heart in eternal
characters. It is from this point of view, you behold the glorious
purpose of that attractive form embosoming a heart enriched with so
copious a treasure of all the sweetest elements of life. She is destined
to fill a sphere of the noblest kind. In the course of her life, in the
training of a household, her nature reveals an excellence in its
adaptation to the purpose for which she is set apart, that signally
illustrates the wisdom of God, while it attracts the homage of man.
Scarcely a nobler position exists in the world than that of a truly
Christian mother; surrounded by children grown up to maturity; moulded
by her long discipline of instruction and affectionate authority into
true-hearted, intelligent men and women; the ornament of society, the
pillars of religion; looking up to her with a reverent affection that
grows deeper with the passage of time; while she quietly waits the
advent of death, in the assurance that, in these living representatives,
her work will shine on for ages on earth, and her influence spread
itself beyond the broadest calculation of human reason, when she has
been gathered to the just.

How then are we to educate this being a little lower than the angels;
this being thus separated from the rest of the world, and divided off,
by the finger of God writing it upon her nature, to a peculiar and most
noble office-work in society? It is not as a lawyer, to wrangle in
courts; it is not as a clergyman, to preach in our pulpits; it is not as
a physician, to live day and night in the saddle and sick room; it is
not as a soldier, to go forth to battle; it is not as the mechanic, to
lift the ponderous sledge, and sweat at the burning furnace; it is not
as a farmer, to drive the team afield and up-turn the rich bosom of the
earth. These arts and toils of manhood are foreign to her gentle nature,
alien to her feeble constitution, and inconsistent with her own high
office as the mother and primary educator of the race. If their pursuits
are permitted to modify their education, so as to prepare them for a
particular field of labor, proceeding upon the same supposition, it is
equally just and appropriate, that her training should take its
complexion from the sphere of life she is destined to fill. So far as it
is best, education should be specific, it should have reference to her
perfect qualification for her appropriate work. This work has two
departments. The first, which is most limited,