being, dear as her own
life. The fatal stroke is near; the hour arrives. Gone forever from
mortal eyes is she, in whom blent

"All images of comforter and friend,
The fireside charmer, and the nurse of pain,
Eyes to the blind, and, to the weary, wings.
What shall console"

The survivor? To whom can we commend her who thus mourns the riven tie
of a mother's love? Where is the solace for the dependent, affectionate
female, who weeps over the ashes of a departed parent? A sister is at
her brother's grave. Pleasant was their love, and who can assuage these
bitter tears? The husband,--deepest of all life's bereavements,--perhaps
it is he, for whom the funeral wail is now heard. What can time, and
dust, and this tomb of earth, minister to her, who sits in the freshness
of widowhood?

The catalogue of your trials, my friends, may seem to some already
prolonged. But have I not left much unsaid? Did _you_ guide the pen,
secrets of grief could be revealed, all unknown but to your sex. But
enough has been written to persuade the thoughtful, that suffering must
be to woman a thing of fearful account. Our afflictions, it has been
well said, never leave us as they found us. We are always either
hardened, or improved, by the discipline of Providence. The question
then with woman, what use she is making of her trials, is one of the
deepest concern. She has peculiar griefs; whence can she gain strength
to endure them?

Woman needs every support that God has placed within her reach. She
requires, first, Mental Culture. This will give her strength of mind,
power to discern the true relations of our nature. A narrow mind cannot
comprehend the great scheme of Providence. If it submit to his will,
there is still much blindness in the act. A fuller trust would come from
enlarged conceptions of duty and life. She, who enjoys reading, can
beguile many a sad hour, by a useful volume. How many are prostrated by
domestic afflictions, for the want of that mental discipline, by which
they might fix the eye of faith steadily on Heaven. The grave absorbs
their thoughts; they want energy to turn from the body, and contemplate
the sainted spirit.

Woman needs a Moral developement, corresponding to the demands of her
peculiar temperament and dispositions. Her sensitive frame, unless
accompanied by great self-control, will betray her into errors, which,
added to the thorns that ever beset the path of human life, will cause
her cont