s these?--

"Praeterea neque jam domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Praeripere--et tacita pectus dulcedinet tangent."

There is no event to which women are more indebted for the improved
situation they hold among us than the propagation of Christianity. It was
reserved for religion to urge the weakness of woman as a reason for
treating her, not with tenderness only, but with respect; it was reserved
for religion to bring the charities that are lovely in private life into
public service; to break down the barriers which had so long separated the
husband from the citizen, and to pour around the private hearth the light
which, up to the time of its revelation, had been reflected almost
exclusively from the school of the philosopher or the forum of the
republic, unless in a few rare and favoured instances when it had shed its
radiance over the cell of the captive and the deathbed of the patriot. It
was for religion to inculcate that purity of heart, without which mere
forbearance from sensuality is a virtue which may be prized in the
precincts of the seraglio, but to which true honour is almost indifferent.
Nothing less powerful than such an influence prescribing a new life, and
commanding its votaries to be new creatures, could have wrenched from
their holdings prejudices as old as the society in which they flourished.
Our limits will not allow us to descant at any length on the condition of
women during the early ages of Christianity; but we transcribe on this
subject, from a recent work, a passage which we are sure our readers will
peruse with pleasure.

"Ce qui rendit les moeurs des familles Chretiennes si graves, ce
qui les conserva si chastes, c'est ce qui a toujours exerce sur
les moeurs en general l'influence la plus profonde, l'exemple des
femmes. Douees d'une delicatesse d'organes, qui rend, pour ainsi
dire, leur intelligence plus accessible a la voix d'un monde
superieur, leur coeur plus sensible a toutes ces emotions qui
enfantent les vertus, et qui elevent l'homme terrestre au-dessus
de la sphere etroite de la vie presente, les femmes, etrangeres a
l'histoire des travaux speculatifs du genre humain, sont
toujours, dans les revolutions morales et religieuses, les
premieres a saisir, et a propager ce qui est grand, beau, et
celeste. Avec une chaleur entrainante elles embrasserent la cause
Chretienne, et s'