laim over her, deduced from any assumed superiority of my own
sex. Give her every opportunity; remove all obstacles; furnish the
utmost facilities, and let God speak his will through her actions.

To this end, I would name first, what is incontestibly one part of the
sphere of woman, Home. She may act in other situations, in this she
must. Providence whispers to her in the cradle the divine monition, "Be
a kind, obedient, dutiful daughter." And if, to the latest moment of her
life, she heed not this solemn charge, she is false, not only to her own
sex, but to man and to God.

The Sister, by what other virtues can she expiate a neglect of the
claims of her beautiful relation? Let her be a monitor to the younger,
and receive kindly the counsels of the elder, in her paternal circle,
and how does she grace a sweet portion of her appropriate sphere. Nor
will I omit to say, that whether united to another by the sacred bond of
marriage or not, if she be a true woman, she is instinct with those
inward charms, and Christian dispositions, which qualify her for that
responsible connection. Intelligence, wisdom, disinterested affection, a
mind to advise, a heart rich with sympathies, and a hand to aid,--these
should find in her their chosen resting-place.

And what Mother can fill the sphere ordained for her sex, if she be not
a devoted parent? Possessed of this trait, no woman can fail of honor
and usefulness. She who looks on her race with a maternal interest, who
feels that God hath made of one blood all the children of the earth, and
who lives not for herself but her neighbor, she is of the genuine female
nobility. There is in her character a grandeur,--let her dwell in
"Alpine solitude,"--before which the admired of all admirers, the gay
butterfly, whose wings open and close with the sun of adulation, shrinks
into an object of pity.

Next to home, I should cite Private Beneficence, the scenes of Charity,
and the chamber of sickness, as within the sphere of woman. Let her not
only minister to the needs of her own fireside, but put on the sandals
of mercy, and go forth to the bed of suffering, and the dwelling of
poverty.

Does she court distinction and applause? There are those who would rend
the air with shouts, did she pass as a Queen, in some gilded chariot; or
clap their hands at the strains of her eloquence, in crowded halls. But
how few are these, compared with those who commend her, who is an angel
of love in the da