,
forsooth, she should lose her feminine characteristics, and, like
the lost Pleiad, forsake her native sphere!

It seems to be forgotten that the laws of nature will not be
suspended; that the human mind, when released from pressure, like
water, must find its own level; that woman can not, if she would,
cast away her nature and instincts; that it is only when we are
left free to obey the inward attractions of our being that we
fall into our natural places, and move in our God-appointed
orbits.

We ask that none shall dare to come in between woman and her
Maker, and with unhallowed hands attempt to plant their shallow
posts and draw their flimsy cords around the Heaven-wide sphere
of an immortal spirit! We maintain that God has not so failed in
His adaptations as to give powers to be wasted, talents to be
wrapped in a napkin; and that the possession of faculties and
capabilities is the warrant of nature, the command of the
All-Wise for their culture and exercise.

We believe that the woman who is obeying the convictions of her
own soul, and whose ability is commensurate with her employment,
is ever in her own true sphere; whether in her quiet home she is
training her children to nobleness and virtue, or is standing as
a physician by the bed of sickness and sorrow; whether, with
Elizabeth Fry, she is preaching the gospel of glad tidings to the
sad dwellers in prison, or like the Italian, Lauri Bassi, is
filling a professor's chair and expounding philosophy to admiring
and instructed listeners.

While we demand for woman a more complete physical, intellectual,
and moral education, as the means of strengthening and
beautifying her own nature, and of ennobling the whole race, we
also ask for a more elevated standard of excellence and moral
purity in man; and we maintain that if there is any place of
resort or employment in society, which necessarily would sully
the delicacy of woman's spirit, in that, man also must be
contaminated and degraded. Woman indeed should wear about her,
wherever she moves, the protecting investment of innocence and
purity; but not less is it requisite that he, who is the
companion of her life, should guard his spirit with the same
sacred and beautiful covering.

We believe that woman, as an accounta