the liquid light of
the emotions, it becomes both light and heat, powerful to vivify,
quicken, and move all things. In woman, the scepter of her chief power
springs from the affections. Endowed most richly with sensibility, with
all the life of varied and vigorous impulse and deep affection, she
needs to have early inwrought, through a powerful self-discipline, an
entire command of her noble nature. There are few more incongruous and
sadly affecting things than a woman of fine intellect and strong
passions, without self-control or truly religious feeling. She is like a
ship whose rudder is unhung; she is like a horse, rapid, high-spirited,
untamed to the bridle; or, higher still, she is like a cherub fallen
from its sphere of glory, with no attending seraph; without law, without
the control of love, whose course no intelligence can anticipate and no
wisdom guide. Religion seems to have in woman its most appropriate home.
To her are appointed many hours of pain, of trial, of silent communion
with her own thoughts. Separated, if she act the true woman, from many
of the stirring scenes in which man mingles, she is admirably situated
to nourish a life of love and faith within the circle of her own home.
Debarred from the pursuits which furnish so quickening an excitement to
the other sex, she either is confined to the routine of domestic life
and the quiet society of a social circle, or devotes herself to those
frivolous pleasures which enervate while they excite; which, like the
inspiration of the wine-cup, are transient in their joy, but deep and
lasting in their evil. But when religion enters her heart it opens a new
and that the grandest array of objects. It imparts a new element of
thought, a wonderful depth and earnestness of character. It elevates
before her an ennobling object, and enlists her fine sensibilities,
emotions and affections in its pursuit. Coming thus through religion
into harmony with God, she ascends to the highest position a woman can
occupy in this world.

To woman should Christianity be especially dear. It has led her out of
the house of bondage; it has lifted her from the stool of the servant to
an equality with the master; it has exalted her from the position of a
mere minister of sensual pleasure, the toy of a civilized paganism, to a
full companionship with man; it has given her soul--once spurned,
degraded, its immortality doubted, its glory eclipsed--a priceless
value; and shed around her who