beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance
of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The
leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_
which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters,
but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable
of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes
beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual
variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only
Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling
among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans
and the symposia of gifted Greeks.

But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The
soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be
fully met even in an assemblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame
de Stael pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves
friendships, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And
unless the emancipated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she
droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero
perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said
that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the
teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the
centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of
Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and
the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however
gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to
that influence which has snatched them from the pollutions and heartless
slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is
to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant
over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how
ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings
which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those
excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only
solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!

* * * * *

AUTHORITIES.

Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra;
Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the
poets; Lord's O