I have already said that the female communicants in our country, form from two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole church. If you will examine into this small comparative number of male communicants, you will find that one-half, or perhaps three-fourths have been brought into the church either directly or indirectly by female influence. But we must remember that this great, this salutary influence of woman, is exercised through the medium of her example, and of the sweet propriety and purity of her demeanor before God and man. She need not preach her own goodness, like the Pharisee; she need not obtrude her sentiments, with the enthusiasm of the fanatic, on those around her. It is not her province to go upon the highway and compel all to come in to the feast. She is not the being to force you by denunciation and terror, to enter the church; all this is offensive, but particularly so in a modest female.6
6 St. Peter speaks in the following terms, to christian ladies whose husbands were not yet converted to the new faith: "Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also without the word, may be won by the conversation of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." This recommendation of the apostle, marks out the true province of woman in matters of religion.
Under the present system of education it is rarely the case that woman can discuss with grace, and elegance, and truth, the doctrinal points of religion. "Judge not that ye be not judged," is a text which every woman should bear constantly in mind. A female persecutor is the most odious of her sex. I have often thought that the bigoted, bloody-minded Mary, queen of England, was the most unlovely woman mentioned in the page of English history; and we can scarcely blame her equally bigoted husband, in withholding all affection and love from a woman who resembled him so closely. I do not believe that even the bigoted husband can love a ferocious, blood-thirsty, bigoted wife.
Mrs. Sandford blames those enthusiastic females "who wander about from house to house, retailing the spiritual errors of the day, feeling the religious pulse, dispensing prescriptions, and giving notoriety, at least, to every new nostrum which would impose on the credulity of weak and wayward christians; going about with their little casket of specifics, they excite and foster the diseases they affect to cure." Such enthusiasm as this, she well observes, "bears not the rose of Sharon, but the apple of discord: not clusters of the celestial vine, but spurious berries, which have the form, but not the sweetness of the genuine fruit." There is a something in the quiet, meek, gentle, and unobtrusive aspect and demeanor of the truly pious woman, which, of itself, produces a mighty influence on the other sex. In the collection of Lely's famous Windsor Beauties, there is one which strikes the eye of the beholder, and rivets it in steadfast and extatic gaze, it is the picture of Mrs. Nott. In Mrs. Jameson's description of those Beauties, I have been more struck with Mrs. Nott, although her tale is untold, than with any in the collection, not excepting even the beautiful, the lovely Miss Hamilton. This fair creature is represented with her book, and her flowers, and her village church, in the back ground. These are the beautiful and graceful appendages of piety and virtue. "As for the picture," says Mrs. J. "it is some satisfaction to know, that slander has never breathed upon those features to sully them to our fancy; that sorrow, which comes to all, can never come there." Gazing on such a lovely, I had like to have said holy picture, well might she exclaim, "Is there no power in conjuration to make those ruby lips unclose and reveal all we long to know? Are they forever silent? The soul that once inhabited there, that looked through those mild eyes, the heart that beat beneath that modest vest; are they fled and cold? And of all the thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the joys, the fears, 'the hoard of unsunn'd griefs' that once had their dwelling there; is this—this surface—where beauty yet lives, 'clothed in the rainbow tints of heaven,' but mute, cold, impassive—all that remains." And such will ever be the curiosity which a meek, beautiful, and pious female, will excite in the bosom of sensibility and affection.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
LIONEL GRANBY.
CHAP. IV.
| She like a solitary rose that springs In the first warmth of summer days, and flings A perfume the more sweet because alone Just bursting into beauty, with a zone— Half girl's—half woman's.—Marcian Colonna. |