and spiritual life, their
value in the world, their well-being and happiness depend upon it. If
their affections are not brought to act wisely, to cling to the good and
the true of soul, they will yield them untold misery. If they love the
good, the high of soul and large of heart, they will be happy,
inexpressibly happy in the action of their affections.

Lecture Eight.

EMPLOYMENT.

Employment a Duty--Powers Developed by Labor--All Females are not
Women--Dependence usually Ignoble--Adversity gives Strength--Girls
should have Trades--Self-reliance necessary to Women--Do Something
and Be Something--Riches no Excuse for Idleness--Employment gives
Activity and Strength--Labor considered Vulgar--Life is given for
Employment--Woman was Made for Usefulness.

I take it that men and women were made for business, for activity, for
employment. Activity is the life of us all. To do and to bear is the
duty of life. We know that Employment makes the man in a very great
measure. A man with no Employment, nothing to do, is scarcely a man. The
secret of making men is to put them to work, and keep them at it. It is
not study, not instruction, not careful moral training, not good
parents, nor good society that makes men. These are means; but back of
these lies the grand molding influence of men's life. It is Employment.
A man's business does more to make him than every thing else. It hardens
his muscles, strengthens his body, quickens his blood, sharpens his
mind, corrects his judgment, wakes up his inventive genius, puts his
wits to work, starts him on the race of life, arouses his ambition,
makes him feel that he is a man and must fill a man's shoes, do a man's
work, bear a man's part in life, and show himself a man in that part. No
man feels himself a man who is not doing a man's business. A man without
Employment is not a man. He does not prove by his works that he is a
man. He can not act a man's part. A hundred and fifty pounds of bone and
muscle is not a man. A good cranium full of brains is not a man. The
bone and muscle and brain must know how to act a man's part, do a man's
work, think a man's thoughts, mark out a man's path, and bear a man's
weight of character and duty before they constitute a man. A man is a
body and soul in action. A statue if well dressed may _appear_ to be a
man; so may a human being. But to _be_ a man and _appear_ to be are two
very different things. Human beings _gro