pful wife and a loving companion, or to be influenced by the law
of charity; if she determines to seek happiness in obtaining the
admiration of others, which once unwittingly came from her husband;
then is she probably ruined, and becomes a "body of death" fastened to
one who looks forward to the grave as a refuge and a release, or who
finds in the society of other women that pleasure which is denied him
at home. Perhaps nothing is more disgusting than to see an empty brain
hidden behind a pretty face, or an empty heart concealed beneath
costly drapery. A woman who is handsome and is illiterate, who is
incapable of speaking entertainingly, is far more homely than a plain
face in front of a well cultivated intellect; and a plain dressed
woman, with a heart full of love, is to be preferred to a splendidly
dressed form which is destitute of soul. Jewels, laces, and silks are
not a fit dress for a corpse, and yet a heartless woman is to a man
who knows her as soulless as an inanimate body coffined for the tomb.
Having thus briefly considered the necessity of linking woman's work
and mission together, let us define her work, and consider what is her
mission.

Woman has work to do. Though idleness does not destroy her as it does
a man, yet it does not become her. Merely to display her charms for
the admiration of others cannot be the destiny of one created with a
woman's hand and head, and endowed with woman's soul. From the nature
of the case, her work should be womanly in its character; that which
is within doors rather than without; which belongs to the ornamental
rather than to the mechanical. There is no sense in woman's working in
the field while man measures tapes or counts thimbles, or in his doing
other in-door work for which woman's light touch renders her better
qualified. When we look at women who have become coarse in the
expression of their features, and ungainly in form and movement,
through the weight of their daily toil, we see the folly of those who
would make the woman the equal, or the rival, instead of the helpmeet
of man; and feel indignation that, since many of our women must earn
their own livelihood, we have not a more natural division of labor,
which would assign to man the heavier, and to woman the lighter
kinds of work. As woman's faith blesses as well as saves her; it is
essential that her work be linked in some way to the exercise of
faith, and to the unfolding of love. For the character of the w