d any object in life. They
seem to lay helpless in the hands of the world, the pets or playthings
of the day. These remarks are not very inapplicable to young men also.
There is a great body of young men who float on the stream of life with
no self-direction. Ask one of them what he lives for, and he will tell
you, "to chew tobacco, swear, be a man;" and his idea of being a man is
to be able to do these things with grace and dignity. To ask any one of
the mass of young women what she lives for, and if you can get her to
say it out, she will tell you, "to get married." Now it is certainly
right to get married, and to live with this object in view. But there is
a grand educational preparation needed for this. And this preparation is
the very thing most neglected. Every young woman should have some noble
purpose in life, some grand aim, grand in its character. She should, in
the first place, know what she is, what powers she possesses, what
influences are to go out from her, what position in life she was
designed to fill, what duties are resting upon her, what is she capable
of being, what fields of profit and pleasure are open to her, how much
joy and satisfaction she may find in a true life of womanly activity.
When she has duly considered these things, she should then form the high
purpose of being a true woman, and of making every circumstance bend to
her will for the accomplishment of this noble purpose. There is no
higher thing beneath the bending heavens than a true woman. There is no
nobler attainment this side of the spirit-land than lofty womanhood.
There is no purer ambition than that which craves this crown for her
mortal brow. To be a genuine woman, full of womanly instincts and power,
possessing the intuitive genius of her penetrating soul and the subduing
authority of her gentle, yet resolute will, is to be a peer of earth's
highest intelligence. All young women have this noble prize before them.
They may all put on the glorious crown of womanhood. They may make their
lives grand in womanly virtue. There is in every woman-child the seed of
womanhood. She may water and nourish that seed till it shall blossom in
her soul and make her spiritually beautiful. Woman has a power, a
woman-power, something peculiarly her own in her moral influences,
which, when duly developed, makes her queen over a wide realm of spirit.
This she can not exert only as her powers are cultivated. It is
cultivated woman that wields the sc