman may be still far from engaging ; and her discharge of family relations compatible with much domestic dulness. And the danger is lest this dryness alien- ate affection which sympathy might have secured, and nullify an influence which might otherwise have been really beneficial. To be useful, a woman must have feeling. It is this which suggests the thou- sand nameless amenities which fix her empire in the heart, and render her so agreeable, and almost so necessary, that she imperceptibly rises in the do- mestic circle, and becomes at once its cement and its charm. If it be then really her wish to increase her hold on the affections, and to mature the sentiment which passion may have excited, let her not forget that 8 CAUSES OF nothing conduces more to these results than con- geniality. Perhaps conjugal virtue was never more aptly panegyrized than in the following eulogy on a matron of the last century : — " She was a lady of such symmetrical proportion to her husband, that they seemed to come together by a sort of natural magnetism." Domestic life is a woman's sphere, and it is there that she is most usefully as well as most appro- priately employed. But society, too, feels her in- fluence, and receives from her, in great measure, its balance and its tone. She may be here a corrective of what is wrong, a moderator of what is unruly, a restraint on what is mdecorous. Her presence may be a pledge against impropriety and excess, a check on vice, and a protection to virtue. And it is her delicacy which will secure to her such an influence, and enable her to maintain it. The policy of licentiousness is to undermine where it cannot openly attack, and to weaken by stratagem what it may not rudely assail. But a delicate woman will be as much upon her guard against the insidi- ous as against the direct assault, and will no more tolerate the innuendo than the avowal. She will shrink from the licentiousness which is couched in ambiguous phrase or veiled in covert allusion, and from the immorality which, though it may not offend the ear, is meant to corrupt the heart. And though a depraved taste may relish the condiments of vice, or an unscrupulous palate receive them without de- FEMALE INFLUENCE. 9 tection, her virtue will be too sensitive not to reject the poison, and to recoil from it spontaneously. Delicacy is, indeed, the point of honor in woman. Her purity of manner will ensure to her deference, and repress, more effectually than any other influ- ence, impropriety of every kind. A delicate woman, too, will be more loved, as well as more respected, than any other ; for affection can scarcely be excited, and certainly cannot long subsist, unless it is founded on esteem. Yet such delicacy is neither prudish nor insipid. Conversation, for instance, is one great source of a woman's influence ; and it is her province, and her peculiar talent, to give zest to it. She is, and ought to be, the enlivener of society. If she restrains im- propriety, she may promote cheerfulness ; and it is not because her conversation is innocent that it need therefore be dull. The sentiment of woman contri- butes much to social interest ; her feeling imparts life, and her gentleness a polish. It is not, however, by effort that she will succeed, or by mere volubility that she will render herself agreeable. Some women seem to think time lost when they are not talking; and whether it be mere worldly tittle-tattle or insipid sentimentalism in which they indulge, they are equally impatient of listening and equally anxious to engross. But soliloquizing is not conversation. In woman, too, an attempt at display is always disagreeable, and even brilliancy will not atone for it. 10 CAUSES OF The charm of conversation is feeling ; forgetting one's self, and sympathizing with others. It is not to shine, but to please, that a woman should desire ; and she will do so only when she is graceful and unaffected, when her wish is not so much to be ad- mired as to contribute to the gratification of others. And, for this purpose, she must bring into society heart and mind. The one will teach her how to feel for those around her, the other how to adapt her- self to them ; and both will greatly contribute to her agreeableness. The insipidity of some women is attributable more to want of interest than of capacity. It is not because they have nothing to say that they say nothing, nor because they are deficient that they are trifling. They sometimes do not trouble them- selves to be agreeable. They think that if they look pretty, and are inoffensive, they fulfil their part ; and they glide through life like tame animals, and are almost as indolent and as selfish. It is well if, when they cease to be ornamental, they do not be- come as troublesome. A woman should always do her utmost to please ; and an expression of interest is often sufficient. To be a good listener, and to reply with ease, good sense, and good breeding, are the most requisite qualities for an agreeable companion ; but the sealed lips, the vacant stare, and the abrupt transition, are equally rude and disappointing. Such indifference is inexcusable in those whose talent for conversation might be so easily improved. FEMALE INFLUENCE. 1] Engksh women are proverbially silent ; yet there is no reason why they should be so, nor why, because they are exemplary at home, they should be insipid in society. It is their boast that their education is superior ; it is, then, the more to their discredit, when it fails in what is surely an important result. And if men are too apt to retire to themselves, if they talk of politics and the chase, whilst dress and tittle-tattle are discussed upon the sofa, may not their exclusive- ness be, in great measure, attributable to the bad grace with which they are too frequently received ? Might not the stillness of the one, and the insipidity of the other circle, be often much relieved by a little more sympathy between them ? Again, to be agreeable, a woman must avoid egotism. No matter how superior she may be, she will never be liked if she talks chiefly of herself. The impression of her own importance can convey no pleasure to others ; on the contrary, as a desire for distinction is generally mutual, a sense of in- feriority must be depressing. If we would converse pleasingly, we must en- deavor to set others at ease ; and it is not by flattery that we can succeed in doing so, but by a courteous and kind address, which delicately avoids all need- less irritation, and endeavors to infuse that good hu- mor of which it is itself the result. In women this is a Christian duty. How often should they suppress their own claims rather than interfere with those of others. How studiously 12 CAUSES OF should they employ their talent in developing that of their associates, and not for its own display. How invariably should they discard pretension, and shun even the appearance of conceit ; seeking to imbibe ihe spirit of that lovely religion, of which sympathy is the characteristic feature, and humility the pre- eminent grace. It is in this way that accomplishment contributes to the agreeableness of woman. The encouragement and cultivation of the arts seems, indeed, appropriate to her. Yet, perhaps, there is nothing in which she oftener errs. In this, as in other things, affectation spoils all. There is a theatrical manner about some women, which, to say the least of it, is an outrage upon taste. The gestures of the stage can never be appropriate in a private circle, nor are they becoming a modest female. She may copy the skill, but surely nothing else that marks the professional performer. But affectation is not the only mistake into which women may fall in reference to accomplishment. Some of them seem to imagine that a proficiency in the fine arts compensates for the want of all other attraction ; and as this is their only charm, they are restless until it is displayed, and dissatisfied unless it excites admiration. Their happiness, or, at least, their affability, seems to depend on the success of their bravura, or the admiration excited by their tint- ing. Yet a mere display of skill contributes little to the agreeableness of society. However fond we may be of music or drawing, we should scarcely select a FEMALE INFLUENCE. 13 companion from her proficiency in playing- a concerto, or her skill in laying on colors. Women who are eager to exhibit are often care- less of pleasing in a domestic circle ; their talent must be kept as a gem for special occasions, and when these are wanting it is almost as useless. It is to attract notice ; and when the great end of notice is attained, it may be laid aside. It is to captivate ; and when the prize is secured, the fascination ceases. But it is not to add another toil to the meshes of intrigue, or to furnish coquetry with another means of allurement, that the talent of women is to be cul- tivated. Accomplishment is, indeed, a graceful and appropriate ornament ; but it should be worn with ease, and should be rather the indication of an ele- gant mind than an extrinsic decoration. It should render a woman more agreeable both at home and in society, and should furnish 'her with one of those innocent and graceful refreshments which vary and relieve graver occupation. It is seldom, indeed, that women are great pro- ficients. The chefs-d'oeuvre of the sculptress need the polish of the master chisel; and the female pen- cil has never yet limned the immortal forms of beauty. The mind of woman is, perhaps, incapable of the originality and strength requisite for the sub- lime. Even Saint Cecilia exists only in an elegant legend ; and the poetry of music, if often felt & and expressed, has seldom been conceived by a female adept. But the practical talents of women are far 2 14 CAUSES OF FEMALE INFLUENCE. from contemptible ; and they may be both the en- couragers and the imitators of genius. They should not grasp at too much, or be content with superficial attainment; they should not merely daub a few flowers, or hammer out a few tunes, or trifle away their time in inept efforts, which at best claim only indulgence ; but they should do well what they do attempt, and do it without affectation or display. CAUSES OF FEMALE INFLUENCE. Nothing is so likely to conciliate the affections of the other sex as a feeling that woman looks to them for support and guidance. In proportion as men are themselves superior, they are accessible to this appeal. On the contrary, they never feel interested in one who seems disposed rather to offer than to ask as- sistance. There is, indeed, something unfeminine in independence. It is contrary to nature, and there- fore it offends. We do not like to see a woman affecting tremors, but still less do we like to see her acting the amazon. A really sensible woman feels her dependence. She does what she can ; but she is conscious of inferiority, and therefore grateful for support. She knows that she is the weaker vessel, and that as such she should receive honor. In this view, her weakness is an attraction, not a blemish. In every thing, therefore, that women attempt, they should show their consciousness of dependence. If they are learners, let them evince a teachable spirit ; if they give an opinion, let them do it in an unassuming manner. There is something so un- pleasant in female self-sufficiency that it not unfre- quently deters instead of persuading, and prevents 16 CAUSES OF the adoption of advice which the judgment even ap- proves. Yet this is a fault into which women of certain pretensions are occasionally betrayed. Age, or experience, or superior endowment, entitles them, they imagine, to assume a higher place, and a more independent tone. But their sex should ever teach them to be subordinate ; and they should remember that influence is obtained not by assumption, but by a delicate appeal to affection or principle. Women, in this respect, are something like children ; the more they show their need of support, the more engaging they are. The appropriate expression of dependence is gen- tleness. However endowed with superior talents a woman may be, without gentleness she cannot be agreeable. Gentleness ought to be the characteristic of the sex ; and there is nothing that can compensate for the want of this feminine attraction. Gentleness is, indeed, the talisman of woman. To interest the feelings is to her much easier than to convince the judgment ; the heart is far more ac- cessible to her influence than the head. She never gains so much as by concession, and is never so likely to overcome as when she seems to yield. Gentleness prepossesses at first sight : it insinuates itself into the vantage ground, and gains the best position by surprise. Whilst a display of skill and strength calls forth a counter array, gentleness at once disarms opposition, and wins the day before it is contested. FEMALE INFLUENCE. 17 The mind of woman should be cast in a gentle mould. We feel occasionally that how much soever we may respect some women, there is that about them which we can scarcely love. They want the softness and sweetness essential to female grace. Their conversation is not pleasing, because, though what they say may be very just, and even very in structive, it does not fall from honied lips. And though we esteem their character, we do not court their society, but are inclined to prefer knowing them at a distance to a more intimate acquaintance with them. Nearly allied to gentleness is elegance. Elegance contributes much to female fascination ; and women should seek to be elegant not only in manner, but in mind. Manner is, indeed, generally symptomatic ; but as it may be artificial, it is no sure criterion of mental grace. It is the latter which is essential to true beauty. Without it, the fairest form disappoints and wearies. It is the radiance that sets off every other charm, and sheds on each its appropriate hue. It is tint and proportion. Yet it is more easily understood than defined, and better felt than ex- pressed. Of such elegance taste is the true source. As it teaches symmetry, so does it impart grace. Taste is the rule of elegance. There may be artificial forms, and these may or may not be agreeable to the proportions of taste ; but taste gives the only true models, and everv departure from them is an error 2* " B 18 CAUSES OF Taste is susceptible of improvement ; and elegance is the result of cultivated taste. As in art the rude handler of the chisel may in time become a proficient in sculpture, or the most simple designer a master of the easel ; so may the taste which refines the mind and proportions the character be equally disci- plined and improved. It is a great mistake to suppose that fashion is a criterion of elegance. Modes of fashion are entirely conventional, and are often as ungraceful as they are capricious. The lady, for instance, who anoints her head with tallow is irresistible in Ethiopia ; and though we cannot sympathize with her admirers, we have no right to question their taste. Our own has been, at times, little better. We may smile at the strictures of the Spectator on the patches of his day ; but the coiffure of this century has vied with the cushion of the last, and the dimensions of our own petticoats have sometimes seemed to threaten the rein- statement of the hoop. But it is not in costume only that fashion is gro- tesque ; in manner she is equally capricious. Ele- gance rests on immutable rules ; but the versatility of! fashion is proverbial. The euphuism of the Eliza- bethan court was but little more absurd than the mannerism which has often been as arbitrarily pre- scribed. Each may be in its turn a test of ton, or a passport to exclusive circles, or a mode as universal as the contour of a robe, and, from its sameness, as wearisome ; but it has no intrinsic recommendation FEMALE INFLUENCE. 19 and though it may obtain for a season, it must soon be cast off as an obsolete dress. But good breeding- is quite a different thing. It is the result of a refined taste ; and though generally the mark of good company, it differs essentially from the prescriptions of fashion. It is without affectation and without constraint. It is unobtrusive and un- pretending. It is always self-possessed and at ease ; for it knows its own place and its own relations. Its courtesy is not officious, nor are its attentions ever troublesome. Yet this quiet and lady-like deport- ment, though it seems to imply no effort, is by no means an easy or a common attainment. On the contrary, we often see women who have lived much in society very deficient in this criterion of grace ; and we can quite understand the remark of a really high-bred woman on a candidate for fashionable celebrity : " She is very pretty, and very pleasing, but she wants repose." Elegance is nature, but not rude nature ; it is un- affected, but not unpolished : it copies natural grace, and corrects natural defects. Yet it is no servile imitator, for it studies suitability as well as simplicity. It does not, for instance, imagine that what is very pretty and playful in a girl of fourteen is equally becoming at thirty. Neither does it play the romp, or act the groom, leap a five-barred gate, or affect the Di Vernon. Least of all does it indulge in that raillery which is piquante only because it is personal, and which, amuses in nroportion as it annoys. It 20 ;'4USES OF has a respect for the feelings, and a tenderness even for the faults, of others ; and as it never wounds, so does it nevei invite aggression. It implies feeling also ; and here again does it differ from the polish of the world. Selfishness is the bane of fashionable life. Every one is cold, for evsry one is selfish. What court could be more polished than that of Marie Antoinette ? Yet sel- fishness was the predominating principle, and in the hour of trial self-preservation the only aim. The ilitc of Paris paid, however, the greater compliment to sentiment, by assuming its language, whilst they •vere strangers to its real influence. Nothing is more persuasive than feeling ; it has a natural charm to which art can never attain ; and therefore it is that we feel the connection between elegance and amiability. We must allow, indeed, the not unfrequent existence of the latter without the former ; but we can scarcely conceive a really ele- gant woman altogether unamiable. Elegance is poetry in action. Imagination may paint the heroine deficient in beauty, but never in elegance. It is this which diffuses, as it were, a halo round woman, which invests her with a ro- mantic charm, and which more, perhaps, than any other attraction, renders her an object of interest. Yet it is grace not affected, but natural ; grace which tinges every thought, breathes in every ex- pression, and regulates every movement — which FEMALE INFLUENCE. 21 adorns the hearth as much as the drawing-room; and which is habitual, because it is innate. And if such grace is not the property of the many, out of the few ; if experience tells us that it exists oftener in the mind of the poet than in every-day life ; above all, if there are many kind, and excellent, and most admirable women who by no means realize it ; these are still no reasons why we should not set it before us, and try to imitate what is so truly at- tractive. There are none, perhaps, who, in early life, cannot attain to something like elegance ; and though it be but an ornament, it is one so agreeable that it is well worth endeavoring to possess. To be careless of elegance, indeed, proves little anxiety to please, or little acquaintance with the susceptibilities of the heart. Man is very accessible to the graceful and the beautiful ; and, however engrossed by higher pur- suits, he seeks in the society of woman relaxation and relief. He wishes to find in her an enlivener and sweetener of his leisure, as well as the sharer of his cares ; and a sensible woman will be desirous that her address should furnish a recommendation, rather than a contrast, to her moral or mental worth. Religion, far from disparaging elegance, gives new motives for its cultivation. The religious woman should endeavor to increase her influence, that she may turn it to the best account ; and, in this view, she will not consider what is ornamental as umvorthy her regard. She will cultivate it as a means of per- 22 CAUSES OF FEMALE INFLUENCE. suasion ; and will study to be agreeable, were it only from a desire to recommend her principles. Christianity is itself full of grace. It is a refiner as well as a purifier of the heart. It imparts cor- rectness of perception, delicacy of sentiment, and all those nicer shades of thought and feeling which constitute elegance of mind. Why, then, should piety and inelegance be associated ? Or why should an absence of the graceful characterize religious persons so often, that awkwardness and even vul- garity are regarded by many as the usual concomi- tants of extraordinary seriousness ? Women of piety should not give occasion to such a reproach. They are not more devout because they are ungraceful, or more heavenly-minded because they are deficient in taste. On the contrary, they imbibe more deeply the spirit of their lovely religion when they carry its charm into the detail of life, when they are fascinating as well as faithful, and agreeable as well as good. THE VALUE OF LETTERS TO WOMAN. Opinion is now more than it ever was in favor of the diffusion of knowledge ; and it is only to be ex- pected that woman should profit by this enlargement of feeling. Not that the has bleu is not still un- popular ; but as female acquirements have become more common, they attract less notice, and their utility and importance are better understood. Still, however, there is no possession of which men are so tenacious as that of learning. Perhaps it is because knowledge is power that they are there- fore not disposed to share it with woman ; or per- haps it is because, instead of improving her acquire- ments to good purpose, she sometimes only uses them as a plea for assumption. It is to be feared that their reluctance is to be as- cribed principally to the latter cause ; for it must be allowed that literary ladies have not been always very prepossessing. The disciple of Wollstoncraft threw off her hat and called for a boot-jack, and imagined that by affecting the manners of the other sex she should best assert her equality with them. The female pedant appears in a disordered dress and with inky fingers, and fancies that the further she is 24 THE VALCE OF removed from feminine grace the nearer she ap- proaches to manly vigor. We cannot wonder that with such examples, men should prefer proficients in housewifery to smatterers in science ; and that, they would rather see on their wife's table Mrs. Dalgairns on Domestic, than Mrs. Marcet on Po- litical, Economy. But then there is no reason why female acquire- ment should be identified with all this folly. On the contrary, it is the tendency of real knowledge to make a woman sensible, as well as humble ; and it is on this very account so valuable to the sex. To produce, however, this good effect, acquirement must not be superficial. It is not occasionally read- ing a review, or skimming a periodical, that will im- prove the mind, or afford us solid satisfaction. A very little knowledge gathered in this way enables a woman, indeed, to shine in conversation, and gives her the credit of being very intellectual ; but she is at the same time conscious of the weakness of her pretension, and is not unlikely to endeavor to com- pensate by mere fluency for what she feels to be her deficiency in depth. Women are by no means wanting in ready talent. Their perception is very quick, and they are dex- terous in applying the knowledge they possess. Thus they sometimes seem to make a rapid pro- gress, and even to outstrip minds of greater vigor. But, on this account, intellectual discipline is, in their case, the more essential : that it may teach thern LETTERS TO WOMAN. 25 how reaily to improve their faculty of acquirement ; and that it may check an exuberance which is gen- erally disappointing- because it is precocious. It is to superficial attainment that we may trac,e most of the mistakes which persons fall into with respect to literature. We are never so likely to be vain as when we estimate our proficiency solely by the number of our acquirements. And this is not unfrequently the case with women. They know a liitle Latin, a little Italian, a little German, perhaps a little Hebrew, or a little Greek ; and they imme- diately imagine themselves scholars. And they are not unfrequently encouraged in this belief by the flattery of their friends ; for to construe a page in a classic author, to read a German play, or to quote a stanza of an Italian poet, is quite sufficient to estab- lish their claim to superior talent. Can we wonder, then, that they should be a little prone to vanity, when so much is thought of very trifling attainments ; or that they should be somewhat ambitious of literary fame, when it may be so easily obtained ? It was different with the ladies of an earlier cen- tury,— with the Moricae, and others, of whom the writers of that day make honorable mention. The daughters of More, the associate of Edward, and the ptipd of Roger Ascham, enjoyed, indeed, no common advantages. But what would the female bel esprit of the nineteenth century think of maintaining a Latin correspondence with the first scholar of 'h" age ? Or what would our modern blue-stockings 3 26 THE VALUE OF make of a dialogue of Plato, or a play of Sophocles ; Or, to refer to a later period, how would our lady phi- losophers solve a problem in the " Ladies' Diary ? " Literature, indeed, was a rare accomplishment amongst women of former days ; but when they did attempt it they were satisfied with no ordinary pro ficiency. It is a pity that their industry and good sense are not oftener imitated ; for, though we may not wish all women to be, like them, Grecians or mathematicians, we cannot question the superiority of intellectual pursuits to many of the usual ways of getting rid of time. Why should not the leisure of women be employed in storing and strengthening their minds ? Why, if they are spared the fatigues of active life, should they be debarred from the pleas- ures of literature ? The lives of too many of them are spent almost in idleness ; and their alleged in- aptitude for intellectual pursuits furnishes a plea for listlessness and trifling. They fancy themselves not called to mental exertion, and they therefore throw away their time in frivolous occupation or still more frivolous amusement. Passant la moitie de leur temps a ne rien faire, et I'autre moitie a faire des riens. But though all may not have taste or capacity for the higher branches of learning, — all may not be able to paraphrase Job or to translate Epictetus, — yet there are kw who may not improve their talents, and who would not be much more agreeable, as well as useful, if their min Is were cultivated and enlarged. LETTERS TO WOMAN. 27 There are some branches of knowledge which are strictly feminine, and from which there can be no reason for discouraging the sex. "We may doubt the appropriateness of the crucible and the blow- pipe, or may wish the fair naturalist a better em- ployment than breaking stones ; but what is so cal- culated to embellish and refine the mind as the belles lettres of every age and country ? Only we should be always on our guard against imperfect attain- ment, and against making the enlargement of our sphere an excuse for being rambling and desultory. There is a mistake with regard to languages into which women sometimes fall. They imagine that they cannot know too many tongues ; and they for- get that it is chiefly as a key to literature that these are valuable. Thus, when they have mastered one or two books, they are only anxious to pass on to another continental dialect. And yet, if the labor lavished on verbal criticism has sometimes been re- garded as unprofitable, how much more so is that which tends to convert the mind into nothing but a dictionary ! In the same way, time is not unfrequently mis- spent in mere reading. The getting through a cer- tain number of volumes is thought to be a meritorious exertion, and is looked back upon with complacency; though perhaps all this painstaking labor has been without benefit, and has done nothing towards en- riching or strengthening the mind. Some read without recollecting, many more without thinking, 28 THE VALUE OF and many again without applying what they read to any moral or practical purpose. For, after all, literature is a mere step to knowledge, and the error often lies in our identifying one with the other. Literature may, perhaps, make us vain ; true know- ledge must render us humble. We are all apt to imagine that what costs us trouble must be of value ; yet there is much need of discretion both in the choice and manner of our acquirements. In both, utility should always be a question ; — not the mere sordid utility which has a reference only to secular profit, and which, even with regard to science, is by no means the exclusive or primary object ; but utility as it affects the mind. History, for instance, with all its accompanying branches, is in this view a suitable and most im- proving study. But then history, to be useful, must be digested. We may sleep through Rollin and Hume, and be really little wiser than if we had read only the newspaper. Not unfrequently, too, are we wrong in our esti- mate of acquirements. We value them by their rarity ; and are apt to neglect what is essential be- cause it is easy, for the sake of what is difficult because it is uncommon. A young woman, for example, will attempt Dante who cannot construe Metastasio, and, what is far worse, will puzzle herself with German inflections before she is familiar with Lindley Murray. We nave heard of a lady who, when at a loss how to LETTERS TO WOMAN. 29 spell a word, put a dash under the questionable let- ters, that if wrong it might pass for a joke. Modern education ought to prevent the necessity of such ex- pedients. But even when women are adepts in orthography, they are not always so in syntax and punctuation ; though they may affect to be linguists, it by no means follows that they are good English scholars. It is very important, not only that the mind should be well informed, but that there should be a taste for knowledge ; which should be appreciated for its own sake, not merely as a distinction. The su- periority of really cultivated women is, in every thing, very apparent. They have been accustomed to think and to discriminate, and their opinion is not a mere momentary impulse. Their sphere, too, is enlarged, — they are not so much actuated by sel- fish feelings, or so liable to receive partial, and con- sequently erroneous, impressions. They view every subject more calmly, and decide more dispassionately, and are generally more correct in their own senti- ments, and more liberal to those of others. It is mediocrity that is intolerant and opinion- ative. A woman who, without reflection, takes up the views of others, is peculiarly accessible to party spirit. And this is one reason why women in general are more zealous partisans than the other sex ; their minds are more contracted, their know- ledge more confined, and their prejudices stronger. We can quite understand the strictures of Addison 3* 30 THE VALUE OF on the female sectarists of his day ; for, though we have no patches now to mark our distinctions, the spirit of party is equally exclusive. As a corrective to this, as well as a preservative from error, knowledge is very useful, and in this view, perhaps, almost as much so to women as to men ; especially now, in these days of progress, when every class should be prepared for its advance, and when even the female mind should be strength- ened for the increase of light. What an easy dupe to empiricism or design is a half-educated woman. With sufficient acquirement to be vain and sufficient sensibility to be soon imposed on, she may be easily seduced from principles which she has received only on the authority of others, and which she is there- fore ill prepared to defend. It was want of know- ledge of which the priest of Rome availed himself when he assailed the female devotee with all the appliances of his superstition, and prevailed on her to forsake real duties for the quietism and asceticism of the convent. It is want of knowledge of which the modern heretic equally makes use when he too " leads captive silly women," and finds none so accessible to his influence as the weak, the sensitive, and the unenlightened. It is on this account that knowledge is so valuable an accompaniment to religion ; for piety may be msiguided, though it cannot be excessive ; and the female mind, consti- tutionally less stable that that of man, needs espe- cially the ballast of sound information and good LETTERS TO WOMAN. 31 sense. It is apt to pursue opinions to extremes, and to allow too much to its favorite bias ; and on this account an accurate acquaintance with truth of every kind is the more essential. And besides the individual benefit which accrues from such know- ledge, no character commands more respect than that of the religious and cultivated woman ; while it is to the credit of the sex that letters and religion have often been associated. We dwell with pleasure on the piety of Lady Jane Grey, if that of -Elizabeth be questionable. And we may surely hope that she* who, when copies of the Scriptures were still scarce, presented the Hebrew Pentateuch to a scholar too poor to buy one, could herself appreciate the sacred gift. Neither can we forget more recent examples. The names of Hutchinson and Russell, of Rowe, Chapone, and Smith, of the amiable authoress of Father Clement, and of our own revered Hannah More, are together treasured in our minds as happy instances of the union of female piety and accom- plishment. We cannot, indeed, for a moment question the advantage of letters to a religious woman. They afford her occupation, refresh her mind, and increase her power of usefulness. Religion itself is an in- tellectual as well as spiritual exercise ; and its doc- trines, though level to ordinary capacities, involve * Charity, a sister of Pirckheimerus. to whom he dedi- cated some of his most learned works. 32 THE VAL.'E OF the highest speculations. They inform and disci- pline, as well as spiritualize the mind ; and it la delightful to observe the intelligence of many who have no other teacher. Neither can Ave suppose that men are altogether averse to female literature. They would not, espe- cially when they are themselves superior, wish to encounter, even in a female companion, the con- tractedness of ignorance, or the ineptitude of folly. They can have little pleasure in associating with those whose only conversation is medisance or gossip. Rather would they desire to meet in a domestic circle a companion who could sympathize, if not par- ticipate, in their higher pursuits ; who could appre- ciate literary excellence, and taste intellectual pleas- ure, and to whom knowledge had given elevation and refinement. Nor would her accomplishments, in any degree, indispose her for active domestic duties. Order is the symptom of a well-regulated mind ; and the woman who has felt the importance of interior ar- rangement will scarcely be indifferent to her house- hold economy. And if experience has ever seemed to militate against this conclusion, the exceptions may be attributable to nature rather than education ; and have probably proceeded from a constitutional defect, which intellectual discipline may have in some degree amended, but which it has not been able altogether to correct. Disorder is the accident, not the consequence, of talent ; and as it is the more LETTERS TO WOMAN. 33 conspicuous, so is it the less excused, when accom- panied with mental superiority. The irregularities which proceed from indolence or frivolity receive far more indulgence. Censorship is, indeed, always severe on female talent, and not unfrequently is a woman prejudged a slattern because reputed a genius. Slovenly attire, an ill-conducted household, and an ill-arranged table, are in the minds of many identified with fe- male acquirement. Yet lighter accomplishments may be the more likely cause of such disorder ; and she who has spent her life at her harp, or at her frame, will be less disposed to active duties than one to whom exertion is habitual. If the woman of mind bears with equanimity petty vexations, if she lends a reluctant ear to family tales, if she is no* always expatiating on her economy, nor entertaining by a discussion of domestic annoyances ; she is not the less capable of controlling her household, or of maintaining order in its several departments. Rather will she occupy her station with more dignity, and fulfil its duties with greater ease. At the same time she should ever bear in mind, that knowledge is not to elevate her above her sta- tion, or to excuse her from the discharge of its most trifling duties. It is to correct vanity and repress pretension. It is to teach her to know her place and her functions ; to make her content with the one, and willing to fulfil the other. It is to render her more useful, more humble, and more happy. 34 THE VALUE OF LETTERS TO WOMAN. And surely such a woman will be, of all others, the best satisfied with her lot. She will not seek distinction, and therefore will not meet with disap- pointment. She will not be dependent on the world, and thus she will avoid its vexations. She will be liable to neither restlessness nor ennui ; but she will be happy in her own home, and by her own hearth, in the fulfilment of religious and domestic duty, and in the profitable employment of her time. IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO WOMAN. Religion has been sometimes decried as the passion of weak men, women, and children. Woman may blush for the association which the ridicule involves, but she has no reason to be ashamed of her pro- pensity. May it ever be her distinction. It is the pearl which adorns as well as enriches. To say that she 13 more religious than the other sex seems, indeed, to imply a reflection on the lat- ter ; yet, if the fact be true, it is no more than might be expected. The position and habits of woman are comparatively favorable to piety. She needs solace and occupation, and religion affords her both. With- out it her character is sadly defective, even in the eyes of ordinary persons. A woman may as well be without heart as without religion ; and few men, however irreligious themselves, but would shrink from impiety in her. It involves a coldness and hardness of character offensive both to taste and feeling. Even when infidelity was more in vogue than it is at present, when it had almost monopolised talent and identified itself with enlightened senti- ment, the few women who volunteered under its banner were treated with the contempt they de- 36 IMPORTANCE OP served. The female Quixote broke her lance in vindicating the " Rights of Women," and no one sympathized in her defeat. The mere suspicion of irreligion lowers a woman in general esteem. It implies almost a reflection on her character, for morality cannot be secure without religion. A woman must hold no converse with the enemies of either. She knows that the romance which invests impiety with the charm of sentiment must not lie upon her table, nor must she be sup- posed to be acquainted with the poem which decks out vice with the witchery of song. Religion is indeed a woman's panoply, and no one who wishes her happiness would divest her of it ; no one who appreciates her virtues would weak- en their best security. There is nothing so adapted to her wants as re- ligion. Woman has many trials, and she therefore peculiarly needs support ; religion is her asylum, not only in heavy afflictions, but in petty dis- quietudes. These, as they are more frequent, are perhaps almost as harassing ; at least they equally need a sedative influence, and religion is the ano- dyne. For it is religion which, by placing before her a better and more enduring happiness than this world can offer, reconciles her to temporary priva- tions ; and by acquainting her with the love of God, leads her to rest securely upon his Providence in present disappointment. It inspires her with that RELIGION TO WOMAN". 37 true content which not only endures distress but is cheerful under it. Resignation is not, as we are too apt to portrpy her, beauty bowered in willows, and bending over a sepulchral urn : neither is she a tragic queen, pa- thetic only in her weeds. She is an active, as well as passive, virtue ; an habitual, not an occasional, sentiment. She should be as familiar to woman as her daily cross ; for acquiescence in the detail of Providence is as much a duty as submission to its result ; and equanimity amid domestic irritations equally implies religious principle as fortitude under severer trials. It was the remark of one who cer- tainly was not disposed to care for trifles, that " it required as much grace to bear the breaking of a china cup as any of the graver distresses of life." Minor cares are indeed the province of woman ; minor annoyances her burden. Dullness, bad tem- per, mal-adroitness, are to her the cause of a thou- sand petty rubs, which too often spoil the euphony of a silver voice, and discompose the symmetry of fairy features. But the confidence which reposes on divine affection, and the charity which covers human frailty, are the only specifics for impatience. These, more than the choicest cosmetics, secure permanence to beauty, and render it more truly irresistible than any extrinsic decoration. And if religion is such a blessing in the ordinary trials of life, what a soothing balm is it in graver sorrows. From these woman is by no means 4 38 IMPORTANCE OF exempt ; on the contrary, as her susceptibility is great, afflictions press on her with peculiar heavi- ness. There is sometimes a stillness in her grief which argues only its intensity, and it is this rank- ling wound which piety alone can heal. Nothing, perhaps, is more affecting than woman's chastened sorrow. Her ties may be severed, her fond hopes withered, her young affections blighted, yet peace may be in her breast, and heaven in her eye. If the business and turmoil of life brush away the tears of manly sorrow, and scarcely leave time for the indul- gence even of sympathy ; woman gathers strength in her solitary chamber to encounter and to subdue her grief. There she learns to look her sorrow in the face ; there she becomes familiar with its fea- tures ; there she communes with it, as with a ce- lestial messenger; till at length she can almost welcome its presence, and hai} it as the harbinger of a brighter world. Religion, too, is the source of all her virtues. It inspires the minor as well as the more important graces. It teaches, for instance, affability; and though some seem scarcely to think ■ it worth their while to cultivate politeness, yet courtesy is always appreciated, and is sure to make a woman liked. Not, indeed, the mere tinsel of profession, the" un- meaning commonplaces of modish hypocrisy; but the overflowing of a benevolent heart, the expression of Christian sentiment, than which nothing is in reality more prepossessing. Politeness, indeed, RELIGION TO WOMAN. 39 argues a wish to please, and an interest in the wel- fare of others ; and there are few who are not grate- ful for this easy and kind attention. Piety is so congenial to woman, that even in circles the least disposed to it some profession of it, in her, is a matter of course. Men are often reli- gious by proxy : they reverse their ordinary privilege, and commit to female representatives their business in the house of God. Or, if they appear on ordinary occasions, it is too often matter for regret, that, in what seems to them a more serious service, they imagine themselves free to leave the church, whilst women are expected to kneel at the table. Yet even all this proves the universal impression in favor of female piety ; and it is as congenial to the pursuits of woman as to her character. It gives interest to her duties, and solace to her retirement. To the first, indeed, it is essential, for the self-denial vvhich they involve must have its source in religion. Like all virtues, though they entail happiness, they require sacrifices. They imply effort, and precisely that effort which proceeds only from principle. Their fulfilment brings no distinction ; it sometimes even interferes with it. A domestic woman will perhaps be little admired, or, at any rate, little talked of. She will be less brilliant, less fashionable, less talked of, than one less exemplary at home. She will be neither the leader of the ton at Almack's, nor a rival queen at the court of fashion. She will be neither a Helen nor a Dido. 40 ' IMPORTANCE OF But she will be contented. And she will owe her contentment to religion ; for it is this alone which will compose and satisfy her mind. Mediocrity may, indeed, willingly take refuge in quiet life, and forego that which brought only disappointment ; but there needs some potent influence to withdraw beauty from the scene of her homage, or talent from that of her display. There needs some sentiment more intense than the first flush of passion, more satisfying than the triumph of a successful flirtation, more per- manent than the consciousness of a new station and dignity, to make the young aspirant content with home. She will, perhaps, feed for a while on the romance of love, and be pleased for a while with its syren fascination, and indulge for a while in the listlessness of sentimental enjoyments ; but when she ceases to be idolized, when her nuptial wardrobe becomes obsolete, when ennui succeeds to excite- ment, then does she naturally seek some new im- pulse to relieve the monotony of domestic life. She may have talked of love in a cottage, but the rustic shed was lit up with the radiance of the drawing- room ; she may have rhapsodized about sentiment in solitude, but the wilderness was peopled with the fairy forms of the brilliant assembly. It is religion alone which can furnish such a one with solace and incentive. Nothing else can satisfy her heart. Not, indeed, a mere formal service, a dull routine of superstitious observance, resorted to at seasons, as the confessional or the penance ; but RELIGIO i TO WOMAN. 41 a sentiment full of chastened fervor and pure affec- tion j a sentiment which itself compensates for the sacrifices it requires, and substitutes a real and per- manent interest for the irregular excitement of the world. Christian ethics are the only true morality; for they are the only morality which is both universal and minute. They are not a code, but a charter ; not an institute, but a principle. They give to woman precisely that dignity which is consistent with her dependence ; a dignity not of station, but of feeling; which makes her morally great, but practically subordinate. All that the world can offer her is, in fact, of little value. Neither the blaze of rank, the triumph of coquetry, nor the distinction of beauty or fashion, can really elevate her. They may all impart a mock lustre, but confer no true dignity. Religion is her only elevating principle. It iden- tifies itself with the movements of her heart, and with the actions of her life, spiritualizing the one and ennobling the other. Duties, however subordinate,' are to the religious woman never degrading ; their principle is their apology. She does not live amidst the clouds, or abandon herself to mystic excitement : she is raised above the sordidness,'but not above the concerns of earth ; above its disquietudes, but not above its cares. Religion is just what woman needs. Without it she is ever restless or unhappy, ever wishing to be 4* 42 IMPORTANCE OF relieved from duty or from time. She is either am- bitious of display, or greedy of pleasure, or sinks into a listless apathy, useless to others, and unworthy of herself. But when the light from heaven shines upon her path, it invests every object with a reflected radiance. Duties, occupations, nay even trials, are seen through a bright medium ; and the sunshine which gilds her course on earth is but the dawning, of a far clearer day. And if pain, rather than toil, be her penalty ; if an exemption from bodily labor be more than coun- terbalanced by bodily weakness, it is piety alone which can lighten such a cross. This only can in- spire that passive fortitude which, to her, is more essential than active strength. And, surely, religion never seems more lovely, or is more truly sublime, than when she stifles the cry of pain, and wipes the drops of anguish from the sufferer's brow ; when she imparts a martyr's courage to the gentlest spirit, — when she teaches woman in the stillness of a sick chamber to bow her head in patient resignation, and to endure her trial with Christian fortitude and faith. A woman's virtues must be genuine. They are to expand, not in the sunshine, but in the shade ; and, therefore, they need some vital principle to sup- ply the place of foreign excitement. Religion is this influence, — this germ of every grace, this sap which finds its way through every fibre, and emits the fair- est blossoms without the aid of artificial heat. The pious woman courts retirement. She seeks RELIGION TO WOMAN. 43 not the inertness of quietism, but the calmness and regularity of domestic duty. And though she may sometimes be called to less congenial scenes, — and she will neither refuse the summons nor show a peevish reluctance to obey it, — yet her taste is koine, fcr there she feels she is most useful, most happy, and has most communion with her God. And it is the domesticating tendency of religion that especially prepossesses men in its favor, and makes them, even if indifferent to it themselves, de- sire it, at least, in their nearest female connections. They can securely confide in one who is under its sober influence, and whose duties and pleasures lie within the same sphere. They feel no jealousy of a sentiment which, however intense, interferes with no legitimate affection ; but which makes a woman more tender, more considerate, and more sympathiz- ing, than the most ardent passion of romance would do, or the most studied polish of the world. But her piety must be sterling. It must be no latent form of a still restless ambition, thaf has ex- changed the glitter of fashion for the tinsel of pro- fession, that still finds its pleasure in a crowd, and, weary of the turmoil of the world, seeks some new and more exciting stimulus. This may indeed pass current for piety ; and as it borrows from religion its lustre, so does it often recompense it with the tarnish of its faults. But that sentiment is ever sus- picious that leads woman from home rather than to it, that prefers extraneous to domestic duty, that takes 44 IMPORTANCE OF her to the conversazione rather than to her chamber, to her confidant rather than to God. On the contrary, what more beautiful picture is there than that of the religious and retiring woman, who is struggling, perhaps, with domestic trial, and standing, perhaps, alone in sentiment and in duty ? Her path is one of difficulty, but she neither makes her trials a theme of gossiping complaints, nor avails herself of the faults of others to excite pity for her- self. And if want of congeniality in those most near to her is her sore burden, if even opposition is the appointed exercise of her faith, she neither seeks notoriety by the cry of persecution, nor looks to the applause of others as a compensation for her triala at home. It is thought very wrong, even by ordinary per- sons, to carry domestic secrets beyond our own walls, or to discuss the faults of our near relations with those who are comparatively indifferent. How much more tender should be the delicacy of a Christian. For, if nothing exasperates so much as the suspicion of a confidant, surely that impatience is, to say the least, most unwise which flies to a stranger for relief, and pours forth on the unwilling ear what ought to be strictly secret. It is a pity, in such a case, that decency does not impose reserve ; that the com- plainant does not feel so identified with the faults she deplores as to shrink from their exposure ; that her interest and affection do not so far prevail over RELIGION TO WOMAN. 45 her confiding propensity as to make her keep her grievance to herself. How much more Christian is the course of un- complaining meekness. True, this awakens little interest ; it encourages no meddling interference, it asks for no human sympathy. Perhaps, even, it may be mistaken by some for compliance or com- promise. But how great is its reward. For if there be a recompense to consistency on earth, and a happy moment to the still-struggling Christian, it is when piety receives the accomplish- ment of its wishes, — when the indulgence that has excused faults, the delicacy that has forborne com- plaint, and the kindness that has concealed infirmities, are at length appreciated ; when these reiterated acts, which have long been treasured up in grateful recollection, are ascribed to their own pure principle ; and when this principle is recognised as the one only source of virtue and of peace. It is then, even in this world, that the secret prayer is answered, and the secret tears are wiped away. CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF FEMALE EXCELLENCE. It is usual to estimate principles by their apparent results, which may be naturally viewed as no unfair criteria. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that these are the only certain tests ; for in matters which involve human conduct there is so much that impedes the genuine operation of principles, that we may, not unfrequently, form a totally wrong estimate, by merely observing the actions of those who profess to be, and even are, in some measure, under their influence. Christianity has suffered from this superficial view. The infidel points to the divisions, the wars, the persecutions, that have found their pretext in sec- tarian zeal ; and argues the fallacy of the system from the consequences he imputes to it. The care- less, irreligious person marks with a jealous eye the inconsistencies, errors, and mistakes of those whom he regards as pre-eminently pious ; and concludes in favor of his own mere moral code, because he detects failures in persons who are actuated by higher motives. This should, of course, serve as a stimulus to CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE, ETC. 47 Christians, since they are thus regarded as the representatives of their faith ; but, whilst it does so, we must beware of allowing the partial reasoning, which would judge of a system merely by the deport- ment of some who profess to be its disciples. To form a correct estimate of the value of our religion, we must examine its doctrines as well as their occa- sional effects on individual conduct ; and not imagine ourselves acquainted with its real features from the imperfect reflection which a faulty mirror may present. Perhaps there is nothing that affords a more satis- factory internal evidence of the truth of Christianity tban the practical tendency of its most important doctrines. It is not merely that it contains the most perfect moral code that ever was given to man ; it is not merely that its commands apply to every age and station, — that the parent and the child, the mas- ter and the servant, the husband and the wife, the king and the subject, are told by it how they may best promote each other's happiness and fulfil their mutual relations ; nor is it merely that it inculcates every grace from the sublimest act of self-denial to the minutest attention of courtesy ; but it is because its truths involve the virtues which its precepts enjoin, — and in proportion as the former are received the latter are loved and regarded, — that we recog- nise in it the stamp of Infinite Wisdom. And if human imperfection never attains to the standard of 48 CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF divine morality, the fault lies in the disciple, not in the doctrine, in the subject, not in the influence. The heart, we all know, is the main-spring of conduct ; and though, in spiritual ethics, we are sometimes reluctant to allow its paramount impor- tance, there are none who, in ordinary matters, do not assume that outward actions are, for the most part, the result of its impulses. In education, espe- cially, the slightest experience teaches us that the heart of the child is the material, on the right mould- ing of which depends, in great measure, the future character ; and even those teachers who are unwil- ling to avail themselves of Christian motives are not the less sensible of the necessity of regulating and influencing the feelings. The issuing of mandates will do but little, the appeal to reason is not enough ; there must be something to warm the infant heart, and to inspire it with pure and disinterested motives. Christianity is the work of Omniscience. He who so orders the machinery of the material creation, that that law which maintains the stars in their courses regulates the falling of an atom, has displayed the same adapting wisdom in his moral government. The religion which bears the impress of his authority, and of which He is the immediate source, is equally universal and equally efficient in its operation with the great principle of the natural world. The individ- ual application of Christianity, indeed, to the heart, is, in each instance, a special act of the divine will and goodness ; but in its nature, in the way in which it FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 49 finds access, and in its practical tendency, it is suited, in a peculiar manner, to every rational being. And it is this which constitutes its value. Whilst it operates upon feelings which are common to all, it does so in a manner the best calculated to promote the happiness and improvement of each. It fur- nishes each with individual consolation, with motives for individual duty ; and, by its influence on the heart, even when the express precept is wanting, it directs the individual action. It is well known that women have been overlooked in almost every humanly devised system of religion and of ethics. The manly virtues found their place in the tables of lawgivers, and were discussed in the schools of philosophers ; but the graces which adorn the female character were not thought worthy the attention of the nobler sex. And, to adduce a still more striking instance, the prophet of Mecca, when he denied to women a spiritual existence, did but prepare them for the moral degradation to which it was his policy that they should be perpetually sub- jected. But it is the glory of Christianity to elevate the weak : and to do so by ennobling their virtues, and giving them a higher stimulus. Lowliness, gentle- ness, meekness, have an honorable place in the Chris- tian calendar ; and these graces, so especially appro- priate to women, are the peculiar and exclusive products of the Christian soil. In estimating, then, the value of religious princi- 5 D 50 CHRISTIANITY THE SC JRCE OF pie to the sex, it is of importance that we should be acquainted with its nature ; and should thus be qualified to judge of its probable operations. The mistake of many lies in an erroneous conception of what Christianity really is. Some are satisfied with a mere profession, others with a party name ; some again identify it with a garb, or a phrase, or a cere- mony ; and a very numerous class with a partial performance of duty, and a decent observance of form. No wonder that these several persons present results unfavorable to religion ; and that, instead of impressing us with the beauty of holiness, they show themselves to be, in no degree, superior to others who have less pretension. For they misunderstand the essence of their religion ; and instead of receiv- ing it in its perfect unity and symmetrical propor- tion, they mutilate and spoil what is, in its nature, incapable of being divided. The tendency of Christian doctrine, when, through the Divine Spirit, it finds access to the heart, is, to form the character of women as well as men according to the most perfect model ; and as it operates in the one to produce strength, and courage, and true great- ness of soul, so does it in the other to infuse those lovely and feminine graces which are the true beauty of the sex. In its leading doctrines, indeed, one almost feels that the daughters of Eve are pre- eminently regarded ; for its principles are so pecu- liarly calculated to affect the heart of woman, and to produce in her what is 'ovely and of good report, FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 51 that we cannot but recognise in iheir appointment the same condescending goodness that first pitied and blessed the mother of mankind, and raised her from the depth of her primeval fall. That temper, for instance, which is the first genuine fruit of di- vine grace, and the immediate consequence of a belief in the elements of the Gospel, is the most appropriate to female character, and the groundwork of female excellence. Nothing surely can tend to infuse genuine humility so much as a discovery of the secret workings of the human heart, and a com- parison of its innate and acquired evil with the per- fect purity of the law of God. And what will teach us this but Christianity? The reflecting mind, indeed, cannot fail of detecting every where in nature something that is wrong. It will see vice and misery in the world around ; it will inquire their cause, and it will trace their seeds even within itself. But will it ever humble itself on this account,— will it ever bend in self-abasement, and mourn in the ashes of a sincere repentance ? Will it ever even understand what sin is, or feel its malignity as an act of rebellion against God, and an offence to His holiness ? Will it not, rather, when the first sentiment of melancholy at the contem- plation of evil has worn away, congratulate itself on its comparative exemption ; and, forgetting its own points of resemblance to what is so mischievous and hateful, only pride itself on the difference, of which natural disposition, education, or philosophy, 52 CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF or a freedom from temptation, may have been the cause? How different is the effect which a reception of Christian doctrine is calculated to produce. It is not merely that it brings thoughts and actions to the one unerring standard, and shows the imperfection of human attainment, — nor is it merely that it dis- plays the universality of the evil principle, and traces it to its source ; but it melts to contrition whilst it humbles to abasement, and infuses that lowly but confiding spirit which weeps for its own unworthi- ness, and reposes in the mercy of Heaven. And what must be the tendency of such a princi- ple ? Not surely to excite spiritual pride ; to render its possessor self-satisfied, or assuming ; to disqualify from duty, or to elevate to fanatical excitement. No. ■ When such effects are seen, they are not chargeable on true religion, they are not the result of evangelical doctrine ; they are melancholy instances of the power of that evil one, whose most dangerous form is that of an angel of light, and who spreads his most fatal lures nearest the narrow path that leads to the eter- nal city. Of such let Christians, and especially Christian women, beware. It becomes the disclaimers of merit in the sight of God to let their humility, like their other graces, shine before men. And it can- not be that those who in their chamber smite upon their breasts, and raise the cry for mercy, and con- fess themselves the least of God's saints, and the FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 53 lowest of His servants, should rise from their knees with an unhumbled spirit, and display, to their fellow-creatures and fellow-Christians, conduct thai discovers more of vanity and exclusiveness than of meekness and charity. At least, in proportion as tempers so opposite to Christianity are indulged, the heart is yet unsanctified, or the tempter prevails, or the old leaven predominates. None are more prone to detect a want of humility in social relations, than those who are themselves deficient in genuine humility, as it regards their spiritual concerns. It is not unfrequent for persons, naturally amiable, to mistake their amiability for a Christian attainment ; and to be so satisfied with the composure of their tempers, and the decent and even ■ tenor of their lives, as to be almost ignorant of the wrong bias which they have inherited, and insensible to the moral taint which they have contracted. Self-examination is, with them, an exercise littk thought of, and still less understood ; and the con- fession of sinfulness, periodically in their mouths, has become so habitual, that it conveys no precise meaning as it passes through their lips. There is, nevertheless, sometimes much to love, and even to respect, in persons of this class ; and those who are better instructed should, at least, treat them with tenderness, and should, especially, be- ware of giving them offence ; and, whilst they en- deavor to rouse them from their indifference, and enlighten their consciences, and convince them of 5* 54 CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF their deficiencies, they may not think scorn to learn from their quiet and amiable deportment. Every doctrine of Scripture has its corresponding precept ; and as humility is the fruit of a belief in divine truth, so is it especially enjoined by the high- est authority. And there is no more beautiful illus- tration of true principle than the humble follower of the Redeemer, — the female disciple, — who, exem- plary in duty, and unwearied in religious service, is yet as remarkable for gentleness and lowliness towards her fellow-creatures, as she is for piety towards her God. Still, if there be one feature more remarkable than another in the Christian scheme, and that bears more strikingly the impress of Deity, it is the appeal that is made to us in the appointed method of salvation, and the directly practical tendency of the charac- teristic tenet of our faith : for if any thing can im- press the heart, and win on its affections, it is the revelation made to us in the Gospel, and the offer of pardon and peace through the vicarious sacrifice of the Son of God. There may be indeed much to impress us with the divine beneficence in the mate- rial world, — the hourly preservation of life and health is an individual mercy ; the mother cannot look upon the group around her, happy in their young existence, without having cause to recognise the superintending providence of God ; but what would all this be, were there a veil thrown over the future, or a doub* a s to our eternal resting-place ? FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 55 But, thanks be to God, it is not so ; and Chris tianity, in assuring us of our future destiny, furnishes us with a motive for gratitude and exertion far more powerful, and more constraining, than human imagi- nation could conceive. Heaven is purchased at a price which none can believe without rendering to Him who gave it the homage of their hearts. The female Christian, especially, will not forget the share her sex has had both in the fail and restoration of the human race ; and, consequently, the peculiar claims which the Author of her redemption has on her love and service. And, if it is the characteristic of woman to be accessible to kindness, and to yield to the impulses of tender feeling ; how can she with- hold her affections where the demand for them is so paramount, and where they may be so safely and so properly rendered ? To her the gates of the second Eden are still thrown open, — to her was given, even at the foot of the tree of her apostasy, the promise of gratuitous admission to the tree of life ; how anxious then should she be to prove herself not un- worthy of the mercy she has received ! There is no sentiment more appropriate to her than the dependence which a belief in this revela- tion of divine goodness affords. Self-righteousness and arrogance are excluded by the Christian scheme ; and in their place are filial confidence, and humble yet rejoicing hope. And these are the tempers which sit so engagingly on the female sex, and ac- cord sc sweetly with their character. Nothing is so 56 CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF cold and heartless as the system which builds on human merits, — nothing so unbecoming in woman as a proud reliance on her own sufficiency and at- tainments. Christianity makes her just what she should be ; and is the source of that humble, happy disposition, which renders her amiable and obliging towards others, and contented, whatever be her por- tion here. And by impressing her with a sense of what she owes to infinite bounty, it expands her heart towards all who, with her, are recipients of the same grace- Christian charity may well maintain its place as the first of virtues. Unknown as it was to the heathen world, unknown as it now is to any but believers, its fruits are so fair that they cannot fail of exciting the admiration of even those who do not understand its principle. It is the expansion of the divine benevolence, — the reflection of that love that saved mankind. Pity that any who call themselves Christians, still greater pity that any who believe the doctrines and respect the precepts of the Gospel, should be deficient in this pre-eminent grace. Yet, with regard to men, allowance may be made for peculiar trial or circumstance ; for provocation, for the heat of debate, or the excitement of contro- versy. Christian women have no such excuse. And, surely, if they have truly imbibed the princi- ples of their faith, they will not suffer their lesser disturbances to excite in them tempers equally un- worthy their sex and their profession. Nor will FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 57 they expose themselves to temptation, by entering uncalled upon dangerous ground ; — they will avoid, when they can, religious as well as other dispute ; and whilst they study with humility the divine word, and receive with implicit faith what is there re- vealed, they will recommend its doctrines as much by their example as by their gentle and persuasive influence ; for in their conduct they will show much of that charity which suffereth long and is kind. It is astonishing what a woman may often effect by forbearance and by tenderness. In domestic life, for instance, what so likely to disarm prejudice, or to recall affection, or to calm an irritable temper, as, not merely patience under vexations, but the soft and soothing expression of genuine kindness ? Per- haps there is no situation of greater difficulty or delicacy than that of a woman associated with one whose disposition and habits are ill-assorted with her own. Yet, even here, a Christian need not despair. There is, of course, much of judgment and tenderness required ; but her religion may teach her both. It will teach her to love as well as to endure ; and, by supplying her with a motive for ker exertions, will render her more unwearied in her efforts to please. It is scarcely possible to suggest a precise line in such a case; but this, however, may safely be iffirmed, that there is no guide like religion. But then it must be a principle active and efficient, and in daily operation. There must be no shrinking 58 CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF from those acts of domestic self-denial, which are the more rare and the more difficult, because they attract little notice. Neither must there be a neg'- lect of minute duties, of slight courtesies, of trifling concessions. And, especially, there must be respect. This is a duty congenial with the whole spirit of the Gos- pel, and expressly enjoined on female Christians. Yet we have to lament its deficiency, sometimes, even in good women ; and this is, perhaps, one rea- son why they are less appreciated at home than elsewhere. Respect, like all other duties, must be habitual ; it must not merely be kept for public exhibition ; though in society, of course, deference is indispensable ; but it must be maintained in the privacy of the married hearth, and in the familiarities of confidential intercourse. There are a thousand little instances in which respect may be shown, — in attentiveness, in consideration, in a readiness to hear and to be taught. Suppose a woman to be superior, and suppose her to have both intellectual endowment and religious excellence ; suppose her, too, to have reason to complain of indifference or neglect : yet surely there is some point in which she might learn from her husband ; some quality or endowment for which she might respect him ; some particular in which she might defer to his judgment, and acquiesce in his opinions. Why should she be always on the defensive? — why seem to imagine that he must be always wrong ? Would it not be FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 59 better to seek to discover subjects of union rathei than of difference ? for, in doing so, as she would be acting from the highest principle, and discharging the first of social duties, she might expect a blessing. There is one question of peculiar nicety by which a tender conscience may be harassed. It arises from the apparent interference of religious and conjugal duty. Where, of course, there is an actual inter- ference the latter must give way. But the case is often dubious, and rendered more so by inclination being sometimes mistaken for conscience, or by motives of a very mixed nature being associated with the simple desire of serving God. It should always be the first inquiry, whether a little more effort, a little more self-denial, a little more anxiety to fulfil the one obligation without leaving the other undone, would not smooth the way; whether, for instance, the hour of privacy might not be secured without interfering with that of domestic enjoyment, and the ordinance observed without the neglect of family attentions. But in all these minutiae, it is love, Christian love only, that can solve the question, and assign the right line of conduct ; and the more Ave ave influ- enced by it, the less shall we be perplexed by scrupulosity. It will infuse, too, a spirit and a life into our duties. In all social relations every thing is spoilt by an appearance of effort. The parent receives no pleasure from the obedience of a child, if it be the service of constraint ; the husband is GO CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF indifferent to all the attentions of a wife, if they are cold and compulsory. Where the heart is required, nothing can repay for its absence ; and a sensitive mind is pained rather than pleased by a tribute from which the choicest ingredient is wanting. On the contrary, Christian love, as it ascends first to its fountain, is conducted from thence, in due proportion, into every legitimate earthly channel. See in the good daughter, listening to her parents' counsels, valuing their instructions, seeking their society, ministering to their comfort, and, lastly, soothing their infirmities, and closing their eyes, the earliest exemplification of Christian social love. See her again in after life, blessing and being blest, the friend of her husband, the joy of his home, the messenger of good to all who feel her sweet and gentle influence. See her in her family ; the ten- der nurse, the patient instructress, the sympathizing and forgiving counsellor, receiving back from her children the recompense of her own filial affection. Nor, in such a person, is the development of the principle confined to her own home. As a friend she is kind, while faithful, constant, and yet impar- tial. Without indulging in romantic fondnesses, which are often as fickle as they are excessive, she has a heart to bestow on those who are worthy of it, and she is ready to reciprocate their affection. She can appreciate, too, true excellence, wherever she meets with it, and does not allow prejudice or party feeling to interfere with her estimate of worth. FaT FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 61 is it from her to indulge in harshness of expression, still farther to offer the challenge and provoke the attack ; slle is a " meek daughter in the family of Christ;" — all her words are gentle, all her- tone is feminine ; and whether she relieve distress, or com- municate instruction, or render a slight courtesy, she evinces the same warm and sympathizing heart, the same tender and graceful hand. There is yet one feature of religion which involves female excellence, and which is essential to the moral proficiency of the sex. Christian holiness, the effect of spiritual influence on the heart, as it is the root of all virtue, so is it the only principle which imparts unity and consistency to the character. It is the seed sown by the divine hand, and watered from above, which proves its celestial origin by the fruit it bears. We look in vain for real and persevering good- ness from any other source. There may be a kind disposition, a happy temper, a liberal, open hand ; there may be a burst of feeling, or a sudden impulse to what is noble and disinterested ,•• or, what is still more frequent, a thirst for human applause, which may induce extraordinary effort. But where is the steady course of virtuous self-denial, pursued alike in public and in private, amid disappointment and success ; except it be the result of Christian motive, and of that heaven-born principle, the end of which is conformity to Him whom it acknowledges as its Author ? 6 62 CHRISTIANITY THE SOURCE OF It is just this uniform excellence which we require in woman. In men, it is, of course, no less valuable ; but still, as their virtues are for the mos* part more important, and more prominent, we are disposed to make greater allowance for their faults. They have their redeeming points, and, on this account, we excuse some blemishes. But in woman we expect proportion. Beauty is her attribute, that moral and mental grace, which, by its genuine and finished loveliness, wins upon the heart. And this cannot be without consistency. It is in vain that there is the occasional virtue, the partial observance of what is right ; it is in vain that the tear of sympathy is sometimes seen to flow, and the purse to open at the call of benevolence ; it is in vain even that there is a painful and laborious effort in the discharge of some duties, or an apparent zeal in the one good cause ; unless there is a tone of excellence pervading the character, and evincing its daily fruits in domes- tic and social life, we are struck by the deficiency, and are more inclined to find fault with it than to admire the incidental virtue. The proficiency, however, of which we have been speaking, is not of sudden or of easy attainment. Amid the trials and temptations which assail us here, how highly blessed are they who are enabled, through divine grace, to persevere in the right path without retrogression. But, in the appointed means of spiritual improvement, the female Christian will seek renewal of her strength, and, setting before her FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 63 her high exemplar, will not be satisfied without an approach to it. It is this which will stimulate her to duty, purify her wishes, and exalt her hopes ; and whilst it is to her a motive for daily progress, it will also act as a remembrancer that her recompense is above, and consists in a full and entire assimila- tion to that perfect model, to which she is now faintly and feebly approximating. She will pursue her course, it may be, through discouragement and difficulty ; but she will be cheered by the prospect that is before her ; and her latest thought will be, an anticipation of that entire union to divine excellence, for which she is educating here. SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF FEMALE CHARACTER. Besides the blessing which Christianity is to us as a motive for our moral improvement, it is also most valuable as a rule of conduct. We are not left merely to the influence of its principles on the heart ; the effect which they ought to have is specified, and we are thus furnished with a test, by which we may judge how far we are really affected by them, and also with directions to assist us in their practical result. These directions, no less than the doctrines with which they are so nearly allied, have the divine sanction ; and attest, like them, the wisdom and goodness of their Author. They are given in a way the best calculated to interest and influence, and are of as universal an application as the princi- ples from which they spring. The manner in which woman is noticed in the practical parts of Scripture accords with the place she is allowed to hold in the Christian economy. The precepts which are to regulate female conduct are equally precise with those which apply to the other sex, and the examples equally instructive. We cannot, indeed, but be peculiarly struck with SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE, ETC. 65 the natural and appropriate, as well as beautiful, delineation of female character in Scripture. No point is overcharged, no virtue exaggerated. The portrait is the more affecting because it is so like. [t is the gentle, tender, and feeling woman whom we meet with in real life; and though the sublime situations in which she is placed, as well as the lan- guage and imagery of Scripture, invest the heroine of the Bible with a peculiar charm, she is not so highly raised above ordinary circumstances as not to provoke our sympathy and invite our imitation. On this account the illustrations of the sacred vol- ume are of the highest value. The female Chris- tian who is familiar with them needs few other models. Besides the chasteness and simplicity which characterize these examples, there is a detail about them which is not only graphically true, but practically instructive. It is not merely by their prophetic visions, or inspired songs, that we are made acquainted with the female worthies of the ancient church ; we converse with them in their homes ; we see them in the discharge of family and social functions ; and we find, in general, that those who were the most highly honored by divine favor were the most blameless and amiable, according to our ideas of female excellence. The Bible might, therefore, be recommended, were it only for its moral illustrations ; and those who think lightly of its mysteries are often not with- out appreciation of its value in this point of view. 6* E 66 SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF But mutilation, whilst it robs the Christian system of its beauty, spoils its effect. There is no part independent of another ; take it in its perfect grada- tion, the harmony is complete ; but the abstraction of a single principle cannot be without prejudice to the whole. On the contrary, those who receive the truths of Scripture on the sanction of their Author, and, there- fore, give due weight to every part, are enabled to admire their aggregate completeness, as well as their individual perfection. The female believer, for in- stance, whilst she acknowledges with gratitude the interest she has in the doctrines of the Gospel, is no less affected by the regard paid to her sex in the Scripture development of their character. With regard to the latter, especially, she cannot but feel it to be a peculiar mark of condescension that there should be such minute and instructive notices ; and that, by the setting forth of examples in various circumstances, and in the different ranks of life, sh6 should be left at no loss as to the application of the divine precepts. Nor can she help remarking the impartiality and the truth of scriptural illustrations. Woman is de- scribed with the virtues and the faults peculiar to her sex ; and whilst we admire her enthusiasm, hei tenderness, and her devotion, whilst we see of how much she is capable, how greatly she has been honored, and for what she has been destined, we are not allowed to be blind to her weaknesses. FEMALE CHARACTER. 67 It is thus that so much may be learnt from the study of the Scriptures. Not only is the Bible in this way infinitely superior to all fictitious narra- tive, but few histories contain such accurate and impartial delineations. The Bible tells us what woman has been, what she may be, and what she is. And if she would be guided in the path of duty, if she would know her dangers, her temptations, and her foibles, if she would be made acquainted with her own heart, she will read and meditate upon the inspired volume, and will study there what is so accurately described, either as encouragement or as warning. The earliest example recorded is eminently illustrative of female character. The mother of mankind was truly the representative of her sex. She fell because she was over-confident in herself, and because she was prevailed on to desire what was prohibited. And if this conveys a salutary cau- tion to her female descendants, and a caution of which they stand too frequently in need, how sweet a lesson may they learn from her lowly penitence, her humble yet rejoicing hope. She fell; but in the depth of her abasement she caught the bright- ness of the promise, and saw, in the east, the dawn of the Sun of Righteousness rising on her benighted children with healing in his wings. Long and patiently did she vvait his coming ; and, though her first-born hopes ended in worse than disappointment, though it was her lot to experience the bitterest of 68 SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF maternal griefs, and to lose two children through the crime of one, still she persevered in believing ; and when called again to the solicitudes and duties of a mother, recognised in her offspring a pledge of the di- vine truth. She died in hope, and her expectation was inherited by her descendants. It was the pecu- liar privilege of the daughters of the chosen seed ; it inspired the song of the prophetess, and nerved the arm of the female warrior, and gave to the peaceful mother of Israel higher thoughts and nobler anticipa- tions than could have been enjoyed by any less privileged matron. And it continued to cheer the female believers of the ancient church, until faith was lost in fulfilment, and the salutation of the angel announced the completion of the promise, as he greeted the virgin of the house of David the mother of Emanuel. A hope so heavenly and so pure is peculiarly appropriate to woman. Nothing is more delightful in her than a disposition to anticipate good. Women have their share in the trials of life, and they have, perhaps, less strength than the other sex to encounter them ; but to hope is their privilege and their dis- tinction ; and often does this bear them up, and help them even to bear up others, when minds of greater firmness, but less buoyancy, fail. The captive daughter of Judah felt her fetters lightened when she thought of Him who was to be her deliverer, and whose glory it should be to lead captivity cap- tive. And Christian hope is the same sentiment FEMALE CHARACTER. 69 modified and matured. It is less imaginative, but more spiritual ; less exclusive, but more amiable ; it has less of rapture, perhaps, but it has stronger assurance. It is the light which guides the female pilgrim through the path of life, the evening star, " serenely brilliant," that sheds its hallowed lustre on her bed of death. With equal truth the Bible portrays other graces of female character. How pathetically, for instance, is that sensibility depicted which gives to woman so much softness and grace ; which is in her the impulse to a thousand disinterested actions ; which leads her to cling, like Ruth to Naomi, to those whom she loves, or to watch, like Rizpah, the objects of her solicitude, or to make, like the widow of Za- rephath, any sacrifice of self, to minister to those who have a claim upon her service. And how marked is the difference in the delinea- tion of this virtue between the mere aftecter of senti- ment and the woman of real feeling ! This distinc- tion is strikingly exemplified in the two daughters of the widowed Mara. Orpah sheds the most tears, Orpah is the most loud in protestation, Orpah even sets out on her pilgrimage, and turns her face to- wards Canaan, but Orpah lifts up her voice, and bids adieu ; Ruth is silent, and goes on. The character of Orpah is true to life, and affords a salutary warning. No less genuine is that of Ruth, and she furnishes a sweet exemplification of filial piety and devotedness. She is one of those 70 SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF gentle, affectionate, confiding creatures, who, though they make no noise in the world, are capable of great efforts. She is one of those whom, following their quiet and unassuming course, God delighteth to honor. She, like Hannah, reposed all her cares in the bosom of her God ; and He heard and reliev- ed her. The tenderness of female piety is every where affectionately exhibited in the holy women in the Bible. How different is their devotion from the imaginative mysticism of the enthusiast. It is, in- deed, glowing and affectionate ; but it is calm and reverential. We see Mary, gazing on her Divine Master, listening to every word that fell from his lips, pouring her costly ointment on his head, watching his last agony, prostrating herself in almost speech- less joy before his risen form; but all these actions, whilst they denote the tenderness of the friend, mark also the respect of the disciple. And Martha, too, though she, on one occasion, mistook the way to pay honor to him, whose thoughts were not of this world ; what can be more affectionate than her greet- ing at the tomb of Lazarus ? And what more bles- sed than the memorial of each, " now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ?" The piety of these holy women was of a subdued and chastened character ; and whilst it chained their hearts to the object of their affections, it never suf- fered them to forget their homage. And their lan- guage, like their sentiment, was that adoration. FEMALE CHARACTER. 71 They indulged in no undue familiarity, they did not adopt the language of earthly passion ; but, whilst they consecrated to Christ their choicest affections, their manner of addressing him was such as became dependent creatures. They reverenced and wor- shipped as well as loved. And they persevered in their attachment to the end ; for they were the latest to linger at the cross ; they received his dying words ; and though they understood not yet the mystery of a crucified Messiah, they paid the last tribute of re- spect to Jesus of Nazareth. Their spirit descended on their sisters in the Christian church. It was this that warmed their hearts, and prompted their kindness to the members of Christ's body. It was this that characterized the benevolent and painstaking Dorcas, and the atten- tive and devout Lydia ; that induced Priscilla to " hazard her life " for the apostle of the Gentiles, and Phoebe to succor him in his necessity; and that obtained for the " beloved Persia," and for the little band of Roman disciples, the honorable commenda- tion, that they " labored much in the Lord." Theirs was not a mere holiday profession, or a transient emotion ; it was not a tribute to the eloquence of Paul, the earnestness of Peter, or the sweetness of John; it was a principle that triumphed over weak- ness, and bestowed a supernatural courage; that enabled the tender and delicate woman to meet even the severest trial, and to stretch forth her hand for the martyr's crown. 72 SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF And we may remark the same feeling in the de- vout women of an earlier age. For it was this which encouraged Esther to dare the frown of her sovereign, and emboldened Rahab to risk her safety for the messengers of God. It is religion, indeed, which inspires true courage, and precisely that quiet and enduring courage which is essential to female greatness. Women are not called on now to assume, like Deborah, the sword of the warrior ; but they are called on to compete with trials which require equal strength of mind. And it is the same principle which must bear them through, the principle of heavenly love, the habitual preference of things di- vine to things earthly, the unostentatious disinterest- edness, which is ever ready to seek the good and happiness of others at the expense of selfish enjoy- ment. And what a peculiarly amiable feature is this in the character of woman. It is frequently her duty to yield her own wishes. Domestic peace may require it; and, at any rate, she should always culti- vate the spirit of self-denial ; and by doing so in lesser matters, she he more incumbent is it on Christians to check itw i/owth. Yet this is scarcely remembered when the poor girl is taken from her spindle and her cottage to pray and to expound in public, or when those of higher grade are enticed from theft.- domestic and quiet duties by the glare and excitement of religious exhibitions. Neither is it remembered when the woman of rank is received with a deference almost approach- ing to idolatry, — when her every look and word are treasured up and repeated, when she is encouraged to pronounce upon characters and doctrine, to detail in the evening assembly her morning achievements, or enlarge in the class-room on the experience of her closet, — when she may make her strictures on others a plea for speaking of her efforts on their be- half, and indulge in censoriousness and egotism under the cloak of spiritual earnestness. Vanity is in such cases the canker of religion ; it 9* 102 FEMALE DEFECTS. gnaws like a worm at the root ; and when we look for the harvest the fruit is dust and bitterness. How anxiously should we therefore watch its in- roads. How carefully should we draw the fence around our own hearts. How especially should they by whom it has been long indulged guard against its revival. For nothing is so dangerous as an old enemy under a new name ; and religious vanity is both more offensive and more insidious than any other. It is on this account that quietness is so de- sirable. It is not the going round a circle of reli- gious acquaintance, or the hurrying from one reli- gious meeting to another, the discussing with one the popular preacher and with another the popular heresy, the bandying of religion from mouth to mouth, that can promote its internal growth, or evi- dence its genuineness. Nor even is an indefatigable attendance upon congregational services, nor an unwearied assiduity in public benevolence, a sure criterion of our spiritual state. Privacy tries the sincerity of our religion. In society is its strength proved. But it is when the flame of private devotion burns without adventitious excitement that we may trace its origin to Heaven. And it will re-ascend there. It will shine more and more unto the perfect day. It will mount to the throne of God, and unite itself to its parent fountain. Vanity is very selfish : it leads us to seek self in every thing ; and therefore, in proportion as it is indulged, kindness and amiability disappear. No- FEMALE DEFECTS. 103 thing, then, is a greater blemish in female, charac- ter ; for we love disinterestedness in woman, — we love to find in her warmth of heart and tender sympathy. And when, on the contrary, she is anxious only to distinguish herself, to gain notoriety by some means, — to be very brilliant, or very intel- lectual, or very religious, merely because such is the fashion of the day, — we cannot but turn from her with disappointment, and feel that, however precious the gem may be in regard to quality, there is a flaw in it which renders it worthless. Vanity is the germ of party spirit. It is this which it would substitute for true piety ; for while the latter recoils from it, vanity and party spirit go hand in hand. Flattery is the coin in which parti- sans pay their proselytes ; and the vain person is not proof against its corruption. It entices silly women, and sends them out to parade with party colors, and in the mean while betrays them to the enemy at home. It is painful to note human inconsistency. And, perhaps, it is in nothing more evident than in the occasional association of vanity with superior endow- ment. We see it disfiguring genius and obscuring religion ; but it is a weakness in relatio i to which example should furnish not an apology, but a warn- ing. For it sometimes so tarnishes excellence that we fail to recognise the intrinsic value of the latter, and, overlooking the beauty, are struck only by the blemish. FEMALE DEFECTS. The fickleness of woman is proverbial. Yet the reproach, in its usual acceptation, is, in a great meas- ure, undeserved ; for she is capable of long and steady attachment, and inconstancy is chargeable rather on the other sex. But though the heart is not in fault, the head, perhaps, is ; and to inconstancy of opinion, though not of affection, women are, it is to be feared, some- what liable. This proceeds, in great measure, from incon- siderateness. They are apt to imbibe opinions rashly, and to abandon them precipitately ; and they are ever ready to hear and to adopt whatever has the charm of novelty. The love of what is new is, indeed, natural to the sex. In many of their pursuits or pleasures novelty is the attraction. A new dress, or a new song, is each, in its way, thought very delightful. On the contrary, nothing is so ennuyant as sameness. This is especially felt by the woman of the world. Mo- notony is, above every thing, the object of her dread. The same faces weary her — beauty wearies her , and she often flies from the country for no better FEMALE DEFECTS. 105 reason than because she is tired of flowers and green fields, and the unvaried dulness of the family circle. Modern ingenuity must therefore be exhausted to captivate her fancy. The town is a magazine of novelties ; and the artist, as well as milliner, must supply the demand. Unhappily, the same weakness is sometimes in- dulged in more serious matters. The appetite is still greedy, though the food is different ; and the spiritual novelty is welcomed with the same avidity as once was the worldly bauble. Women, indeed, love portents in every thing. A wonder, whatever it be, excites their interest ; and extravagance seems, with some, almost a recommendation. Religious persons, however, should be especially on their guard against this foible ; lest their religion be identified with caprice, and be thought nothing more than a paroxysm of devotion, which will sub- side like any other fit. It is sterling principle alone which imparts stability and which gives truth for a foundation and a guide ; and she who is possessed of it may be depended on alike in all relations and circumstances. Her reli- gion is no wayward fancy, no day-dream, no preco- cious and sickly plant, that springs up in a night and withers in an hour. Its growth is sure and steady, though it may be slow ; its roots are deep ; ana it will, in time, reach to Heaven. There is a contrariety observable in the female mind, for which allowance is not always made, and 106 FEMALE DEFECTS. on which account the comparative estimate of the sexes is sometimes incorrect. Women have so much aptitude of talent, they can learn so many things, and are so dexterous in applying their knowledge, that their intellectual gifts are by some overrated, and regarded as on a level with those of the other sex. But strength and weakness are often sadly blended in the same individual ; and high attain- ments are found to be, in many women, quite com- patible with an unsound judgment. We are startled at the incongruity, and are surprised to see so much weakness combined with so much acquirement ; to meet with a woman, for instance, who can talk Greek, without being able to act common sense. But the solution is not difficult. Want of judgment is, indeed, one of the most com- mon defects in female character ; and it is in dis- cernment, rather than in capacity, that the inferiority of woman consists. She chose wrong at first, and liability to error seems entailed upon her. We see this repeatedly exemplified. It is where judgment is required that she is most apt to fail. And it is this, in part, which renders her so susceptible of reli- gious error. All of us are apt to identify theoretical knowledge with spiritual discernment ; yet it is very possible to talk well upon religion, to quote Scrip- ture, to have a text for every occasion, to read the religious miscellany and the religious controversy of the day, and yet be very ill grounded in divine truth. It is very possible to obtain credit for much FEMALE DEFECTS. 107 piety, and yet to go wrong on the very points on which our judgment is least mistrusted. And it is in this way that some apparently conscientious persons not unfrequently mistake. They have in religion, as in other subjects, just that ready know- ledge which is always producible, and which leads them to imagine themselves proficients in theology, and to obtain credit for being so, when, in fact, they are mere babes in spiritual experience. It is a refreshment when we do meet with those — and many such there doubtless are — who are free from all these faults. Such persons are not uncon- scious of their natural inferiority or of their individual defects ; but they labor to remove the one and to correct the other. They have disciplined the mind in early youth ; they have gathered experience from the trials of life ; and they afford a beautiful instance of steadiness and discretion. There have been examples of female excellence in everything. We have heard of the heroine, and of the female martyr ; of the woman of letters, and of the poetess. We are instructed by the recollec- tion of Cornelia and Blandina,^ of the maids of Or- leans and Saragossa ; and the legend of Sappho derives credit from our living reminiscences of Baillie, Hemans, and De Stael. But though these are instances of female superiority, greatness is not * A blessed martyr, who, after having seen her brother, a youth of fifteen, expire in torture, was hf self exposed to wild beasts. — See Milner, vol. i. chap. vi. 108 FEH 1 DEFECTS. the characteristic of the sex. On the contrary, it is to be feared that littleness of mind is rather their peculiarity ; and it is one which the habits of many women do not tend to correct. They are busied about little things, vexed by little cares, anxious about little occurrences. Some, indeed, unhappily, seem to live but for trifles. Theirs is a youth of dress, an old age of cards and gossip. The only effort they make in the way of duty is to order din- ner, and in the way of occupation to work a flower or read a novel. And when a becoming headdress or an agreeable partner have ceased to be matters of interest, they fly to tittle-tattle, as to their only refuge from dulness. Gossip of all kinds is, however, equally idle and frivolous. Whether it be the scandal of a country town or of the great world, it is equally idle and equally wrong ; and it is a disgrace to the gentler sex that they are so universally charged with the propensity. Not but that the stigma is both too generally and too exclusively applied ; for there are many women who do not by any means deserve it, and there are many men who do. And if the majority still be on the side of female delinquents, we must make some allowance for their contracted sphere and their want of important occupation. True, every woman may find plenty to do, and every woman may do good, and employment is the best prescription for a restless tongue. But edu- cation and habit are generally in fault. There are many who are by no means disinclined from useful FEMALE DEFECTS. JO 9 effort, but who do not know how to commence it; and who, if they are now little better than tattlers or busy bodies, might have been earlier led to devote their time to improving occupation and active duty. Religious gossip is quite as bad as any other. It can be by no means edifying to be perpetually dis- cussing the spiritual state of others and giving our opinion on their progress. We can scarcely indulge in any such comments without being in some degree censorious ; and it would always do us much more good quietly to examine our own hearts than to in- terfere with the conduct ' or consciences of those around us. Yet this is a propensity in which, it must be al- lowed, we are all occasionally apt to indulge ; and if some are intolerant to every departure from their standard of duty, others are equally tenacious of what they imagine to be decorum. They are the first to note indiscretions of every kind ; to surmise what is wrong and predict what is unhappy. They are the Cassandras of society ; and if their conver- sation is ever liked, it is a justification of the remark, that there is something not disagreeable in hearing of the misfortunes of our best friends. There are, however, comparatively few women who deserve such a reproach. Even those who are too fond of discussing their neighbors indulge their propensity, in general, with no ill intent. They do ?o. often, from the mere love of talking, and because, 10 110 FEMALE DEFECTS. when they have exhausted the weather and the fashions, they are somewhat at a loss for subjects of conversation. But women should endeavor to raise their minds above the trifles which too often engross them. Thev' should consider that intellectual elevation is the great end of attainment ; for it is not the being a little more accomplished than their grandmothers that will im- part to them real superiority. They may multiply acquirements, and yet be no wiser than if their only book had been the Spectator, and their only study the science of confections. The great end of knowledge is to learn to think ; and of this women are quite capable. They are capable of moral and intellectual efforts; and the more they improve their mental faculties, the more useful will they be, and the higher will they rise in the social scale. And they will, too, be less liable to go wrong ; for they will have that within them which will be a corrective to their faults and a stimulus to their vir- tues. Such women, though they may have their share of trial, will bear up against misfortune, and will animate and bless others. And their religion will be so sound and genuine, that it will be their refuge in every distress, — the spring of their comfort and the ground of their hope ; it will be liable neither to decline nor change, but will prove a never-failing source of comfort in all the vicissitudes of life. ON FEMALE ROMANCE. Most women are inclined to be romantic. Thia tendency is not confined to the young or to the beau- tiful, to the intellectual or to the refined. Every woman capable of strong feeling is susceptible of romance; and though its degree may depend. on external circumstances, or education, or station, or excitement, it generally exists, and requires only a stimulus for its development. Romance,* indeed, contributes much to the charm of female character. Without some degree of it no woman can be interesting ; and though its excess is a weakness, and one which receives but little in- dulgence, there is nothing truly generous or disin- terested which does not imply its existence. It is that poetry of sentiment which imparts to character or incident something of the beautiful or the sub- lime ; which elevates us to a higher sphere ; which gives an ardor to affection, a life to thought, a glow to imagination ; and which lends so warm and sun- ny a hue to the portraiture of life, that it ceases to * This term bas been objected to by an authority to which the writer would respectfully defer ; but she trusts that the context will sufficiently explain her meaning. 112 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. appear the vulgar, and cold, and dull, and mono- tonous reality which common sense alone would make it. But it is this opposition between romance and so- briety that excites so strong a prejudice against the former. It is associated in the minds of many with folly alone. A romantic, silly girl is the object of their contempt ; and they so recoil from this per- sonification of sentiment, that their chief object seems to be to divest themselves altogether of its delusion. Life is to them a mere calculation ; expediency is their maxim, propriety their rule, profit, ease, or comfort their aim; and they have at least this ad- vantage, thaf while minds of higher tone, and hearts of superior sensibility, are often harassed and wound- ed, and even withered, in tneir passage through life : they proceed in their less adventurous career, nei- ther chilled by the coldness, nor sickened by the meanness, nor disappointed by the selfishness, of the world. They virtually admit, though they often theoretically deny, the baseness of human nature ; and, strangers to disinterestedness themselves, they do not expect to meet with it in others. They are content with a low degree of enjoyment, and are thus exempted from much poignant suffering ; and it is only when the casualties of life interfere with their individual ease that we can perceive that they are not altogether insensible. A good deal of this phlegmatic disposition exists in many who are capable of higher feeling. Such ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 113 persons are so afraid of sensibility, that they repress in themselves every thing that savors of it ; and though we may occasionally detect it in the mount- ing flush, or in the glistening tear, or in the half- stifled sigh, it is in vain that we endeavor to elicit any more explicit avowal. They are ashamed even of what they do betray ; and one would imagine that the imputation of sensibility were almost a re flection on their character. They must not feel, or at least, they must not allow that they feel; for feeling has led so many persons wrong that decorum can be preserved, they think, only by indifference. And they c nd in becoming really as callous as they wish to appear, and stifle emotion so successfully that at length it ceases to give them uneasiness. Such is often the case with many who pass through life with great decorum ; and though wo- men have naturally more sensibility than the other sex, they too sometimes consider its indulgence al- together wrong. Yet, if its excess is foolish, it is surely a mistake to attempt to suppress it altogether ; for such attempt will either produce a dangerous re- vulsion, or, if successful, will spoil the character. One would rather, almost, that a woman were ever so romantic, than that she always thought, and felt, and spoke by rule ; and should deem it preferable that her sensibility brought upon her. occasional dis- tress, than that she always calculated the degree of her feeling. Life has its romance, and to this it owes much 10* H 1 14 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. of its charm. It is not that every woman is a he- roine, and every individual history a novel; but there are scenes and incidents in real life so peculiar, and often so poetic, that vve need not be indebted to fiction for the development of romance. Christians will trace such scenes and incidents immediately to Providence, and they do so with affectionate and confiding hearts ; and the more affecting or remarka- ble these may be, the more clearly do they recognise the divine interference. They regard them as re- membrances of Heaven, to recall to them their con- nection with it, and remind them, that whatever there may be to interest or excite their fe?lings here, there is infinitely more to affect and warm their hearts in the glorious prospects beyond. It is natural that women should be very suscepti- ble to such impressions ; that they should view life with almost a poetic eye ; and that they should be peculiarly sensitive to its vicissitudes. And though a Quixotic quest after adventures is as silly as it is vain, and to invest every trifle with importance, or to see something marvellous in every incident, is equally absurd ; there is no reason why the ima- gination should not grasp whatever is picturesque, and the mind dwell upon whatever is impressive, and the heart warm with whatever is affecting in the changes and chances of our pilgrimage. There is, indeed, a great deal of what is low and mean in all that is connected with this world, quite enough to sully the most glowing picture ; but let us some- ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 115 times view life with its golden tints, let us sometimes taste its ambrosial dews, let us sometimes breathe its more ethereal atmosphere ; and let us do so, not as satisfied with any thing it can afford, not as en- tranced by any of its illusions, but as those who catch, even in this dull mirror, a shadowy delinea- tion of a brighter world, and who pant for what is pure, celestial, and eternal. This is surely better than clipping the wings of imagination, or restrain- ing the impulses of feeling, or reducing all our joys and sorrows to mere matters of calculation or of sense. They are indeed to be pitied who err in the op- posite extreme — whose happiness or misery is en- tirely ideal ; but we have within us such a capacity for both independent of all outward circumstances, and such a power of extracting either from every circumstance, that it is surely more wise to discipline such a faculty than to disallow its influence. Youth is, of course, the season for romance. Its buoyant spirit must soar, till weighed down by earthly care. It is in youth that the feelings are warm and the fancy fresh, and that there has been no blight to chill the one or to wither the other. And it is in youth that hope lends its cheering ray and love its genial influence ; that our friends smile upon us, our companions do not cross us, and our parents are still at hand to cherish us in their bosoms, and sympa- thize in all our young and ardent feelings. It is 'hen that the world ceems so fair, and our fellow- 116 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. creatures so kind, that we charge with spleen any who would prepare us for disappointment, and ac- cuse those of misanthropy who would warn our too confiding hearts. And though in maturer life we may smile at the romance of youth, and lament per- haps its aberrations, yet must we often regret the depth of our young emotions, the disinterestedness of our young affections, and that enthusiasm of pur- pose which, alas ! we soon grow too wise to cherish. Young women are peculiarly liable to enthusiasm of every kind. They are so gentle, so tender, so imaginative, and they have often so much leisure to indulge in reveries and ecstacies, that it is not to be wondered at that they should be occasionally some- what visionary. Yet their extravagance has con- tributed more than any thing else to bring discredit upon sentiment. Its affectation often sickens more even than its folly. It is so distressing to see a young woman sighing, and weeping, and dreaming away her existence, one moment in a hysteric and another in a faint, always getting up a scene or sup- porting a part, that one is almost prepared to accede to any tirade against sentiment, the caricature of which is so truly absurd. Young women should be taught the folly of sentimentalism. They should be taught, that though it is a very right thing and a very serious thing to feel, it is a very wrong thing and a very silly thing to be languishing and affected. They should learn to look at life through a faithful medium ; to see it } long perspective in all its true ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 117 variety of light and shade, of what is beautiful and what is depressing. And if, even while they allow the preponderance to the latter, their eye will still seek out and linger on some few bright spots, and their young anticipations will scarcely submit to be sobered by any thing but by their own experience ; they should, on this account especially, learn to stretch their view beyond this earthly prospect, and rest their sight upon a far distant land, where there is, indeed, every thing to transport and every thing to satisfy, where there are scenes too vivid for ima- gination to paint and pleasures too sublime for intel- lect to conceive. The romance of youth is naturally associated with that of love ; and it is the intimacy of their union, and the inconsequences which frequently result from the latter, that may in some degree account for the horror which certain persons entertain of senti- ment. A romantic girl is concluded to' be in love, or ready to become so. She is, in her own imagi- nation, a lady of romance ; and her sensibility is the cause of a thousand follies, if not of more serious aberrations. Love seems to her such a pleasing dream ; it is identified with so many soft and sweet emotions, and associated with so many picturesque and pretty things, — with the interesting flutter and the speaking sigh, with music, and poetry, and moon- light, and a cottage, — that her foolish heart welcomes its very name, and she courts the tender passion, till she is, or affects to be, its victim. And no wonder. 118 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. then, that she cherishes it, be it ever so incongruous. Opposition is its nourishment, for it is her ambition to be a heroine ; and though she might disdain her inamorato were he admitted to her mother's drawing- room, she will think him irresistible as she smiles on him from a garret, and will nurse and pamper her capricious and wayward fancy till it becomes "a dangerous disease. And even without such excess there is often a great deal that is foolish and sentimental in young women, which the modish coquetry and silly vanity of the world tend too much to encourage. To be the object of admiration and remark, to talk over in the morning coterie the flirtations of the evening assembly, or to be absorbed by a Platonic sentiment, may seem at the time very interesting and poetic. But these are often the beginnings of sorrow. If love has rendered many women very unhappy, and some very criminal ; if that which may be the foun- tain of a woman's joy becomes to her too often only a source of misery ; if, instead of leading a contented and useful life, she pinee away in chagrin, or lan- guishes in inertness, or I comes at once an object of pity and of blame ; this is often attributable to the mere gratification of a paltry ambition, or to the indulgence of a morbid sentimental ism, which a lit- tle energy and a little common sense would soon have subdued. She has talked and mused herself into love, and has affected the symptoms, till thev have really taken possession of her heart. ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 119 A little wholesome occupation is by far the best cure for this fantasy. It is the best remedy both for sickly fancies and for real grief. Persons even of superior intelligence and high religious feeling nepd and experience its efficacy in the latter ; and for the hypochondriasis of love it is so infallible a specific that those who have not recourse to it are wilful suicides. Yet it is a better preventive even than it is a cure ; and to keep the mind well exercised, and the body actively engaged, is an effectual antidote to the extravagances of sentiment or the ill effects of romantic passion. Still, however silly sentimentalism may be, an attempt to reduce to cold calculation the warm affec- tions of youth is very unwise, as well as, for the most part, very futile. The follies of romantic per- sons are often attributable to such treatment. It is precisely the girl who has been daiJy schooled in lessons of mere worldly prudence, — who has been told that love exists only in the reveries of poets, and that ii is highly indecorous and wrong ever to entertain such a sentiment, — who will listen to the first fond tale, and will give away her heart to the first bold bidder, and who will fancy that there can be nothing so interesting and delightful as a descent on a rope ladder or a flight to the Tweed. Or if she is so credulous and so docile as to believe and follow her instructers, how certain are they to render her unhappy. They will lead her to take the most important step in life with the same indifference, 120 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. and for the same reasons, as she "would accept a partner or conclude a bargain ; and she will then have to experienze all the bitterness, and be exposed to alL the dangers, of a life without sympathy, and of a union without affection. And why deprive life of its softest charm, and woman of her loveliest attraction? Is there any sentiment so sweet as that which unites those who virtuously and truly love; which identifies their hopes, their joys, their prospects ; which inspires the weaker with affiance, the stronger with sympathy; which becomes more pure, more disinterested, more •intense, the longer it is experienced ; and which, looking beyond the narrow span of this earthly exist- ence, longs for its renewal in a brighter world ? And is there any thing which can compensate for the want of such a sentiment in woman ? She may amuse, or dazzle, or look pretty ; she may show off well in a drawing-room, and gratify for a while the vanity that selected her ; but her brilliancy cannot compensate for her indifference ; nor can she inspire an exalted sentiment who is herself incapable of feeling it. What but love can dictate the amenities so essential to domestic happiness, — can excuse mutual faults, can drive away duiness and give in- terest to duty, can lighten every burden and enhance .every pleasure, can sweeten every thing bitter and render more grateful every thing sweet ? Love is indeed the golden thread which imparts richness and value to the coarsest woof; and happier, far happier, ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 121 are they, who, with love in their hearts, encounter many a shock, and cope with many a struggle, than they who, soured by mutual disesteem, find even their luxurious indolence fatiguing, and their costly pleasures tasteless and disappointing. It were well that young women should feel that affection is a thing too precious to be thrown away, and too serious to be trifled with. They may, and probably they will, love ; and, if the object be worthy of their regard, the more deep and sincere the senti- ment, the more likely is it to make them happy. Such is indeed their due who are themselves in earnest ; and minds and hearts of the finest tone will be the most jealous of any thing like coldness. Nor is it depth of sentiment which is to be apprehended ; it is that fickle, shallow, perverse, and silly day- dream, which women miscall love, whose results are so pernicious, and whose effects on character are so undermining. There is nothing disinterested or elevating about it: it is often mere vanity — the eclat of an admirer, the excitement of a courtship, the matrimonial equipment, the bridal attendance, the privilege of precedence, or, as was once said by a young and gay fiancee, of having gloves and ribands to match. There is a great deal of spurious sentiment in every thing ; and the affectation or misapplication of feeling is far more prejudicial than its excess. Thus the sympathy which works of fiction excite, though it has in it something tender and romantic, 11 122 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. by no means involves real feeling. The young woman who is versed in romances will, no doubt, acquire the language of sentiment. She will have a sigh and a tear for every occasion, a languishing look and a nervous palpitation ; she will condole with every tale of distress, and be exuberant, at least, in her professions of sympathy. She will even imagine it very pretty and picturesque to appear in a cottage, to drop a guinea on a poor man's table, and to receive with blushing modesty his lavish thanks. But when the effort is really to be made, when she finds that charity involves self-denial and exertion, that she must rise from her luxurious couch, and soil her silken sandals, and encounter perhaps rudeness and ingratitude from the objects of her relief, and that all this is to be done without obser- vation or applause, — that there is no one to overhear her gentle voice, or to watch her gliding footsteps, or to trace her fairy form as she passes down the vil- lage street, — then her philanthropic ardor cools, — she shrinks from the painful duty, and discovers that what is very pleasing and poetic in description is very dull and irksome in practice. The very morbidness of her sensibility is a bar to the real exercise of benevolence ; she cannot bear to look upon pain ; — there is so much that is offensive in human misery and unromantic in its detail, there is so much that is appalling in scenes of misery, and sickness, and death, that she recoils from the mere observation of such calamities ; and she shuts her ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 123 eyes and closes her ears to genuine distress, from the same feelings that cause her to scream at the approach of a spider or faint at the sight of blood. Yet she delights to nurse imaginary griefs, to live in an ideal world, and so to pamper her fancy and excite her sensibility that they alone become to her prolific sources of unhappiness. There is a romance in grief which is highly poetic. There is something sublime in the extremity of hu- man woe. Who does not feel its pathos when he reads of Antigone or of Hecuba, of the daughter of Aiah or of the widow of Nain ? Who does not feel it when he witnesses or experiences the too frequent tragedies of ordinary life ? Yet there is here also danger in the indulgence of sentiment. There may be a pride in the excess of grief. There may be a luxury in the exuberance of tears. There may be a dreamy trance, in which the sufferers find almost pleasure, and from which they will not descend. And thus they may shroud themselves in their grief, and discard every thing which would divert them from its contemplation, and indulge in a fond and sentimental reverie, which they may almost imagine it a desecration to disturb. This is not unfrequcntly the case with women whose minds are sensitive but weak, and who seem to make a merit of giving way to sorrow. But it is a perversion of feeling, not its consequence. For that sentiment is in reality most intense that does 124 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. not indulge itself in expression, that grief most affect- ing that is not selfish, that emotion most noble and sublime that elevates, not to ecstasy, but to exertion, — that does not spend itself in weeping over a tomb or in wailing a coronach, but sends the mourner forth in modest, quiet, unobtrusive sorrow, to encounter •gain the trials of life, and to fulfil its obligations. ON FEMALE ROMANCE. The sensitive mind discovers poetry every where. As it is touched with whatever is affecting in the chances of life, so does it taste whatever is picturesque in the objects of nature. All that is majestic and lovely here is to it a source of delight, and helps ii to form a more just conception of him who is the Author of so much beauty. It is thus that in the images of earth may be recognised the tokens of eternity, — in the canopy of heaven and the expanse of the ocean, in the setting glories of the sun and the melting colors of the rainbow, visions and em- blems of a brighter world. And the emotions thus excited are very good for us. They are the dews that refreshen the heart and prepare it for spiritual culture. They are the voice of God speaking to us in his works, and de- manding our affection and our service. The mere aflecters of sentiment have, however, no capacity for deep feeling. They may travel over the world to support their pretensions ; may scale the Alpine range, and tread the Hesperian shore, and stand upon the ruins of the Capitol ; but they feel no kindling of spirit, no soft and sad associa- 11* 126 1!S FEMALE ROMANCE. tions, — they have no object but to compose a jour- nal or to embellish an album. Thus it is sometimes with young women to whom the commonplaces of sentiment are familiar, who are fluent in expression and ready with their pencil, who affect pathos and study the picturesque. They have, perhaps, made a pilgrimage to St. Peter's, or a tour to the Lakes ; they have sailed on the bay of Naples, or have sketched Windermere ; they talk of nothing but " the eternal city," or of autumnal tints ; and we are alternately wearied by their bad drawings and their worse taste. Not, however, that their sentimentality is alto- gether affected. On the contrary, they often feel at the moment all that they express ; and though their rhapsodies may be transient, they are genuine. Woman is naturally susceptible, and especially so when her imagination is excited, and when fancy as well as feeling is encouraged to expatiate in the region of romance. It is for this reason she is so susceptible of the charms of verse. Perhaps there are few young women who have not, at some time or other, invoked the muse, and who have not in their portfolios the fragments of an address to Phoe- bus or of an ode to Cynthia. And it may be said that theirs is a harmless pas- sion, and at least does not deserve our censure. But there is always danger in fictitious feeling. It is always to be apprehended, lest those devotees of song should poetize real life ; lest the same exagge- ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 1*27 ration which converts a pond into a lake, and a shrubbery into a forest, should sometimes transform a gardener into an Orlando. Nor does any thing bring sentiment so much into discredit as its caricature. It is easy to assume the eccentricities of genius, to affect abstraction, and to apostrophize the moon. But one would almost rather that a young woman had no poetical taste, than that she were always inditing sonnets or reciting Lord Byron. We must not mistake affectation for taste in any thing. The one always leads to silliness and ex- travagance, the other teaches us to appreciate true beauty. It is the same with fine arts as with poetry. Real enthusiasm in both generally leads to excellence ; but the affectation of sentiment is the symptom of a weak mind. To be perpetually discussing Canova and Chantry, or referring to the Louvre or the Vatican, to be in ecstasies with every bit of broken marble, and to trace an original in every dirty pic- ture, may amaze the ignorant and credulous, but is, in reality, very absurd. They who know most can least tolerate such pretension ; and it is much to be regretted when young persons read, take lessons, and travel, not that they may acquire what is valu- able or observe what is really important, but because it is fashionable to affect and display an interest in every subject of feeling and taste. Besides, the danger is lest a similar extravagance 128 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. be evinced elsewhere, and lest an abuse or affec- tation of sentiment on all points be substituted for real feeling. Nothing, for instance, is more to be apprehended than such a mistake with regard to religion. The influence of romance, indeed, here is very dangerous. Not that we • are to be insensible to the beauty of the Christian system, or that our perception of it should not mix with and heighten our devotional impressions ; but the danger is lest we mistake our admiration of it for our reception of its truths, and a mere imaginative excitement for spiritual fervor. Eloquence, poetry, even music, and the fine arts, may be appliances of religion ; nor, though we ought to be jealous of their influence, is it necessary that we should exclude them. The poetry of Scrip- ture, the eloquence and harmony of nature, our very constitution, prove that these are intended to be links in the chain which is to draw our hearts to heaven. But, then, there is not unfrequently cause to sus- pect that it is the poetry, not the truth, of the Gospel of which the heart is enamored. It melts under an appeal, it is touched by the impassioned eloquence of the pleader ; it yields not to his arguments, but to his persuasion. Could he have been equally pathetic on any other subject, he would have been equally successful. Such impressions are generally transient. They evaporate in a few tears ; and a compliment to the ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 129 sermon, and a complacent recollection of the sensi- bility it excited, are its sole result. But there may be a more permanent, yet equally illusive, affection. Religious enthusiasm is often nothing, more than religious romance. It is the con- sequence of some vivid impression on the fancy or the feeling, without a proportionate conviction of the understanding, or, at any rate, without an accurate knowledge of scriptural truth. Sudden conversions are on this account suspicious ; not because they are unlikely, but because they are too often unreal. If the fire from heaven has often shot like lightning through the soul, and at once purified and absorbed its affections ; there has been, not unfrequently, a less ethereal spark, whose bril- liancy has dazzled and misled them. And women are very prone to be thus deceived. They are sud- denly struck with the poetry of religion, and yield to it at once a sentimental and enthusiastic homage. And there is so much apparent fervor in their piety that we cannot dare to think it unreal ; there is so much tenderness and devotedness in their service that we scruple to question its sincerity. Yet self-deception may be carried to a great ex- tent. There is very much to excite in religion ; there are the glowing imagery and the touching simplicity of Scripture, the pathetic story and the sublime purpose of the Gospel, its affecting develop- ment and awful catastrophe ; and these things ad- dress themselves so powerfully to the imagination I 130 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. and the heart, and, independently of spiritual influ- ence, so affect them, that we can scarcely wonder that impressions thus excited should impose on many, because they bear all the appearance of being genu- ine. Yet they may be only the tribute which sensi- tive minds must pay to poetry every where ; and their inadequacy proves that Christianity is some- thing more than a mere matter of taste and feeling, and that it implies the operation of divine grace. Even where this grace is accorded, there is still room for mistake. Christians may not clearly dis- tinguish their own impressions ; they may not dis- criminate between what is innate and what is im- planted ; — between a constitutional bias and an in- fused principle ; — between natural sensibility and religious feeling. And they may thus be betrayed into a thousand errors. Female romance finds ample room for indulgence in the religious visions of the present day. The mystic trance, the unknown tongue, the pretended miracle, as they are the creation, so are they the aliment, of enthusiasm. There is something so ex- citing in being transported beyond commonplace incidents, in being no longer fettered by physical possibilities, in being ourselves the expectants, if not the actual recipients, of extraordinary powers, that one can scarcely wonder at a credulity at once so flattering and so delightful. One almost scruples to disturb so delicious a reverie, and to bring down the Quietist from her ambrosial cloud ; but that one ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 131 cannot but apprehend some danger from her flight. Perhaps, indeed, it might be better to let her rhap- sodize undisturbed, for time must break the en- chanted glass ; and if, with the destruction of her visions, reason and religion resume their sway, she vvill be glad to return to the practice of known duty, and to substitute simple truth for subtle phantasies. Enthusiasm is not unfrequently a mere animal fever, which is perpetually nursed by stimulants, when it ought to be allayed by sedatives. It is a wandering of mind, bordering on delirium, which exaggerates realities, and embodies shadows, and yet has a painful consciousness of its own aberrations. For the enthusiast has often her misgivings, which are, indeed, the best symptoms of her state. They are as lucid intervals which indicate returning rea- son. And happy will she be when her malady sub- sides ; and when, instead of seeing visions, and hearing voices, and mistaking phantoms for celestial forms, she submits once more to the simplicity of Scripture, and walks once more quietly and humbly with her God. There are female visionaries from whom one can- not but anticipate such a termination. They are so good and so sincere ; their feelings are so tender, their hearts so affectionate, and their piety so warm ; they have so sweet, and kind, and heavenly a spirit, that, though we must fear that they have erred very far from the truth, we cherish the persuasion that they will soon return. They deserve our esteem, 132 ON FEMALE ROMANCE. our love, and, as far as may be, our sympathy ; and if, in spite of their gentleness, their creed is exclu- sive, and they scruple not to question the safety of those who in any degree differ from them ; let it, on the other hand, be our care so to act, that, in what- ever else they may think us deficient, they may learn from us a lesson of charity. But let not their zeal or their amiability prevail with us to entertain their errors. It may, indeed, require some firmness to resist them ; we may ad- mire their piety and prize their good opinion ; we may even feel that their appeal is not without power ; but let us bring their doctrines to the test of Scripture, and if they will not stand this scrutiny let nothing prevail on us to entertain them. We are safe only when truth is the object of our affections, and when we find in it satisfaction and delight. And surely it affords enough for the most ardent mind. Is there not in the Gospel every thing that is sublime ? Is there not in God, as he is there revealed, every thing to engage our hearts ? Why then should we look for Him where He is not ? He has walked in the form of man ; He has spoken in the language of earth, and He now appeals to our human feelings, and asks our reasonable service. Religion is, indeed, not a mere system. It is full sentiment and love ; a sentiment that calms, and - love that occupies the soul. And happy only is the woman who experiences these ; who finds in the ON FEMALE ROMANCE. 133 assuran .e of the divine sympathy, and in her love to God, a cordial to her spirit, an anodyne to her griefs, and a stimulus to her hopes. Duty then loses all its irksomeness, for it is the tribute of love ; and the Christian rejoices in a sense of that union which binds her, in grateful dependence, to the Giver of all good. And as, though not insensible to present blessing, nor ungrateful for present refreshment, she feels the lurking thorn in every thing connected with earth, she therefore dwells with greater delight on the prospect of a happier world. She tastes whatever there is of God here, and looks for the full and per- fect nanifestation of him in his immediate presence. 12 FEMALE EDUCATION. It is a good sign of the advance of society when at- tention is paid to the education of women. The youth of the other sex commonly monopolize all the care of a rude people, and the female child is left to acquire aj she may the little menial arts, which are to be her perpetual and exclusive employment. And even when war and the chase have given place to intellectual pursuits, it is long before woman reaps the advantage. Her beauty is still considered her sole claim to regard, and her mind is thought inca- pable of culture, or not worth the pains. The increased attention bestowed upor