l right. It is a fact--a
glaring, solemn, humiliating fact--that woman is not what she should be.
She is weak, thoughtless, heartless, compared with what she should be.
Look at the world. Woman is said to be mistress of her home. The mother
is called the maker of her children's characters. Is it so? See the
drunkards, tipplers, tobacco-mongers, libertines, gamblers, swearers,
brawlers, robbers, murderers. There is a great army of them. They all
constitute a large share of the men and some of the women of our world.
Where are the mothers who will acknowledge that they made the characters
of these people? Where are the mothers who teach their boys to chew, and
smoke, and swear? to drink, and brawl, and fight? to do those deeds of
darkness which the sun refuses to shine upon? Somebody has taught them
these things. If their mothers did not, who did? If their mothers had
been wise and forcible, as they should have been, would the children
have been so easily led astray? If women had that influence which some
attribute to them, would these things be so? If they had the influence
they ought to have, would they be so? Talk as we will about woman's
influence, it is not what it should be. We all know that if woman ruled
the world, she would have less low, drunken, rowdy, sensual men. It has
long been a hollow compliment which man has paid to woman to tell her
that she rules the world. But no man believes it when he says it. Every
woman should spurn the compliment as slanderous. Woman would rule the
world better if it was under her control. Why are so many young men
reckless, drunken, profane, and lawless? It is not because young women
would have them so. Far from it. Their female associates do not hold
half the control over them that they ought.

Young women ought to hold a steady moral sway over their male
associates, so strong as to prevent them from becoming such lawless
rowdies. Why do they not? Because they do not possess sufficient _force_
of character. They have not sufficient resolution and energy of purpose.
Their virtue is not vigorous. Their moral wills are not resolute. Their
influence is not armed with executive power. Their goodness is not felt
as an earnest force of benevolent purpose. Their moral convictions are
not regarded as solemn resolves to be true to God and duty, come what
may. Their opinions are not esteemed as the utterances of wisdom. Their
love is not accepted as the strong purpose of a devout soul to b