e earnest affection of this sex, and we
have a moral predisposition to religious sentiment. To them is given a
vantage ground, which they should joyfully and gratefully occupy. She,
on whom the heavier burden is laid, is gifted with superior powers of
endurance. Virtue is the prize of humanity, and she is placed nearer
than man to its goal. Piety is the crown of our life, and for her brow
is it pre-eminently fashioned. The divine Spirit, dwelling in all souls,
is yet imaged to our minds, in Scripture, and in Nature, as "a still,
small voice," a gentle and quiet influence, which are peculiarly
congenial to the soul of woman.

Her Domestic Habits furnish the final encouragement of woman to constant
self-improvement. In the sequestered paths of home, having hours and
days, in which the needle is her quiet employer, how may she meditate on
the touching and lofty themes of human concern. Why should she wander
from the ways of truth, integrity, and purity? She has her temptations
it is true. In some situations they may be greater than man's. But,
taking our whole mortal existence, and the usual occupations of the
sexes, it will hardly be denied, that woman may, if diligent in
attention, hear those voices of admonition, which are drowned in man's
ear, by the world. She may enjoy seasons for communing with her soul,
and surveying the riches of the interior world, and for estimating the
vanity of sensual, and the glories of spiritual things, such as are
seldom granted to man. She walks, ever, as it were, beneath that moral
arcade, which Providence has raised above us to proclaim his hallowed
presence. Can she withdraw her eyes from it, and look downward, and
become a servant of time? Will she,--will one thus nobly
privileged,--surrender her birth-right? If she comprehends its value,
she cannot be other than an aspirant for the prize of life eternal.

But how shall this prize be obtained?

Let the young woman understand that religion is not a strange thing,
disconnected from this world, out of herself, and to be introduced by
some mysterious influence. It is the unfolding of a principle within
her. You must study self, and seek the kingdom of God in your own soul.
There only will you ever find, and establish, it. Religion consists in
giving the heart,--this very heart which beats with emotion at the
objects around you,--unto spiritual pursuits. So directed, it will flow
out on your fellow beings, and spring upward to the Father