Oh, ye women of England! from the Princess of that Wales to the
simplest of you, do not think your own children can be brought into
their true fold of rest while these are scattered on the hills, as
sheep having no shepherd. And do not think your daughters can be
trained to the truth of their own human beauty, while the pleasant
places, which God made at once for their school-room and their
playground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly
in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the
sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth forever from the
rocks of your native land--waters which a Pagan would have worshiped in
their purity, and you only worship with pollution. You cannot lead
your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of
yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven--the mountains that
sustain your island throne,--mountains on which a Pagan would have seen
the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud--remain for you
without inscription; altars built, not to, but by, an Unknown God.

86. III.--Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of
women, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. We come now
to our last, our widest question,--What is her queenly office with
respect to the state?

Generally we are under an impression that a man's duties are public,
and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a
personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or
duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a
woman has a personal work and duty, relating to her own home, and a
public work and duty, which is also the expansion of that.

Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its
maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order,
comfort, and loveliness.

Expand both these functions. The man's duty, as a member of a
commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the
defense of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the
commonwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in
the beautiful adornment of the state.

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against
insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted
measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if
need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work t