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life when her peculiar talent may be most advantageously cultivated. Who is the best merchant? He who has the best knowledge of the particular merchandize in which he deals. There is no way to become a merchant except by perpetual examination and comparison of the things to be bought and sold. Theoretical knowledge may do some good, reading may serve to prepare the mind to observe, but there is no substitute for experience. Just so, if man or woman would know the world, I mean in the sense of becoming truly wise, not cunning, and calculating, and selfish, there is no other way but to mingle with the world. And no being is more utterly helpless than a woman thrown into the world without any knowledge of it. Without this she is in perpetual danger of becoming the victim of her susceptible imagination, and her generous impulses. There is quite as much danger therefore in secluding young women from society, as in permitting them to become absorbed in it, and lost to every thing else.

Besides the knowledge which is acquired by the early association of the sexes, the mutual reverence and desire to please, which is

implanted in the bosom of each, becomes the school of discipline for the moral sentiments of both. The strong desire to appear in the eyes of the other sex all that their common moral sentiments demand in order to be an object of esteem, renders it impossible that they should not desire to be in reality all that they would wish to appear. They are likely to come to the conclusion that hypocrisy costs more than actual goodness, and so are constrained to strive after that perfection which alone can come up to the ideal they see mirrored in the moral nature of those they most wish to please.

There is moreover a sentiment of the sexes towards each other, independent of the marriage tie, common to those who enter into it and those who never do, which perhaps cannot be defined or described in words, but which constitutes the greatest charm of this life. It imparts a roseate flush to the otherwise pale and sickly hue of this world. It gives a zest to what would otherwise be tasteless. The value we set upon things cannot be weighed in balances, nor told by measure, nor reckoned in money. The sentiments of the human heart know nothing of price. They are infinite and immeasurable. They spurn all calculation, for they are bound

less and unfathomable. And do what you will, the sentiments are man's supreme law. To man the world and all there is in it is valuable, is beautiful, is worth living for, only because it is enriched by the presence of woman; and to woman this world would be utterly tasteless did she not share the dignity, the enterprise, the intrinsic nobleness that she conceives to reside in man.

Sentiment is omnipotent in the human heart. What is the spring and motive of all enterprise in the heart of man?. What sends his ships into every sea, his commerce into all lands? What clears the forest, and raises the comfortable home, or builds the lofty palace? Enter into the secret chambers of his imagery and you will find the Divinity, upon whose altars all this is to be offered up, is woman. Unshared by her all would be vain and profitless. And why do we see woman from the first so careful of her person, so studious of ornament, so diligent to make up by untiring industry her want of strength to help forward the more difficult labors in which man engages s? Search the recesses of her consciousness, and you would find the ever present idea, that she was made to be the helpmate, the delight, and the comforter of man.

These sentiments are divine, sacred, unchangeable. Nothing, even the most false and vicious state of society, can altogether pervert them.

The mission of woman is foreshown almost in the cradle; and it is a mission of humanity, gentleness, tenderness, generosity, love. Mark a family just after the birth of a daughter. An infant comes always with a blessed message from God to the human heart. It is a reiteration of the old but ever new commandment, "love one another." It is a summons to duty, to disinterestedness, to kindness, to self denial; and it secures obedience by an appeal more powerful than any that can be made to the cold region of the understanding. It opens the heart,—the fountain and well spring of duty. Most especially is this the case, if the new born heir of human destiny add to its own helplessness the claim of belonging to that sex, which through life demands the protection of the other. Even the little epithets of endearment, which are the natural expressions of the gushings of parental affection, have a shade of tenderness towards a daughter which is not bestowed upon an infant of the rougher sex. This arises not so much from any material difference in their present condition as from the anticipations of the future.

The boy, though now weak and wailing, will soon develope the strength, the resources, the courage of a man, and be able to buffet his way through this rude world. But the daughter, how little control is she to have over her destiny! How entirely is her happiness to be placed in the power of others, of those with whom Providence shall cast her lot! Added to this is the feeling that in the heart of the daughter they have a richer treasure than they can possess any where else. All things they feel are uncertain, but the love of a daughter cannot fail. Times and circumstances may change. They may wax old, or be unfortunate, and the world will pay its court to the young and the successful, but in the heart of a daughter they can never be forgotten.

That softening of the heart, which takes place toward the child, is not lost upon their relations to the world. Children, particularly daughters, are a new tie connecting the parents to their species, as well as hostages for their own good behaviour. They feel that their stake in the well being of society is increased rather than diminished as they decline in life, for they are more interested for those for whose welfare they must at length cease to provide, than they ever were for themselves. They feel more solicitous to

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