celibacy of a multitude of women who, rather than make
unfit selection, have made none at all. It has not been a lack of
opportunity for marital contract on their part, but their own culture
and refinement, and their exalted idea as to what a husband ought to
be, have caused their declinature. They have seen so many women marry
imbeciles, or ruffians, or incipient sots, or life-time incapables, or
magnificent nothings, or men who before marriage were angelic and
afterward diabolic, that they have been alarmed and stood back. They
saw so many boats go into the maelstrom that they steered into other
waters. Better for a woman to live alone, though she live a thousand
years, than to be annexed to one of these masculine failures with
which society is surfeited. The patron saint of almost every family
circle is some such unmarried woman, and among all the families of
cousins she moves around, and her coming in each house is the morning,
and her going away is the night.

A BENEFICENT SPINSTERHOOD.

In my large circle of kindred, perhaps twenty families in all, it was
an Aunt Phoebe. Paul gave a letter of introduction to one whom he
calls "Phoebe, our sister," as she went up from Cenchrea to Rome,
commending her for her kindness and Christian service, and imploring
for her all courtesies. I think Aunt Phoebe was named after her. Was
there a sickness in any of the households, she was there ready to sit
up and count out the drops of medicine. Was there a marriage, she
helped deck the bride for the altar. Was there a new soul incarnated,
she was there to rejoice at the nativity. Was there a sore bereavement
she was there to console. The children, rushed out at her first
appearance, crying, "Here comes Aunt Phoebe," and but for parental
interference they would have pulled her down with their caresses--for
she was not very strong, and many severe illnesses had given her
enough glimpses of the next world to make her heavenly-minded. Her
table was loaded up with Baxter's "Saints' Rest," Doddridge's "Rise
and Progress," and Jay's "Morning and Evening Exercises," and John
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and like books, which have fitted out
whole generations for the heaven upon which they have already entered.

A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN.

"De Witt," she said to me one day, "twice in my life I have been so
overwhelmed with the love of God that I fainted away and could hardly
be resuscitated. Don't tell me there is no heaven. I have see