have no apology for the pleasure-loving and spendthrift wife; there would be fewer widows, if wives were more industrious and economical. There is no such thing as throwing off the original curse of care and labor either from man or woman. The obligation and the necessity of toil in her own proper sphere, rests as truly upon all the daughters of Eve, as upon all the sons of Adam. Wealth may furnish a partial exemption from labor; it is no exemption from care. Solomon, in describing a virtuous woman, says that "her candle goeth not out by night." The most splendid women the world has seen, have been those who were most familiar with care and toil. It would be difficult to find more distinguished women than the Countess of Huntingdon, the Lady Rachel Russel, whose husband was beheaded by Charles II., and Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, who flourished during the civil wars in England, and died in prison after the Restoration. But they were women not less distinguished for forethought and toil, than for the high stations they occupied. And the more retired scenes of private life furnish thousands not less distinguished than they, and not less worthy to be immortalized on the page of history. The woman who would not be a sufferer, must, in the ordinary course of providence, be alive, awake, and in earnest in the superintendence and management of her domestic affairs. If her hand

is not everywhere, her eye must be everywhere, and her authority everywhere in her own household. A cheerful submission to this great law forms one of the prominent virtues of her character, and where this is wanting she is a stranger to woman's true worth and excellence.

Her

Allied to this is a well-cultivated mind. intellectual endowments qualify her for high degrees of mental embellishment; nor are there any departments even of solid learning and science which, with suitable training, auxiliaries, and incitement, she might not adorn. The fact that she lives in her affections, rather than in the ambition which stimulates to high attainments in the profound sciences, indicates the limits beyond which, in ordinary cases, her intellectual researches may not be extended; while the station she occupies, the influence she exerts, and the power she possesses over the minds of the young, indicate not less clearly that, where her domestic qualifications are not interfered with, she is the more esteemed and honored by all her advances in knowledge. Aside from the men who are employed in the learned professions, the great mass of females in this land of enterprise and hope, are better educated than the males. In the ordinary intercourse of the middle classes, as well as in more polished circles, the number of females who are well grounded in all the branches of a good English

sex.

education, and who are capable of thinking, and of expressing their thoughts with propriety, force, and elegance, is far greater than that of the other Not many years since, an intelligent lady from a foreign land remarked, that nothing more surprised her than to find so much attention paid in the United States to female education. I will not say, that in reference to the other sex, this is as it ought to be; while it is highly creditable to woman. She is the better informed class of the community; nor is society the loser by her preeminence. Her keen perceptions, her intuitive judgment, her ready wit, her vivid fancy, and her retentive memory, cultivated, enriched, and adorned, render her her husband's pride, the glory of her children, and the charm of the social circle. We regret to express the opinion that, in a solid and well-measured education, the women of the present age are not so far in advance of their predecessors as their opportunities of advancement. They are exposed to magnify the mere elegancies of education above its more useful and practical tendencies; they live in the song and the dance; or they revel in romance, and melt away in dreamy sentimentalism, when they ought to be more intent on storing their minds with facts and principles; in becoming acquainted with standard authors, and in learning how to turn their attainments to good account. Woman's object is to

please; and sooner or later she will learn that she cannot do this with becoming grace and dignity, and cannot do it permanently, where her society is not instructive. Men there are who are too proud to be instructed by a woman; but so far is this from being their general character, that the insinuation of female loveliness and modesty is never more welcome than when most instructive. By such teaching, the unthinking of the stronger sex imperceptibly slide into new truths, and make them their own. We need not fear cultivated intellect in woman. Where the God of nature has given her the force, and opportunity the furniture, of a well-disciplined and richly-cultivated mind, she is not the less lovely, nor beloved.

But the most important attainment of woman is personal piety. Though in adverting to the peculiarities of woman, we have remarked that she presents the fairer side of human apostasy, we are not to forget that she is one for whom there is no redemption but through Him who "came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance." She was the first to fall, and man's successful tempter. It were no marvel, that the blighting effects of sin should pass over her, and leave her scathed with the tokens of God's displeasure. With all her defencelessness and sorrows, there is nothing which woman so much needs as personal piety. Frail woman must have the Eternal God for her refuge.

The keen storms of adversity will pass over her, and she will sink beneath its billows, if she have not this refuge, and her defenceless head be not covered with the shadow of his wing.

When we speak of piety, we mean something more than a name. By piety, we mean the religion of principle, in distinction from the religion of impulse; a spiritual religion, in distinction from a religion of forms; a religion of which the Spirit of God, and not the wisdom or the will of man, is the author; a self-denying and not a self-indulgent religion; a religion that has a heavenward, and not an earthly tendency; a practical religion, in opposition to the abstractions of theory; and a religion that is so full of Christ, that the crucified One is at the basis of its duties and hopes, its centre, its living head, and its glory." Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." Other things there are which constitute her adornment; this is the brightest jewel in her crown. Separate her inferior and incidental adornments from a heart-felt and prac tical Christianity; associate them with immorality, imbue them with infidelity or atheism; and they are worse than snares-they are a curse to herself and the world. There is nothing of more dangerous tendency and influence than an impious or infidel woman. There are few men in the world so degenerate, and so utterly lost to all sense of right