In all the resources of thought, material cannot be found so subduing and overpowering as in the scenes of redemption. Veneration was large in Cowper, Charles Wesley, Watts, and Newton; and their hymns will fan devotion till the end of time.
Your opportunities of spiritual culture are abundant. None need be so diligent in business as to have no time for religion. The Sabbath guarantees a season for unmolested attention to the soul. Wealth cannot buy up its spiritual blessings, and poverty operates as no disqualification for its favours. It smiles as sweetly in the humble cottage as in the marble palace. On this day thousands of recognised ministers, and hundreds of thousands of Sabbath-school teachers, reason, plead, and expostulate with millions of their fellow-creatures, on the greatest of all themes. Over and above these, what earnest lessons are being instilled in the retirements of home! There is also another source of spiritual education, open nearly to all, namely, access to books whose aim is to teach the practical principles of religion. Then the Bible is within the reach of all. It is the text-book of the pulpit, the daily manual of the school, and the familiar companion of the family. Full of human sympathies, breathing unsullied purity, illustrating principles by examples, investing precepts in poetry, and commending itself not more to the learned than the unlearned, the Bible possesses every quality which can contribute to success as an instrument of spiritual culture.
EDUCATION COMPLETE.
Thus have we sketched, on a small scale, a complete scheme of education. How to live?—that is the question. How to use all your powers to the glory of God and the greatest advantage to yourselves and others—how to live completely? The intellectual part of your nature is superior to the physical; the moral higher than the intellectual; and the spiritual highest of all. Education complete is the full and harmonious cultivation of these four divisions. Not exhaustive development in any one, supremely important though it may be—not even an exclusive discipline of two, or even three of these divisions; but the culture of them all, and the training in due proportion of all their faculties. When these powers act simultaneously and harmoniously, no one unduly depressed, and no one improperly exalted, education has discharged its function, and a type of womanhood is realised which closely resembles your Creator’s ideal. Perfect culture is perfect character. What a glorious creature is such a woman! Her body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and her mind is enriched with the fine gold and jewellery of knowledge. Not only friends but even foes are constrained to acknowledge that she is the “glory of man,” in every sense a “help corresponding with his dignity.” More glorious than anything in the material universe is she who earnestly cultivates all her powers and practically recognises all her relationships, who has come to a perfect woman, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. We admit that all are not created alike, but we know that it is impossible to set limits to the attainments of the smallest or the achievements of the weakest. For the sake of your country—for the sake of your race—for the sake of your children—we urge you to begin now to cultivate, in all their compass and variety, the attributes of true womanhood.
CHAPTER II.
Peculiarities of Female Character.
“The peculiar attributes of woman are softness, tenderness, love; in fact, she has more heart than man.”
Benjamin Parsons.
WOMAN IN RELATION TO MAN.
We have it upon the best authority, that woman was created “because it was not good for man to be alone,” and the maintenance of the sex, in at least equal numbers, is the emphatic proclamation of the same truth throughout all ages. In paradise man enjoyed the sunshine of God’s favour, earth presented nothing but pleasure, and heaven unfolded nothing but bliss. Celibacy was thus tried under the most favourable circumstances, and it failed. Multitudes seem to think that women are little more than a superior description of domestic animals; but in the state of primeval innocency, Adam lived on the fruits of paradise: Eve was not needed to cook his meals, and there was no wardrobe to be looked after. The laundress and the laundry were not then in use. A suitable companion was what man required, and woman was formed and constituted the meetest help for him. The service of the sexes is reciprocal, and when man isolates himself, he not only suffers an injury but inflicts a wrong. The Bible declares that a wife is the gift of God, and when a good woman, there is a double blessing in the nature of the relation. But if a bad woman, her position as a wife greatly augments her power for mischief. Woman and man, however, are not intended to be rivals or opponents of each other. Of design God made neither complete. There is a want in each, that the two might coalesce into one. Duality is necessary to completeness.
. . . . . “Each fulfils