human nature, the charms of a more genial Christianity
than is to be found by ordinary seekers in the Scriptures, and the need
of a wider entrance to a broader road to heaven than the strait gate and
narrow way of the Gospels. But let such men come to Crossbourne, and
have to deal with these people of shrewd and sharpened intellects,
strong wills, strong passions, and strong temptations, and they will
find that the old-fashioned gospel is, after all, the only thing that
will meet all man's moral and spiritual needs. I have never been more
struck with this than in the case of a reformed-infidel amongst us: the
change in that man has been indeed wonderful, as even his bitterest
enemies are constrained to acknowledge,--he has indeed found the gospel
to be to him the `pearl of great price.' The change in that man's
character, home, and even expression of countenance, is truly as from
darkness to light."

"I wish," observed Miss Maltby, "there was less of the theoretical and
fanciful, and more of the practical and scriptural, in many of the
modern schemes proposed for the acceptance of my own sex in the matter
of education. I wish wise men would let us alone, and allow us to keep
our proper place, and follow out our proper calling, as these may be
plainly gathered from the great storehouse of all wisdom."

"Pray give us your thoughts a little more fully, Miss Maltby," said the
doctor. "I think there may be one here at any rate who will benefit by
them."

"Two, John, at least," said his wife, laughing: "for if I am the one who
am to benefit, you will be the other; for whatever improves me will be
sure to improve your home, so we shall share the profits."

Her husband held out his hand to her, and while they exchanged a loving
pressure, Miss Maltby said: "Woman seems now to be treated as an
independent rational being, whose one great object ought to be in this
life to outstrip, or at any rate keep on a level with, the other sex in
all intellectual pursuits. Did God put her into the world for this?
Did he give her as a rule faculties and capacities for this? I cannot
believe it. This ambition to shine, this thirst for excessive
education, this craving after female university distinctions, why all
this is eating out that which is truly womanly in hundreds of our girls,
and turning them into a sort of intellectual mermaids, only one half
women, and the other half something monstrous and unnatural. And what
is the res