me unfaithful to their vocation is for women to suffer as many
pangs as a limb which, through some accident, has been wrenched out of
place. They are continually tormented by evil spirits, who have power
over a soul that is out of its proper sphere. They are no longer under
the protection of God, since they have withdrawn from His guidance, and
voluntarily abandoned His watchful Providence. They fall often into
grievous sins, because they are not sustained by the grace which belongs
to the state in which God desires them to be. A woman, therefore, can
never show her superior intellectual powers better than by cheerfully
accepting the calling for which the Creator evidently intended her; that
is, for _woman, wife, and mother_.

CHAPTER VIII.

EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM CONTINUED.

Few questions affect so directly the welfare and interests of the people
as the question of education; and assuredly, in this country, there is
none of more moment as regards the well-being and permanence of our
national institutions. These, our institutions, our prosperity and
civilization, depend for their permanence and perpetuity, not so much on
the culture of the arts, sciences, literature, or philosophy, as on the
general diffusion of the salutary and vivifying principles of religion.
History tells us in its every page, that the decline and downfall of
nations have ever been caused by irreligion and immorality.

Indeed, it is not the State that has made men free, nor can it, on its
own professed origin, keep _itself_ or _them_ free. It has no mission
to reform men or manners; its boasted material civilization is no
civilization at all. For steam, railroads, telegraphs, printing, and in
fact all the arts and natural sciences, have never civilized or
converted one man, not even a naked savage, and never will. They are the
results of civilization, and even then the least part. Nor are they
adequate to maintain or preserve the State. What is called _material
civilization_ is nothing else than _polished barbarism_,--a kind of
monster, with the intelligence of a man, and the cruelty and instincts
of a beast. It may flatter the vanity of modern nations to think they
are superior to the ancients in scientific and industrial developments,
but if they rely on this alone, they are greatly mistaken. I admit the
superiority of the moderns, but not on this account. In the first place,
many arts and products of head and han