In a thinly settled part of Virginia, the quiet of the Sabbath eve was once broken by the loud, hurried roll of the drum. Volunteers were invoked to go forth and prevent the British troops, under the pitiless Tarleton, from forcing their way through an important mountain pass. In an old fort resided a family, all of whose elder sons were absent with our army, which at the North opposed the foe. The father lay enfeebled and sick. Around his bedside the Mother called their three sons, of the ages of thirteen, fifteen, and seventeen.
"Go forth, children," said she, "to the defence of your native clime. Go, each and all of you. I spare not my youngest, my fair-haired boy, the light of my declining years.
"Go forth, my sons. Repel the foot of the invader, or see my face no more."
It has been recorded in the annals of other climes, as well as our own, that Woman, under the pressure of unusual circumstances, has revealed unwonted and unexpected energies. It is fitting that she should prove herself equal to every emergency, nor shrink from any duty that dangers or reverses may impose.
Still, her best happiness and true glory are doubtless found in her own peculiar sphere. Rescued, as she has been, from long darkness, by the precepts of the religion of Jesus, brought forth into the broad sunlight of knowledge and responsibility, she is naturally anxious to know how to discharge her debt to the age, and to her own land. Her patriotism is, to labor in the sanctuary of home, and in every allotted department of education, to form and train a race that shall bless their country, and serve their God.
There has been sometimes claimed for her, under the name of "rights," a wider participation in the pursuits, exposures, and honors appertaining to men. Were these somewhat indefinite claims conceded, would the change promote her welfare? Would she be a gainer by any added power or sounding title, which should require the sacrifice of that delicacy which is the life-blood of her sex?
Would it be better for man to have no exercise for those energies, which the state of a gentle, trustful being calls forth; those protecting energies which reveal his peculiar strength, and liken him to a god-like nature? Would it add either to her attractions or his happiness, to confront her in the arena of political strife, or enable her to bear her part in fierce collision with the bold and unprincipled? Might it not endanger or obliterate that enthusiasm of love, which she so much prizes, to meet the tutelary spirit of his home delights, on the steep unsheltered heights of ambition, as a competitor or a rival?
Would it be as well for the rising generation, who are given into the arms of Woman for their earliest guidance, that the ardor of her nature should be drawn into different and contradictory channels? When a traveler in those lands where she goes forth to manual toil in the fields, I have mourned to see her neglected little ones, deprived of maternal care, unsoftened by the blandishments of its tenderness, growing up like animals, groveling, unimpressible, unconscientious. Whatever detaches her thoughts or divides her heart from home duties and affections, is especially a loss to the young plants that depend on her nurture and supervision.
If, therefore, the proposed change should profit neither man, woman, nor the rising race, how can it benefit the world at large? Is it not the province of true wisdom to select such measures as promote the greatest good of the greatest number?
A moralist has well said, that "in contentions for power, both the philosophy and poetry of life are dropped and trodden down." A still heavier loss would accrue to domestic happiness, and the interests of well balanced society, should the innate delicacy and prerogative of woman, as woman, be sacrificed or transmuted.