I APPEAR before you, young ladies, on this interesting occasion, not to flatter you or your sex, but to contribute to your gratification and that of myself, in suggesting to your consideration some practical views on a subject alike interesting to your sex and to my own. That subject, alike important to us both, is just and adequate views of woman and her mission, and these in reference to her proper education and development. Regarding woman, as I do, as the octave, or rather the diapason, of the hymn of creation, and as having committed to her the destinies of our species and our planet, she, in the scale of material nature, in unison with the spiritual, is a spectacle alike interesting to Creator and creature--to all intelligences, of all ranks and orders, terrestrial or celestial. If the morning stars in concert sang, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, when the drama of creation culminated in the person of Eve, can she, whose very name is LIFE, in its first impersonation and full-orbed grandeur, ever cease to be not only the dearest object of our earth-born affections, but the most attractive spectacle ever seen, when robed in all the charms and graces of our ransomed and beatified humanity?

      I speak not of her as she now is, in any of the generally diversified conditions of her being, superinduced by the enmity, if not the envy, of a fallen seraph. But I speak of her as she was, when she stood at the left side of Adam on the day of her espousals, in the bridal robes of angelic purity and love. 'Twas then, in the ambrosial bowers of Eden's paradise, she stood attired in all the charms of intellectual grandeur, moral beauty and ecstatic bliss. But in an evil hour she hearkened to the deceitful eloquence of Satanic flattery, and touched [213] the alluring fruit of the one only forbidden tree, "whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all our woe." In this eclipse of reason, in this aberration of heart, the sting of sin transfused its poison through her whole personality,--body, soul and spirit; and instantly the light of joy, and peace, and love, that beamed from her spirit-stirring and soul-subduing eyes, vanished, a, cloud of pensiveness sat brooding over her fallen countenance, and, handing the fruit to her admiring husband, he, in the blindness of his devotion to her charms, fascinated and overpowered by her former loveliness, thoughtlessly and reckless, without a single remonstrance or demur, snatched it, ate it; in consequence of which, all his glory and dignity in a moment vanished away.

      And now, born as we are, creatures of mere instinctive appetites and passions, we have become an easy prey to that same insidious tempter, and make our debut amidst the thorns and thistles of the earth, doomed to desolation, without one heavenward aspiration, void of even one desire to know our origin, our relations to the universe, or our destiny in it, in and of ourselves have become the most helpless, the most passive and erratic creatures that figure upon it.

      This is the solemn, significant and soul-appalling fact, interpret it, hide it or disregard it as we may. But for it, no tear had ever dimmed the eye of beauty, no anxiety had ever disturbed the human breast, no guilt had ever clouded the understanding or agonized the soul of man.

      It is essential to our redemption, that some supernatural interposition should have been originated and instituted, else our escape from this condition would have been, so far as our reason or resources are concerned, wholly impossible.

      There are, indeed, a few speculative philosophers who imagine that reason alone could, of its own inherent power, have originated some remedy for those conditions of ignorance, guilt and bondage, under which we languish, sicken and die. But superficial and erratic reasoners they are, who can even imagine any such possibility. Reason but measures, compares and decides upon given premises. Imagination is, indeed, in a certain limited sphere, creative. But the very word itself annihilates its claims to originate. It forms images, and only images. It creates not one original idea. It can abstract and combine, in new forms and modifications, the images of human experience and observation. But beyond this its power reaches not.

      Revelation alone meets the present conditions of our being. And even written revelation commences its career with the positive history of the drama of creation. From supernatural revelation alone can we [214] derive any assurance of our origin or of our origination. Enlightened by it, certain philosophers, of a superficial cast, think, or assume to think, that they could prove, a priori, the being of God. They have, indeed, demonstrated a power to materialize every thing, which only proves that they never could rise to the conception of a spiritual first cause of matter. Others, the greatest and best of them, too, have confessed that matter could never have been the parent of spirit. Those who have assumed that matter is naturally, necessarily and eternally active, have never yet been able to abstract from it one spiritual voluntary agent, nor, by any process of reasoning, to show any possibility of such a process or result.

      But even with Bible in hand, there are those now, and there have been those formerly, who presume to say that woman was not created simultaneously, or even on the same day, with man. And this, forsooth, because the special details of her creation are not found in the first, but in the second chapter of Genesis. It is indeed conceded that, in the second chapter, we have a detailed account of her creation,--a minute and graphic history of that mysterious, sublime and adumbrative operation. But to the attentive student of the style and manner of Moses, as an historian, there is no difficulty in the case.

      In the first chapter of Genesis, we are informed that on the last working-day of the first week God created man. How dull and indiscriminating is that student of Holy Writ who imagines that the word man is there used sexually, and not specifically? Does not Moses say, (chap. i. 27,) that God created man, "a male and a female created he them?" Indeed, he not only created man on the sixth day of the first week, but on the same day he solemnly enacted matrimony, simultaneously with woman's creation. This was the only marriage in the annals of time unpreceded by courtship; the only marriage, too, celebrated when the parties were not one day old. Every thing on this occasion was, of course, original and unprecedented.

      There was something so mysterious and wonderful in the creation of Lord Adam and Lady Eve, that it was deemed both edifying and important to give to them a special account of their instructive and suggestive origin; and therefore Moses, by Divine inspiration, afterwards gives, in the next chapter, a detailed narrative of the whole particulars of this, the most exquisite, peculiar and instructive operation of God. Hence, he resumes the subject in the second chapter; but this is not the only act in the whole drama of creation, upon which he enlarges in the form of details.

      A similar misconception we have observed in regard to the "deep [215] sleep" into which Adam fell, preparatory to the abstraction of a part of himself, as the material out of which his Eve was formed. For aught that appears in the statement, that deep sleep did not engross one minute.

      It was supernatural, and the operation may not, in the whole premises, have consumed a second. Many conceive of this operation from that of a surgeon, whose preparations often demand much more time than the work itself. But it was in harmony with all the oracles or fiats of the first week. If

can we, shall we, suppose that the creation of Eve occupied any sensible measure of time? We cannot, in harmony with all the operations that constitute the material universe, consummated in six consecutive days. Besides, it must be taken into our premises that, according to the express oracles of God, both in history and in law, he created all things within six days.

      In our common version of the Bible, we are also led to think that our mother Eve was created out of, or around the nucleus of, a crooked rib. This does not well comport with her character and sensibilities. The original Tsela is, however, a word of two meanings, indicative both of side and of rib. We presume that there must have been some flesh about it. Adam, indeed, sanctions this opinion; for on her presentation to him, as soon as he recovered his senses, lie said, "This creature is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh;" and, in attestation and consummation of this fact, he calls her Woman. And, still better authority, God himself said on this occasion, that, in holy wedlock joined, man and woman should be one flesh, as, no doubt, commemorative of their intimate, mysterious and sublime origin.

      There is a pleasing speculation cherished by some fond philosophers, that Adam's left side was opened in the region of his heart, and from this they argue that man's left side became his weak side, because from it woman was extracted; and to this assumption they assign not only the weakness of that side, but also the peculiar love of man for woman. But like many other theories in this our day, it is more ingenious and curious than philosophic or religious.

      There is, indeed, a more or less favorable stand-point from which to contemplate any and every object in the universe. And on a subject of such thrilling and soul-engrossing interest to the present and eternal happiness of our species, it is of the greatest importance that we should be placed in such a position, and in such an attitude, as to survey the [216] entire mission and destiny, not of woman only as respects her own person and sex, but of woman in her mission and destiny in the whole creation of God.

      And for what, let us inquire, was woman created and made? You anticipate me, no doubt, and would respond. She was created and commissioned to be a help meet for man. Man was created in the image of God, and woman was created in the image of man. Man was created to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever; and woman was created to be a help suitable to such a being as man, and to participate in common with him in glorifying God and in enjoying him forever. This is the true position and the true stand-point from which we should contemplate one another, and glorify and beatify one another, in perfect harmony with mutual esteem, affection and admiration, and in a felicitous submission to all the conditions in which our heavenly Father has respectively placed us.

      This stand-point is lofty, and commands a very large horizon. But it is not at all a fictitious position, nor an exaggerated importance gratuitously assumed, but is as solid and enduring as the Rock of Ages.

      This planet allotted to man, with all the tenantry thereof--of air, and earth and sea--was created for him; not for one Adam and one Eve, but for all the varieties, types and manifestations of humanity, conceivable by the Supreme Intelligence.

      The simple fact of an incarnation of the Supreme Divinity in our humanity, is more suggestive of the space occupied by man in the bosom of his Father and his God, than all the volumes of the highest reason, than all the poetry of the loftiest and most fruitful imagination, unfolds, or can unfold in the largest series of ages yet to come, or conceivable by our contracted vision.

      But this, young ladies, in its soul-subduing grandeur, is not a theme within the immediate province of your studies or of your capacities. Still, a glance at it through the telescope of divine revelation is of such stimulating power and efficiency as to justify an allusion to it, to excite in your imagination the importance of qualifying yourselves for higher, holier, happier and more enduring positions in the area of the universe, than you could aspire to without such suggestions.

      It is, indeed, quite enough for our present purpose, and for the short space allotted to us, to impress upon your attention that woman was created to be a companion, perfectly suitable to man: Hence it is [217] equally her duty, her honor and her happiness, to accomplish herself for this high and dignified position.

      It is true, the present types of men, usually called gentlemen, are not well read on this subject, and some of them only aspire to be genteel men, rather than gentlemen.

      Do you smile at this distinction? It is, indeed, somewhat ridiculous. Man, however, being the only creature, save one, that can laugh, he must have something to laugh at, either real or fictitious. Tailors and mantuamakers manufacture genteel men and genteel ladies, according to order; but a gentleman and a gentlewoman are, according to Paul, the fruit of God's own Spirit; for Paul says that "the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, gentleness," &c. Hence, a true and real gentleman must always be a Christian; for if gentleness be the fruit of the Spirit, without that fruit and that Spirit no one can ever rise above the rank of a genteel man--a polished gentile. As for a lady, there is only one way of meritoriously achieving that rank and dignity, and that is, by becoming a dispenser of bread to the poor. All the first lords and ladies recognized in Anglo-Saxon literature and history were bread-givers--dispensers of bread to the poor and the dependent. True, they occasionally wore some trinkets and ornaments. But these never constituted either lords or ladies. In time however, these bread-givers died, and those who wore only the trinkets, having no bread to give, and sometimes little to eat, engrossed the honorable title of lords and ladies.

      We citizens of these United States have abjured all factitious and hereditary titles, canonized by the now decaying monarchies, aristocracies and autocracies of the old European world. Still, we have not abolished the desire for them. We Americans inherently, and in virtue of our consanguinity with old Adam and Eve, desire to be lords and ladies, just as much on our Old Virginia sands and on your rich Kentucky limestone hills and valleys, as do the kings and queens and noble peers, lords and ladies of rich heraldic families, spread over the green hills and valleys of the islands and over some of the continents of the Old World. Here they are sour grapes, because inaccessible. And hence we are all lords and ladies, in fee-simple, now, henceforth and forever, or until our present parchments are moth-eaten, and some Napoleon le grand appears in our midst.

      From this stand-point, and from these prefatory views, let us glance for a moment at the grand themes which have in them all the potent elements of human development and of human destiny. [218]

      To present this subject before you in all its claims, permit me again to inquire, For what was woman created and made?

      There is much that is suggestive in the name given to her on the day of her espousals. Adam, her lord and husband, gave her, as we have learned, the name Life--the most felicitous and appropriate name, and the most suggestive too, bestowed on any creature named by Adam. It is a most beautiful and lovely name. What monosyllable in universal speech indicates an object so dear to man as the idea of his own Life? It is a representative of all that we include in the idea of happiness. In its radical conception, in its etymology, it comprehends all living creatures; and in special reference to man it indicates society, company, activity, valor, courage--even a host, an army. Adam, in calling his wife Eve, in his unclouded reason indicated the largest conception of human happiness--indeed, of social happiness. And had he stood firm in his loyalty to his Creator, his Eve, his Life, would have been to him a source of joy and pleasure--a fountain of strength and moral heroism--greater far than all the sensible beauties and attractions of the Paradise around him.

      She was in herself life, and to him the soul of animated nature. The beauties of Paradise, in all its virgin bloom and delicious fragrance, with all its carolling, warbling, joyful songsters, could not have been so richly enjoyed, or, indeed, enjoyed at all, by such a being as a perfect man, without the companionship of a kindred, admiring, sympathizing heart. At this moment I am reminded of a few most felicitous lines by Mrs. Sigourney on this closing act of the drama of creation:--

      Eve, then, was the crowning act of the last scene of the entire drama of creation, and, so far as our planet is understood, she is, and was, a microcosm of animated nature in a personal and social embodiment, in which Creator and creature are united in the holy bands of an eternal compact, pregnant with all the elements of social being and of social blessedness.

      But she is not only the mere life of humanity, in its literal import, but the life and the spirit of all true and genuine civilization. The [219] respect paid to woman, and the interest exhibited in her education and social culture, constitute the index of the civilization of every community under the broad heavens. Hence, the only question as to the comparative civilization of any nation or people, which is an end of all controversy, is, How is woman regarded, educated, honored? This is the sovereign and superlative index of civilization--of comparative civilization; and above it, beyond it, there is no appeal--there can be no appeal. In forming a safe and satisfactory judgment of the spirit and progress of civilization, this is our polar star--our ultimate appeal. We test the religion the morality, the prosperity, the happiness, of every nation and people, by the question, How stands woman amongst them?

      We are happy in the conviction, that wherever Protestantism is in the highest ascendency, there is woman in the highest honor and esteem. We fearlessly submit the question--the whole question--of woman's rights, honors, privileges, civilization, to this tribunal; and not this question only, but the questions, In what country, under what form of government, under what profession of Christianity, is woman most honored and most honorable? I do this, too, in the full conviction, in the full assurance, that our own country will in no one point of contrast, in any element of true and genuine civilization, stand second to any other in the broadness of what is usually called the civilized world. Indeed, I may still further avow the conviction, that among Protestant communities themselves, and under free governments--which are indeed the fruit of Protestantism--the more Protestant the more civilized, the more honored, the more honorable, is woman, educated woman. This fact, then, is one of the elements of the reason why our father Adam, in his vigorous thought and broad horizon, on the presentation of himself to himself, in a second personality, prospectively, in bright vision of the future, called her LIFE.

      But the social nature of man being neither physical nor intellectual alone, neither moral nor religious alone, in another attitude and at another angle, we see that the name Eve, or Life, was still more appropriately and felicitously conferred on Adam's bride. There are, in the phenomena of life, many forms and modifications of life. We have political and ecclesiastic life, as well as an animal and spiritual life. And woman is the life of all the forms and institutions of all the compacts and constitutions of society. Adam--I mean Adam the first, in his first estate--possessed an, intuitive perspicacity beyond any one of his degenerate posterity. The name that he gave his wife on the morning of their nuptials, is worth all the dissertations on woman. ever [220] written by any of Eve's degenerate offspring. In proof of this assumption, we refer the inquisitive to the fact, that God himself assembled the animated tenantry of Eden around his residence, and caused them to pass in review before him to ascertain what he would call them. This seems to have been the final examination of his attainments in the science of zoology in its broadest sense; for all the beasts of the field, and all the fowls of the air, were made to pass before him, and such were his attainments in this great science of sciences, that he failed not in a single instance to give the appropriate name to every species of animated nature around him. Thus he obtained his diploma from the highest authority in the universe. And what a splendid monument it is of the capacity and attainments of our father Adam in the school of animated nature!

      God in nature, in providence, in moral government, and in redemption, presents to the senses of man, to the reason of man, to the conscience of man, or to the affections of man, nothing in the abstract, but every thing in the concrete. There is not, indeed, a simple substance, nor an abstract entity, existing alone in the natural universe. Every thing in nature exists in holy wedlock and in family circles. Analysis and synthesis are, therefore, the grand preliminaries to the acquisition of the knowledge of the works of God and the operations of man. The doctrine of relations, affinities, congruities, sympathies, antipathies; attractions and repulsions, has its foundation in this fact--that there is not a single abstract substantive existence in so much of God's universe as has been submitted to the observation, analysis and reflection of man.

      Even light--the first-born of heaven, supposed to be one of the most simple, active and sublime agents of the physical universe--is a compound of seven different colors.

      The universe is itself a library of God; but to all the pupils in his large school it is legible only in part, and that part imperfectly. But there is one volume in this grand library of the universe peculiarly interesting to every man; and that is his autobiography--a work written by himself upon himself, and one, unfortunately, which, when written, he almost always reads with more or less reluctance. He cannot, however, proceed very far in the study of this work until four questions arise in his mind, upon which, if of an inquisitive turn, he feels himself constrained to ponder. These four questions are of soul-absorbing interest. They are--1. Who am I? 2. What am I? 3. Why am I? 4. Whither go I? Of these four primordial questions, two are transcendental. These are--What am I? and, Whither go I? [221] The last is impliedly answered when the third is satisfactorily decided. "Why am I?" is a question too profound for a majority of mankind to answer. Indeed, no man can satisfactorily answer it who does not believe and realize the fact that he has a special mission into the world, and this mission is just why he appears at a particular time, on a particular stage, in a particular scene and in a particular act of the great drama of humanity at his stand-point. Solomon, the wisest of men by a special providence, and inspired, too, by a special wisdom, instituted his Ecclesiastes, or became a preacher, to develop the question--"What a that special good which a man, as man, should pursue all his life?" He occasionally writes as a sage political economist in things of time and sense; but he also writes as an oracle of God in things pertaining to God and man, in spiritual and eternal relations. And to this question what answer does he give?

      But we take the privilege to propound to you, young ladies, not, What is man? but, What is woman? She is but the one-half of man--only the one-half of humanity. But she is, or may be, the better half. She is of a finer tissue in body, soul and spirit: the last, and, we think--if mortals of such dim vision and within so contracted a horizon dare so think--decidedly the better half--not in muscular power, not in physical strength, not in animal courage, not in intellectual vigor, but in delicacy of thought, in sensitiveness of feeling, in patient endurance, in constancy of affection, in moral courage and in soul-absorbing devotion.

      But God did not for her own sake bestow upon her all these distinguishing qualities. He did not, indeed, create her immediately from the earth. Adam was made out of the cold dust of Eden; but Eve was made out of the animated dust and from the left side of Adam--nearest offshoot from his heart. He not only made her out of the left side of the first man, but in holy wedlock he placed her there to protect the wound and vacuum whence her personal being came.

      The power of God is not physical nor metaphysical power; it is not spiritual nor animal power, in our conception and use of these symbols of thought. It is divine power in all its elements, operating simultaneously in all these directions, under the control of a simple volition. He only willed, and the universe was; but that will was embodied in a word--an utterance of itself, giving existence, local habitation and form to every beau ideal of goodness, beauty and grandeur, in harmony with his own supreme excellence and majesty. Hence, the well-cultivated mind contemplates God in every thing and every thing in God.

      No mere deist, theist, atheist or polytheist ever had one round, clear [222] and strong imprint of divinity upon his understanding, his conscience, his will or his affections. While the well-educated Christian sees God in every thing and every thing in God, the self-conceited theist or atheist or skeptic sees God in nothing and nothing in God.

      The philosophy of the universe is a sublime philosophy. It is the philosophy of love. And, pray, what is love? How would you, young ladies, define it? Young gentlemen talk about it learnedly, and sometimes philosophically; but they do not comprehend and realize it as you do. Oh, say you, we have not had much experience on that subject, and with us 'tis all theory. Well, a good theory, even on this subject, is better than no theory at all. But we are not inquiring into a theory, good or bad, sound or unsound: we are inquiring into a substantive, real existence.

      There is not in the universe a more positive, a more substantive, a more real existence than love; for God is love. This is a divine oracle from a most true and veritable source. And the whole universe is but an outburst of love. God did not create the universe because he had wisdom to do it or power to do it; for neither of these has a distinct positive existence. They are mere attributes of love. Love, at the true stand-point of vision, is the only self-existent entity or ideality, or conception, or positive principle, or actual, indestructible fact in imagination's boundless, measureless, endless fields of thought. It ever was and is and ever shall be the one only immutable, indestructible, self-existent principle. Two eternal antagonistic principles are wholly beyond the landmarks of reason and sanity. It is the brightest star in the diadem of love that it is, of necessity, the one only self-existent and necessarily indestructible reality in the entire area of rational thought. And, just at this stand-point, we apprehend--we do not say comprehend--the beauty, the truth and the wisdom of that oracle--that God is love. (John iv. 8-16.) Heaven itself is but the theatre of love. There is no other theatre of its full development, manifestation and enjoyment than heaven itself. The most loveless thing in God's vast universe is a haughty spirit; because it is only exorbitant selfishness, attracting nothing, radiating nothing, but repelling every thing coming into competition with itself. Hence, rebellion, anarchy and ruin are the trinity of hatred and the essence of endless perdition.

      But, while we thus seek a fulcrum and a lever to lift us up to an adequate conception of love in its essence, its origin and end, we must descend to the atmosphere of earth and to the circles of our fallen humanity, where love is rather a passion than a principle, an impulse than a law of reason, of God, of heaven and of happiness. [223]

      We must study love in its manifestations. It seems to act in society as attraction or gravity in material nature. It has its affinities, its attractions and repulsions. If it had a form, as matter has, we should be compelled to regard it as globular in its form. It attracts every thing around it into proximity to itself; and this proximity for the sake of enjoyment, of blessing and of being blessed, of communicating and of receiving felicity in the most direct, immediate, and instantaneous sympathy. It has a philosophy in it the most recondite, the most attractive, the most refining, the most beatifying, the most conservative in the entire area of cultivated reason. It is no less than intellectual, moral, spiritual, divine magnetism, attracting, alluring, radiating, beautifying, beatifying kindred spirits in eternal circles, wide as creation and lasting as eternity.

      This is not that short-lived, impulsive, animal thing on which every simpleton talks with the fluency and brilliancy of quicksilver. It is a glorious reality, since God is love. The three most splendid and yet the three most simple propositions in all the oracles of God are--1. "God is Spirit." 2. "God is Light." 3. "God is Love." He is not relatively a spirit, a light or a love; but he is absolute, infinite, eternal and immutable SPIRIT, LIGHT and LOVE. These are the all-potent, energizing, active and soul-subduing manifestations of Jehovah.

      But you, young ladies, may think that these are matters too erudite, too high, too lofty and too far beyond your stature. In one sense--so far as full comprehension of them is contemplated--they may be not only beyond your comprehension, but of that of the tallest man or the tallest angel in the highest heaven. But is not the law of gravity, is not the essence of light, of electricity, of magnetism, also beyond your comprehension? Not one of them is, however excluded from your studies or meditations. You study physical science, physiology, pneumatology, and probably some of you have even encountered and vanquished metaphysics. Of one thing we are assured, that these studies are as much within your grasp as they are within that of half the young gentlemen of the present living age. In our galaxies of distinguished females there are some very brilliant stars. I care not though you visit the museums of literature, language, poetry, philosophy, theology, theodicy, metaphysics. In the departments of the highest reason, literature, science, philosophy, religion, they shine with great splendor. What deserved, well-earned reputation have Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Miss Beecher, Mrs. Charlotte Elizabeth, Madame de Staël, Madame Guyon, Mrs. Ellis, Madame Roland, Hannah More, Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Barbauld, Agnes Strickland, and, better still, the Mrs. Judsons! Young [224] ladies, I especially commend to your most devout study these greatly-gifted, these self-sacrificing Christian ladies last mentioned. They are an evangelical constellation worthy of your special admiration and imitation. We need not remind you of the Bible female heroes, from Sarah down to Electa Cyria; nor tell you of the Hannahs, the Deborahs, the Queen Esthers, the Marys, the Elizabeths; nor of the women who, through faith, received from the dead their departed children--such as the widow of Zarephath, and the Shunamite. (2 Kings iv. 34.) These are more familiar themes, and every day within your reach. The highest and most attractive encomium pronounced in Christian history upon woman is not that she bathed the feet of Jesus in her tears and that she wiped them with the tresses of her hair; it is not that she was last at the cross, in solemn contemplation of the fearful agonies of his death; but that she was first at the sepulchre in the early dawn of the first day of the week, making her way through the Roman guard, with full intent to embalm his lacerated body; in honor of which most affectionate and grateful devotion he presented himself to her in that same body, as the triumphant conqueror of death and of the grave, and commissioned her, as his prime-minister, to announce the gospel of his resurrection to her mourning and disconsolate companions.

      The true philosophy of female education has for its proper basis, not merely her person, but more especially her mission. That man and woman should be educated in their entire personality--body, soul and spirit--is, at our latitude, not a debatable subject. The full development of each of these departments or constituents of our humanity demands a special education and training. But even this is not enough. There is a still more special education in reference to the special calling, or the special mission, of each individual. This, too, being conceded by all whose views are of any value to society, is not a debatable subject. Yet we have reason to regret that female education has not generally been conducted more in harmony with the special mission of woman, under the conviction that she was intended to be emphatically a help meet for man on the whole premises of humanity, and not merely in reference to the accidents and specialties of humanity.

      There are in human nature sympathies of joy as well as sympathies of sorrow. Indeed, it is a Christian precept, "rejoice with them that do rejoice," as well as, "weep with them that weep." There are also sympathies of admiration, and sympathies of contempt. We love those who admire what we admire, and we love those that contemn what we [225] contemn. In each and every element of human nature, of human character and of human conduct, there are sympathies and antipathies, conformities and non-conformities, pleasure and pain. Hence the necessity of imparting and receiving an education in harmony with all these premises, in order to the enjoyment of one another in the most intimate of all the relations of life; and also the propriety of the oracle that preceded the appearance of woman:--Let there be a helpmeet for man. Let every young woman, therefore, be so educated as to be a help suitable to those with whom we would have her united, in all the fortunes and misfortunes, in all the pleasures and pains, in all the joys and sorrows, of earth and of time.

      There is a great deal in a name. In some names there is a mixture of history, geography, philosophy and religion. Hence, in the supernatural wisdom of our Father Adam, in his primeval rectitude, all names given by him were essentially characteristic. His nomenclature was so perfect that God sanctioned it. There was reason in it all, and a reason for it all. Hence the reason given for the name of the first woman was as perfect as herself. She was called LIFE, because she was the life of the world.

      But we must study woman in her mission, in order to train her and honor her according to her rank in creation. And is there not a reason given for her name, from a source of unquestionable authority? She was called in Hebrew Havah, in Greek Zoee, in English Life, because she was the life of the world. And does not that reason indicate her mission?

      She was an extract of man, in order to form man; in order to develop, perfect, beautify and beatify man. And hence these four terms comprehend the whole duty, honor, dignity and happiness of woman; consequently, her education should be equal to her mission. Every distinctive element of her sex was conferred upon her in order to her accomplishment for the great work of forming and moulding human nature in reference to human destiny. How important and how true the remark, that the distinguished men who have made their mark in the moral world have been the offspring of religious and exemplary mothers! There is no authority, no influence, no power, of whatever name, equal to that which God has vested in woman, in its conservative and beatifying character and influence on the prosperity and happiness of man. In conferring so much influence on woman, God intended to use it in the moral government of the world. She has, consequently, a mission of transcendent importance--of paramount value to the happiness of man. From these premises we argue the paramount [226] importance of her education, and press its claims upon the patriot, the philanthropist and the Christian.

      We use these terms because of their popular currency. The patriot; indeed, is absorbed in the philanthropist, and the philanthropist in the Christian. The full-orbed Christian is, in fact, the sum-total of all human excellency, grandeur and honor. We can imagine nothing noble, or grand, or beatifying in humanity, that is not comprehended and absorbed in the beau ideal of a Christian. Hence, any school, male or female, not based on Christianity--genuine, heaven-born and heaven-descended Christianity--is a wild freak of uncultivated reason, a vagary of an untutored mind. Hence the Christian Scriptures are, and of right ought to be, the daily text-book of every school in Christendom, based on the true philosophy of man, from the nursery up to the university.

      Why memorize the grammar of a living or a dead language, why memorize the elements of arithmetic, geography, astronomy or human history, and not memorize the Book of Life--the volume of human destiny in its rudimental lessons? Why memorize the choice selections of human wisdom and eloquence, and not the Sermon of the Messiah upon the Mount, or of Paul a prisoner before a Felix or a King Agrippa? Can any composition on the earthly attitudes of man, on his civil or political relations, equal those on his eternal destiny in a boundless universe? Tell it not in Rome, publish it not in Constantinople, that in the schools and colleges and seminaries in the United States of America the Bible is no more a text-book than the Koran of Mohammed or the Zendavesta of Zoroaster; that Roman and Grecian mythologies are read and studied in our colleges and universities, in the centre of our Christian civilization, while Moses and David and Solomon, while Jesus and Peter and Paul, are seldom or never permitted to be heard or appealed to, any more than the Arabian Nights or the tales of elves and fairies.

      Young ladies, such has not been your misfortune. The star of your destiny is infinitely more splendid and felicitous. You have learned that woman, like an angel of mercy, was sent into our world to be queen of the human heart and mistress of the moral destinies of humanity.

      A woman became the mother of the King of Heaven, the Lord and Arbiter of the sublime and grand and awful empire of the universe. Yes, the King of Eternity was solaced in the bosom of Mary the Virgin. And through him you have become, or may become, heiresses in common of the empire of the universe. Christianity has infinitely [227] aggrandized your sex, and has conferred on you the sovereignty of the human heart: these constitute the splendid coronal of sanctified woman.

      Every one of you that has embraced Christ has a mission from this Sovereign of the human heart. And all of you may labor in it, who sincerely desire it. This missionary field is as broad as the tenanted earth. It is a mission of mercy; and in the ear of enlightened reason it is in its pleadings, the true sublime of true eloquence.

      You stand not in the front rank of the battle-field, in conflicting with the rebel hosts of the great enemy of human happiness. But your task is to minister to their comfort who war a good warfare in the cause of man's redemption. You pour into their wounds the oil of joy and gladness; you solace the sick and the dying with the perfume of your Christian sympathy; and you soothe the parched lips of the expiring Christian with the last cup of water from the perennial fountain of everlasting love.

      Yours is a beautiful mission, viewed in its entire amplitude; and in reference to it all your studies should be prosecuted, and all the virtues of Christian excellencies cherished in your hearts and practised in your lives. The treasures of learning and science should now be mastered, and every literary and scientific study prosecuted with a vigorous diligence, in order to your successfully entering upon a career of usefulness so pregnant with enduring blessings to yourselves, so full of promise of laurels that will never wither, of pleasures that will never cloy, and of a reward from the right hand of the final Arbiter of the destinies of the world, richer far than all the treasures of earth, and as enduring as the throne of God and the ages of eternity.

      There is no necessity to mount the rostrum, to stand up in public assemblies, to address mixed auditories of both sexes, of all classes and of all orders of society, in order to fill up the duties of your mission. If Paul would not have a woman to pray unveiled in a Christian church, and if he made long hair a glory to her, because it veiled her beauty and protected her eyes from the gaze of staring sensualists, think you he would have sent her out on a missionary tour, or placed her in a rostrum, surrounded with ogling-glasses in the hands, not of old men and women of dim vision, but of green striplings of pert impertinence? Be assured, not one word of such import ever fell from the lips of prophets or apostles. On the contrary, modesty, shame-facedness and sobriety are the garland of beauty, the wreath of glory and the coronal of dignity and honor, on the person of a Christian woman, who is always in her proper sphere; an "elect Lady;" not [228] necessarily of the aristocracies of earth, but of the elite and honorable of heaven.

      I am one of that feeble minority in this our age and nation who think that Solomon was richer than the Rothschilds, wiser than Benjamin Franklin, and more admirable than Napoleon le Grand in the zenith of his power and glory; and yet, having spoken three thousand proverbs, and written more than one thousand songs, and discoursed on trees and plants, from the hyssop on the wall to the cedars of Mount Lebanon, he consummates his literary and philosophic labors with a dissertation on woman and his beau ideal of an accomplished lady in the relation of an amiable and virtuous wife. With the close of his encomium we shall close our address:--

      That you, young ladies, may, each and every one of you, fill up all the excellencies of Christian character, shine in all the splendors of the female virtues, and lead useful, honorable and happy lives, is the sincere wish of your friend and orator. [229]

[PLA 213-229]