“Without intending a silly compliment, I think I may say, if you look at the two sexes and ask which is the best product, and does the most credit to its own training, he would be a bold person who would say it was the male sex.”

Whether woman’s powers are equal to those of man seems to us hardly to admit of discussion. The proper question is not one of equality but of adaptation. In the very nature of things, between the two sexes there is a difference as well as a similarity. It was not good for man to be alone, therefore God provided an help meet for him. The one sex is the compliment of the other. “Man and woman,” to adopt the language of Dr. Craik, “are fitted the one for the other as much by their difference as by their similarity. The parts which they have to act, the spheres in which they have to move, are as distinct in some respects as they are identical. Of all false social philosophies, that is the blindest and shallowest which overlooks or denies this, and would seek to improve the character or elevate the condition of women by making them, as far as possible, exchange their own proper character for that of the other sex.” The functions, the occupations, and consequent duties of man and woman grow out of their bodily and mental structures. Each sex is perfect for its purpose; and when the one encroaches on the other, inferiority, incongruity, and antagonism is the result. What so odious as a masculine woman? What so contemptible as a feminine man? Alas! both are frequently met in the world.

Woman’s claim to entire equality with man cannot on any pretence be made to rest on the word of God. Some writers beg the question, and insist that woman should be treated by man as she is by God: in all respects equal. But the Scriptures do not teach that the sexes are in all respects equal; nor from the earliest ages, down to the hour when John laid by the pen, and closed the book, is there the slightest intimation that the two sexes may not have peculiar privileges and duties. By declaring the essential unity of the sexes, the Bible bestows supreme honour upon woman, while shedding a dew, tender as the blessing of God upon her affectional nature. In matters of conscience there is no sex; consequently in the discharge of the duties of piety each is equally capacitated, and therefore equally responsible. Love on the part of husbands is made as binding as obedience on the part of wives; and where love rules, instead of heartless ministrations, there are affectionate assiduities, ingenious anticipation of wishes, and noble self-sacrifices.

Woman is certainly not inferior to man, but the difference between them is as evident as the similarity; and only by carrying out their joint action in accordance with their inherent powers and susceptibilities can the human race really be benefited. It is only a waste of time to tell us that woman can do many things quite as well as man can,—that there are many public occupations which she could fill as well as he,—that were she properly educated, it would be seen that man had no natural superiority over her except in physical strength. All that may be true. Our argument is, that while woman, in consequence of her more pliable nature, may be able to do man’s work as well as he can, it is certain that he cannot do her work so well as she can; and therefore the body politic would suffer loss were the sexes generally to exchange places.

The question of the proper position of woman in regard to politics has become one of general interest. It lies in our way, and demands to be dealt with. We cannot now ridicule the idea of putting legal power into her hands, and as little can we discuss it superficially, for that were all the same as to discuss it unfaithfully. It is therefore matter of congratulation that John Stuart Mill, one of the intellectual Élite, alike as a metaphysician, a logician, a moralist, and a politician, has taken up this subject, and carried his inquiry into somewhat wider and deeper relations than men in general, or even women, with a few exceptions, have been accustomed to regard it as involving. Several years ago, when acknowledging a vote of thanks from the reformers of York, Mr. Mill, M.P., took the opportunity of showing them the legitimate consequences of one of the principles which they had laid down in public resolutions. “It is unjust,” they had maintained, “that the great bulk of the nation should be held amenable to laws in the making of which they had no voice.” Mark the inference of the great thinker from this proposition. “It cannot stop at residential manhood suffrage; but requires that the suffrage be extended to women also:” and then he adds, “I earnestly hope that the working men of England will show the sincerity of their principles by being willing to carry them out, when urged, in favour of others besides themselves.” This logical deduction reminds us of Ann Knight’s retort upon the late Joseph Sturge. Happening to meet that excellent man at a time when his name was prominently before the public in connection with the demand for “complete suffrage,” she thus accosted him: “Friend Joseph, art thou aware of thine inconsistency? Thou talkest of complete suffrage. Canst thou be thinking of what the words imply? Dost thou not know that women are more numerous in our nation than men?” “Yes, friend Ann,” he answered; “I believe thou art right.” “Well, then, friend Joseph,” she replied, “how can the suffrage be complete when withheld from the larger portion of the community?” Friend Joseph was obliged to own himself beaten; and this amusing colloquy led to the substitution of “manhood” for “complete” in the suffrage programme of Mr. Sturge and the Reform party which he then led.

In asking, in sober form and phrase, for the enfranchisement of women, the late member for Westminster, is quite aware of the difficulties of his position. In every respect the burden is hard on those who attack an old and deeply rooted opinion. The common rules of evidence will not benefit them. In his recent work on the “Subjection of Women,” Mr. Mill says:—“It is useless for me to say that those who maintain the doctrine that men have a right to command, and women are under an obligation to obey; or that men are fit for government and women unfit; are on the affirmative side of the question, and that they are bound to show positive evidence for the assertions, or submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailing for me to say that those who deny to women any freedom or privilege rightly allowed to men, having the double presumption against them that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must be held to the strictest proof of their case; and unless their success be such as to exclude all doubt, the judgment ought to be against them. These would be thought good pleas in any common case, but they will not be thought so in this instance. Before I could hope to make any impression, I should be expected not only to answer all that has ever been said by those who take the other side of the question, but to imagine all that could be said by them—to find them in reasons, as well as answer all I find; and besides refuting all arguments for the affirmative, I shall be called upon for invincible positive arguments to prove a negative.” Many views expressed in this volume lie far apart from the thinking of ordinary intellects, but they must become familiar before life can be purified at its fountain. Is it creditable to English justice that women should be classed for electoral purposes with idiots, lunatics, and criminals? Nay, women are placed lower than the latter; for the House of Commons has deliberately resolved not to disfranchise felons permanently, on the ground that a citizen ought not to bear for life the brand of political disqualification. The principle which we so often hear enunciated in the epigrammatic form “that taxation and representation should be co-extensive,” logically covers the claim of women to be represented. All history teaches that women must have votes, in order to protect their own interests. In the words of Lord Macaulay: “Even in those countries where they are best treated, the laws are generally unfavourable to them, with respect to almost all the points in which they are the most deeply interested.” Lord Brougham said: “There must be a total reconstruction of the law, before women can have justice.” But we are told that the worst evils from which women suffer cannot be cured by legislation. Government can certainly give them the equal heritage, protection, and bequest of property; it can give them a Christian marriage law, instead of visiting matrimony with the same punishment as high treason—namely, confiscation; it can throw open to them the existing universities, or endow others to give them the high education that men value; it can restore to them the schools and institutions destined by their founders for girls as well as boys, but which are now used for boys only; it can distribute the public funds equally for the good of both sexes; it can make restrictions on the productiveness of female labour illegal. Concerning the evils which legislation cannot cure, women are making no public complaint.

The objections to female suffrage are various. In an article in the Times, it is said: “There exists, as it were, a tacit concordat guaranteeing to the weaker sex the protection and deference of the stronger, upon one condition only: that condition is the political dependence of women.” Now, we admit that women have no physical power to enforce the suffrage; and if the state is to be measured by might, they will occupy the bottom of the scale. But the rights of women do not depend upon their physical strength, but flow from the prevailing sense of justice; and justice means that the interests of women be consulted with as much impartiality as the interests of men. Another objection to the enfranchisement of women is, that politics would withdraw them from their proper duties. This apprehension is not well founded. It is quite possible to unite an interest in politics with attention to a family. In our free churches women vote equally with men, and this privilege has largely contributed to the success of the voluntary system. Moreover, women, if they have the same qualifications as men, have votes at municipal elections. We are almost ashamed to refer to the stock arguments upon this subject. They are about as weighty as those recently employed against the enfranchisement of the working classes. Women, in general, may know less of politics than men; but educated women are surely not far behind many of the new voters in political knowledge. We all know hundreds of women who are far more competent to exercise the franchise than thousands already on the register. Those who oppose the concession of the suffrage to women, are astonishingly inconsistent. In one sentence they speak of the difference of sex as something which ought to exclude them from any share in the political workings of the world—something affecting all their thoughts and impulses and actions, and making it right to keep votes from them simply on the ground that they are women. In another sentence we are told that this accident of sex affects the female nature and career so lightly, that if they were permitted to go to the polling booth they would become unsexed. Now, whether either or neither of these positions be tenable, we submit that it is impossible to sustain them both, and we believe that neither is true. It is said that the claim of political action argues capacity for civil duty, ability to serve the state in the jury-box, in the police, in the camp, in the battle-fields, in port-surveys and defences, and in a routine of official duties that suffer no intermission. But the state does not compel men to fulfil personally its demands on civil organization; it hires men for these purposes, and women contribute as well as men to the exchequer for their payment.

It is said, however, that women have not cared in the past, and do not now care for political equality. Have they ever been consulted? A large number believe that there is historical evidence that women have voted at parliamentary elections, both in counties and boroughs, and are striving to return to the ancient constitutional practice of Great Britain. They have been too wise to keep perpetually dwelling on an inquiry which, until lately, seemed utterly hopeless of redress; and too proud and sensitive to betray the existence of a feeling which only exposed them to the sneers and ridicule of the unthinking. But as soon as the House of Commons showed signs of admitting them within the pale of the constitution, the women of Great Britain began to prove that they did care for their political rights. Recently, a petition from Edinburgh in favour of women’s suffrage was presented by Mr. McLaren, signed by upwards of 800 female householders. A supplementary petition, followed soon after to the same effect, signed by eight university professors, six doctors of law, eighteen clergymen, eight barristers, ten physicians, ten officers in the army and navy, and upwards of 2000 other inhabitants. Colonel Sykes also presented 185 petitions from independent women in Aberdeen. A petition adopted by a public meeting held in Aberdeen, and signed by Professor Bain as chairman, was also transmitted to the Prime Minister, the Lord Advocate, and the members for the city and county of Aberdeen; praying the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom, to pass the bill entitled, “A Bill to Remove the Electoral Disabilities of Women.” In 1867, 3000 women of Manchester and the surrounding districts signed a petition asking for the franchise. On the evening of the 14th of April, 1868, a meeting in connection with the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, was held in the same city, in the assembly room of the Free-trade Hall, the Mayor of Salford presiding. On the platform were a number of ladies, whose appearance was the signal for loud and repeated applause. Several of the most prominent leaders of the Reform party were similarly welcomed. Letters containing expressions of regret at the inability of the writers to attend the meeting, and of sympathy with its objects, were received from many eminent men and women. A number of women possessing the requisite qualifications have claimed their place on the register; and the question was tried in November, 1868, in banquo, at Westminster, by the Court of Common Pleas. The judges decided against them; but they resolved that in 1869, a petition should be presented from every important town in England and Wales, praying for an alteration of the present law; and Lady Amberley, Mrs. Fawcett, Miss Becker, Miss Faithful, and Miss Taylour, intend to continue their lectures on the electoral disabilities of their sex, till the British people be a nation of free women as well as of free men.

Mr. Mill’s motion for the bestowal of the franchise upon women occasioned a good deal of silly giggling:—

But it seldom happens that a really able man makes a proposal that is entirely devoid of sense and reason; and we are glad that a minority of seventy-three were found in the House gallant enough to vote for the motion. The member for Westminster did not ask a vote for any woman whose legal personality was even partially merged in that of another. Neither married women, whose husbands are in life, nor domestic servants, would be admitted by him to the franchise. But if a woman is a householder, managing her own affairs, paying her way, liable to every tax, and faultless in every civil capacity; where is the person of intelligence who will dare to pronounce Mr. Mill’s proposal absurd? On the 4th of May, 1870, Mr. Jacob Bright moved the second reading of the bill for the enfranchisement of women, and adduced his best arguments to prove that widows and spinsters should have votes. By a majority of thirty-three votes, in a house of 215 members, the women carried the day; and the bill was read a second time amid loud cheers. This in future will be an important subject between constituencies and candidates; and we have little doubt that in the course of a few years the British parliament will know nothing of the distinctions of strong and weak, male and female, rich and poor. Why should women be excluded by law from doing the very things for which they are peculiarly qualified? Had Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria not inherited the throne, they could not have been entrusted with the smallest political duties! The former was one of the most eminent rulers of mankind; and the vocation of the latter for government has made its way, and become conspicuous. Happy will be the day in our country—happy will be the day throughout the world—when woman stands in this respect, as well as in others, a help meet for man!

God has planted in every breast a passion for congenial society, and made its wholesome play essential for the fulness of happiness; but depraved passions have rendered the claims and duties of both sexes ambiguous, and disarranged the harmonies of the first creation. As society becomes corrupt, power assumes authority over weakness; and they who ought to help, begin to hinder. Upon this principle women have been held in a state of social degradation in all countries in which Christianity has been wholly unknown. The Egyptians decreed it to be indecent in women to go abroad without shoes, and threatened with death any one who should make shoes for them. Among Celtic nations, the labours of the field, as well as domestic toil, devolved on the women; which evidently originated in the general impression of their inferiority in the scale of existence. The domestic life of the Greeks exhibit unquestionable evidences of barbarity in the treatment of women. At no time were they entrusted with any knowledge of their husbands’ affairs, and they were totally excluded from mixed society. According to the laws of the Romans, the wife was in servitude; though she had in name the rights of a citizen. In savage, superstitious, and Mahometan countries, the condition of females justifies the exclamation of an ancient philosopher, who thanked God that he was born a man and not a woman.

It is evident that the social condition of women, destitute of the light of revelation, is inferior to that of men. But under the influence of even a precursory and imperfect system of the true religion, their glory emerges partially to view. Still under the Jewish theocracy, the Levitical law appointed a variety of regulations which evinced their imperfect emancipation from social inferiority. Polygamy and concubinage prevailed even in pious families in these olden times. The doctrine of vows, also, in the case of daughters, wives, and widows, proves the subordination of the female sex. It is Christianity that has raised women above the state of barbaric degradation, Mahometan slavery, and Jewish subjection, and assigned to them their proper place in society.

While the religion of Jesus elevates women to great consideration in the social scale, it imposes a salutary restraint upon human passions, and checks every approach to the assumption of an unnatural superiority. Its principles allow neither the barbaric treatment of uncivilized nations, nor the follies of the chivalrous ages. The great principles of Christianity secure to women, as an unquestionable right, equality with men. “Let every one of you so love his wife as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” Paley writes, “The manners of different countries have varied in nothing more than in their domestic constitutions. Less polished and more luxurious nations have either not perceived the bad effects of polygamy; or, if they did perceive them, they who in such countries possessed the power of reforming the laws, have been unwilling to resign their own gratification.” In all Christian countries, polygamy is universally prohibited; and the marriage of a second wife during the lifetime of the first, is ranked with the most dangerous and cruel of those frauds by which a woman is cheated out of her fortune, her person, and her happiness. In the early days of the generation which is fast fading away from among us, as in that which immediately preceded it, we know that the education of women, if bestowed at all, was confined to the shallowest acquirements and the most superficial of accomplishments. In courtly circles, a few external graces, and a sufficient acquaintance with polite phraseology were enough to constitute the woman of refinement. That woman is slowly making her way into freer life is evinced by the fact that professed authorship does not involve loss of caste in society. Many widely known as writers, were placed in the genteel ranks of society by birth; but are universally regarded with increased respect, because they have enlarged their bounds of usefulness, to strengthen and refresh thousands of minds.

Phrenologists affirm that the female head does not measure so much round as the male; neither is it so wide, so high, nor so long. On the other hand, many authorities, English and foreign, say that the brains of women are larger than those of men in proportion to the size of their bodies, while their temperaments are more nervous and sensitive; hence female mental inferiority would be a hasty generalization; for although the brain is the intellectual organ, size is not the only measure of power. Woman, like man, was created perfect; but the powers of her mind are essentially different from those of man. The male intellect is logical and judicious, while that of the female is instructive and emotional. “They are one in the warp and woof of their mental nature; but the interwoven threads are in bulk so differently proportioned in the two, that they differ very considerably in superficial colour and finish.” The theory that the strong, or male mind, prefers the weak, or female mind, in its hours of leisure, is contradicted by experience. Poets, philosophers, and orators, prefer the fellowship of kindred souls. On the same principle, clever men naturally court the society of clever women. A creature of inferior mental powers would not be a help meet for man.

Who have a better right to speak to this theme than teachers of youth? Their vocation leads them to see boys and girls studying the same subjects, and they are pretty unanimous in their opinion that the memories, perceptions, and understandings of girls are quite equal to those of boys. Plato was of opinion that males had no superiority over females, except in physical strength. Dugald Stewart was of the same opinion, and ascribed the difference in the sexes to education. Several of the school inspectors in England and Scotland report that they found the capabilities of the girls as good in general as those of boys; that although part of the school-day was devoted rightfully to needlework, they made as much progress as lads of the same amount of training when taught by the same masters. Of the six ladies who attended the separate classes for women authorized by the university of Edinburgh, five were found in the prize list—one, Miss Pechey, received a bronze medal, and ought to have been a Hope scholar; Miss Blake, got a first-class certificate of merit; while Mrs. Masson, Mrs. Thorn, and Miss Chaplin, have certificates of merits of second-class. The Aberdeen lady students’ classes were organized late last year. The lecturers were Mr. M’Bain, formerly Assistant-Professor of Greek in the university, and Dr. Beveridge—both eminently qualified; and the subjects undertaken, were English Literature and Chemistry, and Experimental Physics. From an address delivered by M. Krueger, we notice that eight ladies attended the first of these classes, and eleven the second, and that the students are highly spoken of alike for attention and ability. The past session, especially seeing it may be regarded as merely experimental, having been thus successful, it is hoped that in future there will be a larger number of students, and that other subjects of study besides those already engaged in may get encouragement. We are informed that at the examination of Mr. M’Bain’s class, Miss Sherar obtained the highest certificate. At the examinations of the Metropolitan University, females have demonstrated the possession of acquirements sufficient to procure them high honours at the elder seats of learning on the banks of the Isis and the Cam. These facts ought to make us pause before condemning Sidney Smith for claiming, in the pages of the Edinburgh Review, perfect equality in mental endowment for women. “As long as boys and girls run about in the dirt and trundle hoops together, they are both precisely alike. If you catch up one-half of these creatures and train them to a particular set of actions and opinions, and the other half to a perfectly opposite set, of course their understandings will differ as one or the other sort of occupation has called this or that talent into action; there is surely, therefore, no occasion to go into any deeper or more abstruse reasoning in order to explain so very simple a phenomenon.”

What is there in science, literature, or art, which the genius of woman cannot accomplish? If we have had starry sons of science, we have had starry daughters too. Not only has woman lifted the telescope, but she has lifted the pen, and written treatises of great learning and originality. “The Mechanism of the Heavens” and “The Connection of the Physical Sciences,” by Mrs. Somerville, would not have disgraced the pen of Sir Isaac Newton. We have had chemistry represented by Mrs. Marcet, and botany by Mrs. Loudon. Woman has risen to eminence in divinity. Miss Jane Taylor was thoroughly acquainted with that science. Medicine has had its female students. In early times, and also in the middle ages, female physicians and surgeons were as common as male; and sometimes the patient got enamoured of his doctor:—

Miss Garrett, finding that she could be admitted by the Society of Apothecaries to the medical profession, qualified herself for practice. But the society discovering that her example was likely to be contagious, at once shut the door. Miss Garrett is now an M.D. of the University of Paris. Nine ladies in New York and five in Boston have recently graduated at medical colleges as physicians. One of the professors of the New York College stated that there are in America 300 women practising medicine whose professional incomes range at from 10,000 to 20,000 dollars per annum. The thorny science of the law has also been a female study. The Roman Hortensia, seems to have been rather an eloquent pleader than a consummate lawyer; but several Italian women of the middle ages were renowned as jurists. Contrary to expectation, the mechanical and mathematical sciences are those in which woman has most distinguished herself. The least gallant of critics are now compelled to admit that female authorship has taken up a full and conspicuous place in literature. If three hundred years ago, Ariosto could write with more than poetic truth, his well known stanzas commencing with the words—

with how much greater truth might the affirmative be repeated amidst the blaze of female talent, by which the present century is signalised! Not to go beyond the limits of our own land, we have had delineations of life worthy of Cervantes and Le Sage, of Fielding and Smollett, but traced with faultless purity, from that great school of writers in which the names of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Gaskell, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Oliphant, George Eliot, and Miss Mulock, are only some of the most conspicuous. Joanna Bailey and Miss Mitford have given tragedies to the stage which would have gained a rich harvest of golden opinions in the days of Massinger and Ford. In lyric poetry, we have Miss Landon, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, and Mary Howitt. Miss Martineau has made the most practical and unimaginative of studies, political economy, as attractive as the most interesting fictions of romance. In art, woman holds a distinguished place. She can dip her pencil in hues borrowed from the rainbow, and transfer her genius to canvas. The master works of Landseer are more than rivalled by Rosa Bonheur; and Mrs. Jameson is the best art-critic England has ever produced. Till recently, women could be Associates of the Royal Academy; but they were distinguishing themselves, and to the burning disgrace of the Academy, the privilege was taken from them. Do the Academicians know of what sex were the Muses and the Graces?

“Woman sister,” says Thomas de Quincey, “there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother man. No, nor never will. Pardon me, if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is meant, not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men’s bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you can create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not?”

This passage is not true. Whatever man may perform, woman taken out of his side may equal. Right truly has Ebenezer Elliott, a sincere and energetic, if not graceful bard, sung:—

Miss Becker, of Manchester, in a paper on some supposed differences in the minds of men and women, read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in Norwich, August 25, 1868, submits the three following propositions:—“I. That the attribute of sex does not extend to mind: that there is no distinction between the intellects of men and women, corresponding to and dependent on the special organization of their bodies. II. That any broad marks of distinction which may at the present time be observed to exist between the minds of men and women collectively, are fairly traceable to the influence of the different circumstances under which they pass their lives, and cannot be proved to adhere in each class, in virtue of sex. III. That in spite of the external circumstances which tend to cause divergence in the tone of mind, habits of thought, and opinions of men and women; it is a matter of fact that these do not differ more among persons of opposite sexes than they do among persons of the same; that comparing any one man with any one woman, or any class of men with any class of women, the difference between their mental characteristics will not be greater than may be found between two individuals or classes, compared with others of the same sex.”

The capacity for goodness is greater and nobler than the ability to acquire knowledge; and it is almost universally admitted that woman is more largely endowed with the lofty moral sense and the generous affection from which all true greatness springs, than man. Intellectual glory cannot compare with the moral halo that gilds the following picture: “Take a woman who is possessed of a large intellect, say—but intellect well disciplined, well stored—gifted with mind, and graced with its specific piety, whose chief delight it is to do kind deeds to those beloved. Her life is poured out like the fair light of heaven around the bedside of the sick; she becomes like a last sacrament to the dying man, bringing back a reminiscence of the best things of mortal life, and giving a foretasted prophecy of the joys of heaven—her very presence an alabaster box of ointment exceeding precious, filling the house with its balm of a thousand flowers. Her love adorns the path in which she teaches youthful feet to tread, and blooms in amaranthine loveliness above the head laid low in earth. She would feel insulted by gratitude. God can give no greater joy to mortal men than the consciousness whence such a life wells out. Not content with blessing the few whom friendship joins to her, her love enlarges and runs over the side of the private cup, and fills the bowl of many a needy and forsaken one. Oh, in the presence of such affection as this, the intellect of Plato would be abashed, and say,—‘Stand back, my soul, for here is something holier than thou. In sight of such excellence, I am ashamed of intellect; I would not look upon the greatest that ever spoke to ages yet unborn.’”

We cannot but feel that the eloquent author was right in making the embodiment of such goodness a woman; for under all conditions, from the lowest barbarism to the highest civilization, her sense of right is conspicuous, and her generous affection is proverbial. Both in Latin and Greek almost every moral excellence is expressed by nouns in the feminine gender. Virtus, Sophia, Fides, Justitia, and Charitas, are examples. Some are of opinion that there was much philosophy in the mythology of the ancients; but, be this as it may, it is certain that in nearly all languages the virtues, when personified, are spoken of in the feminine gender; intimating that the nature of woman is pre-eminently adapted for their exemplification.

“Perhaps,” says William M’Combie, in his “Hours of Thought,” “if we would see moral elevation apart, as far as possible, from all earthly excitements, we must leave the halls of riches, and the possessors of high intellectual endowments, and enter the dwelling of the lonely female of threescore years and ten, whose ‘acquaintances’ have gone down into ‘darkness,’—who has outlived all that were dearest to her heart on earth. We shall, perhaps, find her sitting in a corner of her confined apartment, scarcely visible amidst smoke, distressed with disease, or suffering under acute pain, with only the literal ‘bread’ and ‘water,’ which the word of God hath made sure. Yet the language of thankfulness is on her tongue, and her countenance brightens with contentment as if lighted by a ray from heaven; the withdrawment of earthly comforts and cares seem to have opened a wider entrance for the heavenly consolation; and her distresses and her pains only impel her forward in her journey to the celestial city. In the want of earthly associates, she enjoys more intimate communion with her God, and the ineffably animating language of the Saviour has become, as it were, an element of her mind.” “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

The capacity for religion is the highest part of human nature, and the qualities which constitute religion, the noblest which it is possible to cultivate. If the choice were possible, that to-morrow every woman and maiden should become worthy of being associated with those splendid intellects, some few score of which have done the main part of the work of thinking for the rest of the world; or else should become unchangeably and fearlessly religious,—would any true and wise lover of his country for a moment hesitate to choose the latter? Can there be any doubt which would contribute most to the happiness, and in the end, to the honour, greatness, and security of the world.

In the most explicit terms, the sacred writers affirm that neither the male nor the female have any peculiar claims or advantages in regard to religion. Both sexes are alike sinners, and are alike saved by grace. Christianity smites pride to the dust, by proclaiming that the human family have a common origin, and esteems them all to be equal in the matter of salvation. At the foot of the Cross, at the communion table, and in heaven, there is neither male nor female. The personal conduct of the Divine author of Christianity tended to elevate the female sex to a degree of consideration in society unknown before. Jesus was present at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, conversed with the Samaritan woman, and in some of his most illustrious miracles females were personally concerned. He mingled his tears with those of Martha and Mary, restored their brother to their affections, and gave the widow of Nain back her son. The conduct of Christ naturally induced His disciples to imitate His example; and the subsequent admission of women to all the privileges of the Christian Church, tended mightily to confirm their elevation and evince their importance in society. Women ministered to the Saviour in the days of His humiliation; and when one professed friend denied Him, and another betrayed Him, and all forsook Him and fled, their fidelity was never impeached. They were the last at the cross—they were the first at the sepulchre. Through all succeeding ages, they have been conspicuous for their works of charity and their labours of love,—through all the phases of persecution the women have suffered for their religious faith like the men; and it has been remarked that no woman ever put forward her sex as a reason for being spared. The congregations and churches of the present day testify how well women have understood their privileges.

Religion, indeed, in itself is venerable; but it must be attractive in order to be influential; and it is impossible to tell how great might be the benefit to society, if the personal loveliness, versatile powers, and lively fancy so lavishly bestowed upon woman were conscientiously employed on its behalf. Right truly has James Russell Lowell, one of the most original poets America has yet produced, sung:—