CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW. SECT. 1. CONDITION BEFORE AND SINCE THE FALL; Scripture SECT. 2. RESTORATION TO HER PRIMARY SPHERE; Promises . SECT. 3. CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD; Fashion and custom; CHAPTER II. THE INSPIRED MODEL. SECT. 1. DESCRIPTION OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN; Probable 40 51 SECT. 3. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED; Necessity of labor; Edu- cation among the Spartans; Merchandize good; Spinning; Ancient customs; Benevolence-its reward; Fortitude, and propriety of dress; Her husband known among the Elders; Lowell operatives; Insensible perspiration; La- bor-its reward; Garments of the wise; Wisdom and kind- ness of speech; Outside passenger; Daughters not edu- cated for wives and mothers; Carefulness; Solomon and Bathsheba; The aged Saints; Excelleth all; Vanity of beauty and favor; Emerson: Her praise; Summing up,. 63 SECT. 4. CHARACTER OF A FOOLISH WOMAN; Pollok; Lowth; INFLUENCE OF WOMEN UPON NATIONS. Catharine; Spartan customs; Napoleon's mother; Byron's; Washington's; Pilgrims; Early influence; Athenians; Pericles; Aspasia; Solomon; Deluge; Intermarriage for- Design of conjugal relation; Extent of one's income; Improve- ment; Lay not up treasures; Madam Lasteyrie; Becom- ing fashions; A father and his daughter; Useful and regular employments; Desultory thoughts; "Reform myself;" The obedient and good Woman; The disobedient; Errata.-P. 17, for "Ninus," read "Semiramis, wife of Ninus." WOMAN AS SHE WAS, IS, AND SHOULD BE. CHAPTER I. SECTION I. Her Condition before and since the Fall. "With royal honor, and with glory crowned, Of thought, and comely words, to worship God, Glad, in each other glad, and glad in hope; Rejoicing in their future, happy race."-POLLOK. THE above is truthfully, as well as poetically beautiful, and yet, it hardly equals in tenderness and simplicity, the unpretending account given by Moses in his brief history of the Creation. "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help, meet for him. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam, to see what he would call them and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field: but, for Adam, there was not found an help, meet for him." Amid the vast variety of living, breathing forms, which passed in review before him, Adam saw no kindred nature-none that could share in his sympathies-none that bore the same high impress with himself. There was no voice which sent back an answering tone, no eye that reflected a human spirit; and his Maker saw that, though surrounded by his legitimate subjects, man was emphatically alone. All the beasts of the field, and all the fowls of the air, had been created out of the dust of the earth: even Adam himself rose from its genial bosom; but the Creator saw that a stronger tie than a mere common origin of existence, was needed to render a companion an object of undivided regard. That he might know that she, alone, whom He destined to share his earthly dominion, was worthy of himself, and to add yet another, and a finishing stroke, to this beautiful creation, He formed her, not of the dust of the earth, but of the flesh and bone of Adam; thus beautifully typifying their identity of interest and feeling, and adding the strong bond of self-love to the innumerable ties that united them. "The woman was made of a rib, out of the side of Adam, not out of his head, to top him not out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him; under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved."-HENRY. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and ; shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." Sinless, perfect as man could be, made lord of the visible world, still was there lacking that sweetest of all emotions, the sympathy of a kindred nature, until he gazed upon the perfection of grace and beauty who owed her existence to his own, through the divine agency. In her clear, soft eyes, he read an answer to every impulse of his own heart, and doubtless was led to look upon her as the finishing work of the Great Architect, which had risen, by regular gradations of beauty, from the first rough structure of the earth, up to this refined and doubly polished model of a future race of beings; who, by a mysterious combination of material and spiritual nature, connected this world with his own blest abode. And thus would man have regarded woman, through all successive ages, had she retained the original purity and dignity of her character. She was made a help, meet for man; united with him in his sovereignty over the world, and all that it contained; and Eve blushed not that she was created to be the wife of the great farmer and gardener of the new earth. The beautiful garden in which they were placed was not designed as a summer retreat from the cares and labors of life; they were to dress it, and keep it, that their wants might be supplied, and that it might be a fitting apartment for Him who had created them, and who loved to hold familiar intercourse with his children. We here see that labor was assigned to man and woman before sin was introduced; that it was one of the conditions incident to a perfect state, and not imposed upon man as a penalty for his crimes. In fact, sovereignty implies a power of control, that cannot be exerted without either mental or physical labor, and it usually combines both. God himself works. The scriptures represent him as laboring in the creation of the world, for six days, and then resting on |