Effects of Religion on Woman.

Religion, I mean the religion of the heart and of the feelings, such as woman generally possesses, has undoubtedly a tendency to heighten and improve all those qualities and attributes which we consider as most essential to the female character. All the great duties of life, those of wife, mother, friend, &c. she performs with a double relish, and under the influence of a double motive. Religion furnishes a new and powerful impulse to virtue. Virtue, it is true, has its own charms, and may be said, by the happiness which it affords, to constitute its own reward; but you have never so well fortified it and guarded it against dangerous assault, as when you have thrown over it the sacred panoply of the christian religion. Most of the religions of the world have chimed in with the prevailing tendencies of the corrupt portions of our nature, and have flattered and ministered to some of the worst and most malignant passions of the human heart. Not so with the christian religion; it has exalted the humble and meek in spirit, and pulled down the proud and wicked: it has waged war on vice and the indulgence of evil passions of every description, and has proclaimed the great law on which the whole code of morality hangs, that "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

The religious female then, in addition to all the ordinary motives which can incite to virtue, has the additional one of wishing to please her God and of providing for her happiness hereafter. Religion softens and disciplines the feelings, it quickens and heightens the tender sensibilities, and increases all the sympathies of our nature. It throws, in fine, a drapery of grace, of amiableness and loveliness over the whole female character. Woman is never so lovely as in the quiet unobtrusive discharge of her religious duties. "Men," says Dr. Cogan, "contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror, than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles." Even those who do not believe in the truth of christianity, turn frequently with disgust from unbelieving women; they know too well the value of religion and piety in the mother and the wife; they know full well that the religious woman is generally the one who loves most tenderly, most engrossingly, and most constantly. There is a mysterious connection between even human love and religion. Rousseau has long ago remarked upon the similarity of the languages of the two.5 How soon does a man in love, convert his mistress into an angel; he is ready to make every sacrifice for her; he kneels at her shrine; he worships, he adores her; 'tis heaven where she is, torment where she is not.

5 He says that "the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the language of love; the enthusiasm of love borrows the language of devotion."

I have already spoken of some of the effects of human love on man; it is through the medium of the same powerful, mysterious agent, that woman can frequently do so much for the cause of religion. There are few men who can be deeply devoted to a pious female without a deep sense of the beauty, the loveliness, and the holiness of true religion. I once knew a being who loved, and loved devotedly a pious lady. I have seen him gaze on her, as she moved before him in all the loveliness of modesty and grace. Her looks, her words, her actions, were all the subject of his intensest thoughts. I do believe he had wrought them into a science, which he did most dearly love to study.

"She could bend him to her ev'ry will,
His soul's emotions all were in her power."

This being was not an unbeliever, but yet he was indifferent towards religion. As soon, however, as he had felt the sweet influence of human love, his mind assumed decidedly a religious cast; his thoughts were more frequently turned on high. He declared, in the plenitude of his affections, that he felt an indescribable pleasure in kneeling beside the object of his affections at the altar, and mingling his prayers with hers. He felt a deeper veneration and love for the God of nature, because that God was loved by her, whose pure love, in his mind at least, could sanctify and hallow every object which it embraced. Reader! you who have wandered into distant climes, have you not sometimes at sunset hour, when the great orb of day was pouring his last flood of dimmed light over a world fast sinking into rest, when every breeze had died away and every noise was hushed, reflected, with feelings which no language could adequately describe, that the same great luminary might be shedding his light on the dear friends of your bosom, and that she whom you most tenderly loved, might then, perhaps far away, be gazing on the same object? With feelings like these, would the being just described direct his prayers and thoughts to heaven. It almost seemed to him that they met hers there, and held communion together.

And yet, be not surprised, he never told his tale of love to her! She might have known it, for acts and looks are more eloquent than words. But the impression produced on this individual by the absorbing affection which he felt for one pious woman, remained with him; he declares that the bare remembrance of her who seems to him even now a vision of loveliness and piety on earth, has made him a better and a holier man. He can truly and feelingly declare in those exquisite lines of Petrarch's, whose beauty no translation can express,

"Gentil mia donna, io veggio
Nel mover de' vostri occhi un dolce lume
Che mi mostra la via che al ciel conduce."

Yes, and there are thousands besides who, like him, have been indebted to pious females for that "sweet light" which illumines the path to heaven.