the educated woman's peculiar function. And wherever woman is clearly seen to combine knowlege, the capacity for imparting it, and power of discipline, let her be joyfully welcomed, nay, summoned to educational posts. It is also, we doubt not, an occasion of edification, when Lucretia Mott utters her convictions in the placid gathering of Friends, the tradition and habit of which place finely harmonize with woman's power of pure and tender exhortation. But mere exhortation, though its monotonous repetition may prove a salutary interruption to the silent meeting, would be a slender stock to mount with into the modern pulpit, where science and faith should make their mighty league to win the souls of men. The preaching that develops the harmonies of the universe, and puts its utmost verge under contribution for traces of the laws of God, that devotes the manifold knowledge thus acquired to judge the sceptic on his own domain, and to force the conquered understanding into an alliance with religious faith, that affects the soul by its great cumulative argument of facts and sentiments, by its perception of men's motives and habits, its sympathy with their domestic fortunes, its acquaintance with their political, professional, masculine temptations, its criticisms of their practical morality, its revelations of their latent spiritual powers, must be something more than a few Scripture texts nicely imbedded in a customary flow of sentiment. Preaching must address the whole man, block his path with the whole creation, and interrupt him with such a necessity for worship as neither his intellect nor his passion can evade. It must take the trouble to understand, even to feel and appreciate, in order to refute, his practical subterfuges and delinquencies. The modern church is sometimes a sanctuary, that conceals holy sorrow and devotion, and permits womanly emotions to venture forth in quest of the Divine sympathy; it is sometimes an arena, where the fight of Paul at Ephesus must be waged with the sword of truth and of the spirit; it is sometimes the Christian school, where the thoughts of God are explained, the structure of the human motives analyzed, and the great argument of creative logic developed against human fallacies. Against the weight and muscle of modern times, woman's placid exhortations would ripple like the wind; her indignation, unsteadied by equal weight and muscle, would come down like the child's fist upon the granite. And grant to her the needful powers sufficiently developed and enriched, yet her ignorance of men, and her providential remoteness from their egotism and coarseness, will for ever disqualify her for some of the pulpit's most essential ministrations. Will not a seven days' influence, in the atmosphere that vibrates so promptly to her gentleness, atone to her for this tyrannical assumption of one day, and this expulsion from the paradises of the pulpit and the polls? And mark how quickly her delicate fragrance vanishes when transplanted to the rude platforms of debate, where the tumultuous listeners infect even her voice with their coarseness, and bring out upon her features the unwelcome looks of antagonism and intolerance. In such a climate, sooner or later, a fair saint would surely spindle into a termagant.* And by what advantages brought to the causes of truth does she indicate her new position? Has she left her retirement under the convic tion that the masculine nature shows feebleness in attack or in defence, is cursed with poverty of expression or of insight, and must be reinforced by clearer views and more trenchant statements? Alas! when we await this feast of fresh beauty, subtlety, transparency, we are served with a re-hash of the sentiments and arguments with which the stalwart, manly Apostles had already thrilled us, in the hours when the wisdom sprang fullarmed from their foreheads to stand before us in the glow of unmimicked feeling. She borrows the very skeletons of her speeches from this school of eloquence; we faintly recognize the old masters, nearly rubbed to death in this process of feminine restoration. Here and there a bit of noble coloring awakes painful recollections, and we long to see the canvas of the moment warmed to life and beauty by the genuine pencil. She has escaped from the occupations predestined for her taste and power, to do this drudgery of repetition and feeble imitation. How different her pretensions and success in the concert-room or on the stage, when she exercises a right because she can confer an inestimable favor! But the shafts which * Unless we are misinformed, sundry recent tilts at Cleveland and elsewhere corroborate the above remark. she fits to the bow of Ulysses fall miserably short, and we retire unpierced. What right is involved in this privilege to handle the weapons of moral debate, except the dubious one of serving as a foil to the sinewy skill of their owners, and convincing us for ever that man is the preacher and organizer, the critic and the radical? Let dilettanteism abstain from toying with immutable truths or the facts of human suffering. For those who are afflicted with amateur propensities, the balloon and the diving-bell afford striking opportunities for varying monotonous employments and mingling in other spheres; but neither man nor woman can vindicate a right to handle themes of sacred import, who merely administers faint dilutions of the existing knowledge or enthusiasm that is devoted to them. Why should woman surrender her peculiar power, to convince mankind of her peculiar feebleness? We turn unrefreshed from such an experiment, to seek the serene home which Mary Ware blesses with counsel, grace, and sustained fortitude, making thę care-worn days the platforms whence she holds her high debates; we glow with courage, we melt with tenderness, we suffer with patience, at the dictate of this absolute woman, who builds an empire out of her restraints. How many public discussions would be equivalent to the dignified and powerful argument of such a life, which thrilled to the magnetism of so small an audience? We follow with grateful reverence the steps of Miss Dix, and all sisters of charity, as they walk in womanly remembrance of their Master's words: "I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me." Here is an arena open to these discontented persons who desire to ventilate their public energies. What business, what debates, what administrative provinces, could yield to them the satisfaction and the glory of the heavenly fruits reaped in such fields, where the laborers are few? Would it not be better for women who have time enough to utter their public protests against misery and crime, to spend that nature and temper, so exquisitely made for charity, in silent alleviation of some of the evils that implore their intervention? Man's noblest laurels shake and wilt at the thought of the immortality which God has thus proffered to woman through the very constitution of her soul. Pure and sin cere sympathy, tact that is never baffled, patience that is never exhausted, the charity that believeth and endureth all things, has made woman. the predestined almoner of modern times. But those of the sex who protest the loudest, and chafe the most restlessly, in want of margin for their energies, are those in whom the patient, womanly type of Jesus has been the most impaired; there the zeal which impels has lost the wisdom which should serve. Let us proceed to consider briefly another method, in addition to education, for increasing woman's dignity and happiness amid the constraints of domestic life; that, namely, of returning to greater simplicity of living. So long as the country is suffused, throughout its length and breadth, with the first fervor of success, and families and cities acquire wealth faster than they acquire knowledge and culture, it may seem hopeless to speak of a return to a more simple, domestic style. Every city seems like a parvenu slightly muddled with his sudden patrimony, making desperate attempts to assume sobriety and taste. This access of superfluous means gets relief in ostentatious and frivolous details; and the effect upon those who are yet struggling for their competency is to increase the number of their wants, to raise their standard for themselves and children above their income, and to keep them in constant anxiety between their desire and their inability for show. Under this artificial pressure of society, the women suffer most; the accumulation of details weighs heaviest upon them. The very difference between a simple dress and one a little more ornate, which maternal ambition devises for her children, tasks her wits and fingers, and she is victimized by the extra trifles with which she meditates display. In this respect the women are blameworthy as well as suffering; they are infected a little with the vulgar temper of their country. We have seen an amiable, but rather aspiring woman, perfectly miserable because she could not equal the hospitalities and share the extra chances of more wealthy families. In one breath she would inveigh against the tyranny of domestic life, which was using up her time and temper with its pettiness; the next breath would be a sigh at the coyness of bewitching competency and at the limitations of her life. Woman, at least, should preserve tranquillity and modesty in the midst of this desolating, brutifying American competition. Her unflushed face should teach the husband each day how to wait, as well. as how to labor. Her modest desires, united with supreme contempt for society's opinion, should be a rebuke to his vulgar eagerness to be as wealthy as his neighbor, wasting, as he does, for that poor aim, his opportunities for personal culture, desecrating the sacredness of his home, and converting it into a show-box, with his wife for a puppet, and trifles for the game. If woman would enjoy more freedom, let her invite society back to greater simplicity. But let the mind of woman be ever so much enlarged by knowledge, and her toil lightened by simpler ambitions, she cannot repeal the domestic laws which place many heavy burdens upon her and exhaust the freshness of every day. Like the farmer, the lawyer, the mechanic, she must tread in a routine, she must accept the provisions of toil which belong to her first estate. It is no novel innovation which thus oppresses her. Knowledge and virtue can neither renew her youth, nor keep the heavy cares from her dwelling. What is marriage itself, which floats in vague colors through the realm conjured by youthful fancy out of the future? Believe it, young woman, the estate of marriage contains the harshest elements of earthly discipline. You will find the texts of Scripture which speak of the cross of Jesus appropriate, when the triumphant emotions which have marshalled you, like festal music, into this land of dreams, shall have become cowed down by dull monotony. You will recall the promises of the lowly Jesus; till then your prayers never contained the pathos of his tender regards for women, -"Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Marriage is the school of maturity, in which disappointment, anxiety, death, maintain the drill. The seasons of joy only introduce more impressively the contrasts of sorrow. pect not to enjoy the consummation of your untutored hopes; each promotion that the human heart attains, only reveals to it the same fatality of earth. The future looks to us like a lover: we find it a schoolmaster. The fancy cannot transmute the earths to precious metals. This soil which we tread is the substance of our food and drink, the building-material of our resting-places, the Ex |