by a woman, and Abimelech was slain by a stone that a woman threw from
the tower of Thebes, and Earl Montfort was destroyed by a rock
discharged at him by a woman from the walls of Toulouse. But without
any weapon save that of her cold, cheerless household arrangement, any
wife may slay all the attractions of a home circle. A wife and mother
in prosperous circumstances and greatly admired was giving her chief
time to social life. The husband spent his evenings away. The son,
fifteen years of age, got the same habit, and there was a prospect
that the other children, as they got old enough, would take the same
turn. One day the wife aroused to the consideration that she had
better save her husband and her boy. Interesting and stirring games
were introduced into the house. The mother studied up interesting
things to tell her children. One morning the son said:

"Father, you ought to have been home last night. We had a grand time.
Such jolly games and such interesting stories!" This went on from
night to night, and after a while the husband stayed in to see what
was going on, and he finally got attracted, and added something of his
own to the evening entertainments; and the result was that the wife
and mother saved her husband and saved her boy and saved herself. Was
not that an enterprise worth the attention of the greatest woman that
ever lived since Abigail at the foot of the rock arrested the four
hundred armed warriors?

THE TRUE SPHERE.

Do not, my sister, be dizzied and disturbed by the talk of those who
think the home circle too insignificant for a woman's career, and who
want to get you out on platforms and in conspicuous enterprises. There
are women who have a special outside mission, and do not dare to
interpret me as derisive of their important mission. But my opinion is
that the woman who can reinforce her husband in the work of life and
rear her children for positions of usefulness is doing more for God
and the race and her own happiness than if she spoke on every great
platform and headed a hundred great enterprises. My mother never made
a missionary speech in her life, and at a missionary meeting I doubt
whether she could have got enough courage to vote aye or no, but she
raised her son John, who has been preaching the Gospel and translating
religious literature in Amoy, China, for about forty years. Was not
that a better thing to do?

Compare such an one with one of these dieaway, attitudinizing,
f