s were not true, than many errors be
more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps,
they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with
which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models
that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with
the charity she always taught."

Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity?
who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to lead armies,
not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, and armies
led, and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible
infirmity the frail, and as yet spotless creature whose moral, no less
than his physical, being must be derived from her; to inspire those
principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments,
which generations yet unborn, and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to
bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honour into refinement,
to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the
anguish of the body, and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her
tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to
cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the
ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that
are blighted, for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has
passed away. Such is her vocation--the couch of the tortured sufferer, the
prison of the deserted friend, the scaffold of the godlike patriot, the
cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence,
these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved.
Such is her destiny--to visit the forsaken, to attend to the neglected;
amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember--amid the execrations of
multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when
justice persecutes, when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken
and unchanged; and to exhibit, on this lower world, a type of that
love--pure, constant, and ineffable--which in another world we are taught
to believe the best reward of virtue.

* * * * *

A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS.

It is impossible to look, without surprise, to the progress of the railway
system since the first experiment in 1830. The Liverpool and Manchester
line was opened in the Septembe