1864.] o-j^'j^ [Price. 



per, the rude nature of the boy resists. It is the mother only that 

 can soften his rugged tendencies ; and she alone is fitted to guide 

 and impress the gentler sex. She alone has the patient endurance 

 to continue the task of saving the son she has borne, when bent on 

 vicious ways, hoping against hope, to save him from himself, for him- 

 self, for his family, and for his country; and to save him for that 

 family union hereafter, which she ever fervently prays may be com- 

 plete, no one missing. It is from her maternal solicitude and cease- 

 less efforts, thus undespairingly exerted; to her ministrations in the 

 first and best temple of worship, next to the purified heart, the home, 

 at whose altar she is priestess, that nearly all that is good may be 

 traced; and especially, that influence, that after many years of aliena- 

 tion, during which the heart has been pierced by many sorrows, will 

 bring back to the native hearthstone the prodigal son. That this is 

 her higher mission, and that she is better fitted for it than man, he 

 need not be jealous; for so the Creator has willed it, and it is for the 

 common good. Let it be his care to aid and never to thwart these 

 her efforts, for they spring from sacred impulses. Their spheres are 

 diverse ; and though his high duties be indispensable, hers upon 

 the family are the more important, and the eff'ects more enduring. 

 A more important and elevated sphere she cannot attain and seldom 

 should desire; and she descends from the highest when she attempts 

 to leave it, and not often attempts it without disparagement to her- 

 self. Yet woman is not to be too closely restricted to the indoor 

 round of domestic cares, especially after her children have grown to 

 an age to share them with her. Age often sets her free to fulfil the 

 mission to which her generous nature prompts. In many charities, 

 this nation and age, more than any other, have witnessed, how invalu- 

 able and devoted have been her self-sacrificing services, in behalf of 

 the uneducated, the insane, and the poor; of the sick, the wounded, 

 and the dying soldier. A censorious world must not, after this age 

 of sacrifices, be indulged in its too great jealousy of woman's strivings 

 to do all the good of which she is capable, to all human sufi'erers. 

 Her sacred purpose, and the good accomplished, must sanctify her 

 deeds in the breasts of all good men. 



We are not disparaged, but exalted, and society and the nation is 

 exalted, when woman is held in honor, and is enabled to dispense her 

 best influences round us. An eloquent French author says truly, "If 

 we wish, then, to know the political and moral condition of a state, 

 we must ask what rank women hold in it. Their influence embraces 

 the whole of life. A wife; a mother; two magical words, compris- 



