ndered by the women of his household. Few men can stand
the depressing and degrading influence of the uninterested and placid
amiability of women incapable of the true public spirit, incapable of a
generous or noble aim--whose whole sphere of ideas is petty and
personal. It is not only that such women do nothing themselves--they
slowly asphyxiate their friends, their brothers, or their husbands.
These are the unawakened women; and education may deliver you from this
dreadful fate, which is commoner than you think.

In no respect is the influence of women more important than in religion.
Much might be said of the obstacles placed in the way of religious
progress by the crude and dogmatic prepossessions of ignorant women, who
will rush in with confident assertion where angels might fear to tread:
but this is neither the time nor the place for such remarks. It is
enough to remind you that in no part of your life do you more need the
width and modesty and courage of thought, and the delicacy of insight
given by culture, than when you are facing the grave religious questions
of the day, either for yourself or others.

But let me turn to a somewhat less serious subject. We earnestly desire
that women should be highly educated. And yet is there not a type of
educated woman which we do not wholly admire? I am not going to
caricature a bluestocking, but to point out one or two real dangers.
Education is good; but perfect sanity is better still. Sanity is the
most excellent of all women's excellences. We forgive eccentricity and
one-sidedness--the want of perfect sanity--in men, and especially men
of genius; and we rather reluctantly forgive it in women of genius; but
in ordinary folk, no. These are the strong-minded women; ordinary folk,
who make a vigorous protest against one or two of the minor mistakes of
society, instead of lifting the whole: I should call these, women of
imperfect sanity. It is a small matter that you should protest against
some small maladjustment or folly; but it is a great matter that you
should be perfectly sane and well-balanced. Now education helps sanity.
It shows the proportion of things. An American essayist bids us "keep
our eyes on the fixed stars." Education helps us to do this. It helps us
to live the life we have to lead on a higher mental and spiritual level
it glorifies the actual.

And now, seeing these things are so, what ought to be the attitude of
educated girls and women towards pleas