hoenician women, who agreed, that if their countrymen lost a certain
battle, they would perish in the flames, and who crowned with flowers
her who made that proposition in a council. Would that history had
transmitted the testimony of those quiet, unobtrusive virtues, which
must at some ancient periods have prevailed, and which are the glory of
woman.

In more recent ages, we find among the Greeks noble examples of female
heroism, of conjugal love, and sisterly affection; but the exclusion of
woman from society placed her under great moral disadvantages. Rome
allowed this sex more free intercourse in social life, and the renowned
Cornelia was hence a representative of no small number of her age.

But how few opportunities do modern Pagan religions allow woman for
exhibiting her moral capabilities. The stern creed of the Mussulman
pronounces, we are told, that woman has no soul; she is treated, in any
event, according to this doctrine. In China, among the lower classes,
all the hard labor is laid upon the wife, while the husband performs
only the lighter tasks. In the higher classes, the sex is completely
secluded from all places of public instruction, and subjected to laws
which repress all their energies, both of mind and heart. India
furnishes examples of conjugal devotedness, worthy a more enlightened
direction. Alas! that such a spirit can find no purer modes of
self-sacrifice, than casting the body on a funeral pile, or beneath the
wheels of Juggernaut. Profane History, in its wide range, gives us
indeed but an occasional gleam of the genuine virtues of woman. How
unlike Christianity, which presents a brilliant succession of these fair
examples.

In Christian lands the occupations and habits of woman are such as to
give scope for moral eminence. She has fewer worldly interests and
engagements than man. She is not here accustomed to command armies, nor
lift up her voice in the Senate chamber. Nor is she subjected to those
coarser employments, and that severe bodily toil, which elsewhere rob
her of all true delicacy. What an immense chasm do we see between the
Christian female, devoted to her quiet domestic duties, and the
inhabitant of Van Dieman's land, for example, diving into the sea for
shell-fish, while her husband sits by the fire, pampering his appetite
with the choice morsels which she has procured for him.

But Christianity must be pure, to produce this change; we shall else
retain, under the light of t