e path of sin by vanity as the chief
motive. Where one woman falls from low and coarse passions, a hundred
fall from sheer levity and the love of admiration.

To counteract this fatal influence young women must be taught to
respect themselves, to be on their guard against vanity and its
enticements, to cherish personal modesty in every way. The married
woman who is quietly working by example or by precept among the young
girls nearest to her, seeking to cherish and foster among them this
vital principle of pure personal modesty in dress, in language, in
reading, in tone of voice, in countenance, in manner--the natural
outward expression of true modesty of heart--is doing far more for her
country than if she were to mount the rostrum to-morrow and make a
political speech eloquent as any of Webster's.

Sensible women may always have a good measure of political influence of
the right sort, if they choose. And it is in one sense a duty on their
part to claim this influence, and to exert it, but always in the true
womanly way. The influence of good sense, of a sound judgment, of good
feeling may always he theirs. Let us see that we preserve this
influence, and that we use it wisely. But let us cherish our happy
immunities as women by keeping aloof from all public personal action in
the political field. There is much higher work for us to do. Our time,
our thoughts, our efforts may be given to labors far more important
than any mere temporary electing, or law-making, passed today, annulled
to-morrow, in obedience to the fickle spirit of party politics.

THAT WORK IS TO PROMOTE BY ALL WORTHY MEANS THE MORAL CIVILIZATION OF
THE COUNTRY.

Toward this work legislation, the mere enacting of laws, can do but
little. We have all heard of the shrewd mind who considered the songs
of a people as more important than their laws. The moral condition of a
nation is subject to many different influences--of these the statute
book is but one, and that not the most important. No mere skeleton of
political constitution can, of itself, produce moral health and
strength. It is the living heart within which does the work. And over
that heart women have very great influence. The home is the cradle of
the nation. A sound home education is the most important of all moral
influences. In the very powerful influences which affection gives them
over the home, by teaching childhood, by guiding youth, over the men of
their family, women have noble me