religious obligation desert the oaths which are
administered in our courts of justice? And let it not be supposed that
morality can be maintained without religion." Accordingly our
legislatures are opened with prayer, the Bible is on the benches of our
courts; it is put into the hands of jurymen, voters, and even
tax-payers; indeed, from its late use and abuse, one might think that we
were living under the Pentateuch, and that the whole moral law and Ten
Commandments were bound to the brows of the public or State
phylacteries.

Indeed, the politics of every tribe, nation, or people, will reflect in
an exact degree their moral and religious convictions and education. If
these are false, the political society will be violent, disorderly, and
abnormal; if true, the State is calm, prosperous, strong and happy. If
these propositions be true, and I claim they are as axiomatic and
undeniable as any proposition in Euclid--yea more so, for they are the
maxims of inspired wisdom--how immeasurably important is a true
Christian education!

And if its influence is so great in determining even the political
conduct of men, it is still more necessary and powerful in forming the
character of true woman--the Christian wife, mother, and daughter. The
influence of Christian woman on society is incalculable. Admitting it
possible, for a moment, that irreligious men might construct or direct
an atheistical State, yet it would be utterly vain to build up the
family, the groundwork of all organized communities, without the aid of
the Christian woman. She it is who, in the deep and silent recesses of
the household, puts together those primitive and enduring materials,
each in its place and order, on which will rest and grow, to full beauty
and development, the fair proportion of every well-ordained State. This
foundation is laid in the care and rearing of good and dutiful children.
The task of the Christian mother may indeed be slow, and unobserved;
but God makes use of the weak to confound the strong, and this is
beautifully illustrated in the Christian woman, who is strong because
she is weak, most influential when she is most retired, and most happy,
honored, cherished and respected when she is doing the work assigned her
by Divine Providence, in the bosom of her household.

It will be admitted, then, that the education of girls demands a special
culture. Generally upon mothers the domestic instruction of the
children, in their infancy,