SOCIAL FEATURES OF THE UNION. 255 



bruised the serpent's head. She stood by the expiring 

 Jesus, when boasting Peter and the other disciples had 

 forsaken the Lord. She was last at the tomb, embalmed 

 his sacred body, and the first to discover that he had burst 

 the bars of death, risen from the cleft rock, and triumphed 

 over death and the grave. Under affliction, especially 

 physical, the fortitude of woman is proverbial. As a 

 nurse, one woman will endure more than five men. 



4 ' That she is more honest than man, our penitentiaries 

 fully demonstrate. That she is more religiously inclined 

 the records of our churches will show. That she is more 

 devotional, our prayer meetings will prove." We fre- 

 quently hear it urged that women know nothing about 

 business matters. Then educate her. She can become a 

 helpmate. If she is left alone as thousands are she is 

 equipped and qualified to make her way through the 

 world. In cases of adverse fortune and extreme poverty 

 the heroic fortitude and unselfishness of woman is sublime. 

 Many of our readers will, perhaps, remember the touching 

 tribute paid to this trait in woman's character by that best 

 of American writers, Washington Irving: 



' ' I have often, ' ' says he, ( ' had occasion to remark the 

 fortitude with which , women sustain the most over- 

 whelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which 

 break down the spirit of man, and prostrate him in the 

 dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, 

 and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, 

 that, at times, it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be 

 more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, 

 who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to 

 every trivial roughness, while threading the prosperous 

 paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the 

 comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, 

 and abiding with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blasts 

 of adversity. 



