ts, our duties,
our true sphere. If God has assigned a sphere to man and one to woman,
we claim the right to judge ourselves of His design in reference to
_us_, and we accord to man the same privilege. We think a man has
quite enough in this life to find out his own individual calling,
without being taxed to decide where every woman belongs; and the fact
that so many men fail in the business they undertake, calls loudly for
their concentrating more thought on their own faculties, capabilities,
and sphere of action. We have all seen a man making a jackass of
himself in the pulpit, at the bar, or in our legislative halls, when
he might have shone as a general in our Mexican war, captain of a
canal boat, or as a tailor on his bench. Now, is it to be wondered at
that woman has some doubts about the present position assigned her
being the true one, when her every-day experience shows her that man
makes such fatal mistakes in regard to himself?

There is no such thing as a sphere for a sex. Every man has a
different sphere, and one in which he may shine, and it is the same
with every woman; and the same woman may have a different sphere at
different times. The distinguished Angelina Grimke was acknowledged by
all the anti-slavery host to be in her sphere, when, years ago, she
went through the length and breadth of New England, telling the people
of her personal experience of the horrors and abominations of the
slave system, and by her eloquence and power as a public speaker,
producing an effect unsurpassed by any of the highly gifted men of her
day. Who dares to say that in thus using her splendid talents in
speaking for the dumb, pleading the cause of the poor friendless
slave, that she was out of her sphere? Angelina Grimke is now a wife
and the mother of several children. We hear of her no more in public.
Her sphere and her duties have changed. She deems it her first and her
most sacred duty to devote all her time and talents to her household
and to the education of her children. We do not say that she is not
_now_ in her sphere. The highly gifted Quakeress, Lucretia Mott,
married early in life, and brought up a large family of children. All
who have seen her at home agree that she was a pattern as a wife,
mother, and housekeeper. No one ever fulfilled all the duties of that
sphere more perfectly than did she. Her children are now settled in
their own homes. Her husband and herself, having a comfortable
fortune, pass much