52 THE FEMALE CHARACTER. 



urged her father to perform his vow, although 

 her own life might be the sacrifice. It was a 

 woman who so beautifully said, ee all was well/* 

 when she came to implore the prophet to restore 

 her dead and only son. It was a woman who 

 followed her mother-in-law in all her distress and 

 poverty.' It was a woman who offered her last 

 mite in charity. It was a woman who washed 

 our blessed Saviour's feet with her tears, and 

 afterwards wiped them with the hair of her head. 

 It was a woman who said, " Lord, if thou had'st 

 been here, my brother had not died.'* It was a 

 woman who stood at the foot of the cross. It 

 was a woman who went first to the sepulchre. 

 It was to a woman our Lord first made himself 

 known after his resurrection ; and, it was not a 

 woman who betrayed our Lord and master. 



Charming, however, as the female character 

 maybe, it possesses another quality which has not 

 yet been referred to. I allude to that extraordi- 

 nary tenderness and affection, which a mother 

 generally shews to a deformed, diseased, or idiotic 

 child. That this feeling has been implanted in 

 her by a merciful Creator for a benevolent pur- 

 pose cannot, I think, be doubted, nor can I ima- 

 gine any being more wretched than one, in any of 

 the conditions I have mentioned, deserted by its 

 mother, and deprived of her tenderness and care. 

 Even some animals shew the same affection under 



