inite loveliness, its
unfathomable depth of love, and wisdom, and holiness, it seems to me
that the impossibility is in not loving him. How can we help loving him?
Add to this that He is our Father, out of the depth of whose being we
were born, and that he loves us with an unspeakable and eternal love,
and the attraction to love him becomes still stronger. Then think how
much He has done for us; how he has given us our parents and friends,
and all the dear and delightful objects of life, thought, and hope; and
more than this, has given us Jesus, and with him the glorious Gospel,
revealing an immortal life and a glorious inheritance beyond the Jordan
of death. These benefactions of His love make his character appear
infinitely attractive, so that the wonder would seem to be that any
should fail to love him.

It seems clear that the Father may be none the less loved on account of
his being unseen. We are constituted to love things unseen. And if we
scan it closely we shall find that we really love nothing else.
Character worth, virtue, goodness, love, wisdom, knowledge, science,
philosophy, religion, are all unseen. So the charm about a person that
makes us love him is unseen. Indeed, it is the unseen we love, and
nothing else. We are spiritual beings, and made for spiritual exercises.
Our nature is exactly adapted to the love and worship of an unseen God.
When we do not do it we are acting contrary to our nature. We deny
ourselves as well as God when we do not love and adore him. Is it proper
for youth to do so? By no means. All youth, and especially young women,
should feel that so long as they neglect their religious duties they
neglect the most important concerns of their eternal existence. They are
not ephemeral, but eternal creatures. Their relation to God and each
other are eternal ones. They are on the sea of being--turn back they can
not. God is above and around them, and always will be. The sooner they
love Him, the better it will be for them. To love Him is spiritual life;
to love him not is death.

It is a glorious thing to live life well. They can not do it without
religion. Woman is scarcely woman unless the great principle of love
guides her. That principle, directed toward God and man, is the sum
total of the Christian religion. Let every young woman so direct it that
her whole life may be radiant with the light and deeds of love.

Lecture Thirteen.

WOMANHOOD.

Woman not an Adornment only-