with a beauty, which, instead of fading and disappearing, will grow brighter and lovelier with advancing age, and sweeten all your domestic experience. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The condition of woman, and the estimation in which she is held by the other sex, are a true index of the state of civilization in every country. Wherever Christianity diffuses its divine influences—wherever the pages of literature, of science, and of the arts, are unfolded for the perusal of the great mass of the people, there woman is honored, her rights are respected, her value appreciated, her worthiness assented to—there she is the companion of man, and not his slave; the object of his confidence and love, and not the instrument of his despotic pleasure—there she is acknowledged an intellectual and moral being, capable of competing with the masculine mind in the acquisition of those attainments that adorn and elevate human nature. But in those lands where the light of Christianity has never shone— where the arts and sciences are known only to a small extent, and where mental and moral darkness covers the people--woman is a degraded menial, looked upon by man, as only fitted to perform the drudgery of life, and to do his bidding. To perceive the truth of these remarks, it is only necessary to survey the present condition of woman, in different portions of the earth. In Europe and America, where Christianity, civilization, and science diffuse their mingled influences, woman holds her highest rank; the native purity and loveliness of her qualities shine out, and her talents and capabilities are developed to a degree hitherto unknown in the annals of time. But contemplate her condition in other sections of the globe. Wherever the darkness of ignorance reigns in its most complete triumph, there woman is plunged in her deepest degradation. In Persia and Hindostan, in Turkey, in Georgia and Circassia, in China and the Loo-Choo Islands, while her condition is better than in many other parts of the world, it is still far inferior in every valuable consideration, to her station in Christian nations. She is worshipped, it is true, as an idol, in some of those countries; but the emotion arises no higher than admiration of personal beauty; she commands no respect for virtue, intelligence, and well-developed intellect. The immoralities of Mohometanism and Paganism, together with the unnatural institution of polygamy, unjustly rob her of her rights, her influence, and the dearest enjoyments of life. She is made the subject of barter and sale, "and her beauty, and sometimes her ability to labor, are |