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gay, and the prosperous are pursuing their pleasures, are glittering in splended halls, or treading the mazes of the dance, these faithful souls are toiling over those household duties which the gay and thoughtless have forgotten, or are watching by the bed side of pain and death.

If they refused to form the closer tie in life with the design of keeping aloof from all attachments and cares, they find themselves mistaken. They have women's hearts, and it is impossible for them to shut up their affections. The sister soon becomes the aunt, and the mother's feelings become developed without the mother's relation. She finds herself agitated with all the anxieties, the hopes and fears of a mother, and she is prompted to a mother's toils and self sacrifice without the certainty of meeting that return of gratitude and affection which instinct vindicates to the nearer relation. In the meantime the very fact of her having no especial protector subjects her to neglect and to injustice from which the matron is exempt. For there are too many mean spirits in this world, who want no other temptation to commit an injury than the assurance that they may do SO with

impunity. The danger then, to which the single woman is exposed, is of becoming soured with the world, from which she certainly receives much that is not calculated to elevate it in her conceptions. Her peril is that of becoming peevish, querulous, and bitter, of visiting upon all the ill treatment she receives from a few. Her triumph is to maintain under all circumstances serenity, candor, generosity, and magnanimity. Her reward is to find sufficient happiness and gratification in doing good for its own sake, in proving superior to all the vexations she suffers from the mean, the heartless, and the base.

While we are contemplating the sphere and duties of woman, she presents herself in one more relation, and that the most affecting of all, the condition of the widow. That tie so

tender and so close, the source of so much happiness, and which revolving years serve only more and more to endear, confers no exemption from the great law of mortality, and is liable to be

Then indeed do we

terminated by death. see joy turned into

mourning. There we see a broken heart,smitten to the earth by the most mysterious of all Heaven's dispensations. Her heart's

idol is gone, and what does the world contain beside? Her companion is taken away, and her house is left unto her desolate. The arm

on which she leaned is withdrawn, and she must finish the journey of life alone. The heart that beat for her is for ever still. The mind, whose every thought was care for her, has departed to the spirit land. The presence, in which alone it was life for her to live, is no more found on earth, and how could she ever dare to hope again, were there not One above, who has called himself the widow's God?

For a while she is utterly overwhelmed. The world is shrouded in a universal pall. It no longer seems to contain any thing worth living for. She is awakened at last from the stupor of grief by the reflection that this world, if it can be no longer enjoyed, must still be endured. She is still further roused by the fact, that she must not only suffer, but act. She finds a melancholy refuge in the thought, that if she can no longer live for herself, she can and must live for her children. Renouncing then, all those wide and boundless expectations of happiness, in which the imagination loves to revel, she contracts her

hopes to the successful care of the fatherless. In this hope and employment she finds tranquillity and a measure of enjoyment. Her character and talents are drawn upon for their last resources, and it is surprising - how often they are found equal to the emergency. Women brought up in tenderness and luxury, without the knowledge or the tact for business, are found, when compelled by necessity to make exertions, to manage their affairs with skill and ability. If there be in them any materials of character, they are now brought out and consolidated. The stern realities of life put to flight its phantasies and its follies, and impart to it that measure of wisdom and strength which it is capable of receiving.

Her children, if any she have, are at first the source of indescribable anxiety. She is tempted by the difficulties of her situation, and the dark-boding fancies of future ill which gather into her anticipations of coming years, to wish that she had never been a mother. But Providence knew better what was for

her good. Those children, which are now the objects of so much solicitude, become to her the greatest blessings. They are the only tie which connects her with the world. God is

the God of the fatherless as well as of the widow. The more straitened their circumstances the more propitious to the formation of character. The necessity of early exertion and self-dependence is the best possible discipline to character and talent. Indeed there is nothing else which can give the mind a perfect training to all excellence. Nothing but this can form the habits to that industry, frugality, sobriety and perseverance, which are the only sure foundation for permanent prosperity. In short, such a beginning of life trains up just such men as the world wants, as it will employ and reward. And thus it is that the world is in perpetual revolution. While the sons of the wealthy by idleness, or folly, or want of business talent, dissipate their hereditary estates, and fall from the high places of society, the sons of the widow find their way into the places of business, the stations of honor, the offices of trust and power. And the widow who sent her children forth into the world from the abode of poverty, often passes the evening of her days with them in affluence and splendor.

Such is the lot of woman, a mingled scene of joys and sorrows, smiles and tears. It

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