who now hangs entranced over the dulcet strains of their music, will go to sleep over the same sweet harmonies before a year of matrimony has passed over their heads; or that there are lords of the creation, so sensual and depraved as to enjoy a good dinner before the finest singing, and to prefer home comfort to the best dressed wife in the world! Nor is this entirely all the work in which the young persons of our own sex are wanting. It is well said that "No one stands to himself or falls to himself. No single influence is so powerless that it does not exercise some degree of control over minds perhaps still weaker and more easily moulded than itself.” How strange and sad it must seem then to many an earnest woman worker to hear that common home complaint amongst young ladies: "What do you find to amuse yourself with in the country. How do you get through the winter? One cannot always be drawing, practising, or singing, with nobody to listen to one, and it is so dull driving out in the carriage every day through muddy lanes, or taking what mamma calls a constitutional, and if one sends into town for a book, one is sure not to get what one wants; and altogether it is heavy work to get through the time."

Perhaps some energetic mind replies to these complaints, "I wonder you don't interest yourself in the village; that you don't attend the schools, or form a class of your own for church music, you who sing so well; or take up some pursuit, such as learning German, or anything that would interest and employ you at the same time."

But no, the listless young lady makes reply, "I don't think I ever should do any good amongst the poor, I don't understand them, or mamma is afraid of my going into the cottages, they are so dirty she is afraid of my taking any of their complaints, and I never had any talent for teaching, and as for learning German, what would be the good of it when perhaps I shall never go abroad?"

Still energy makes answer, "Ah, you do not know what a pleasure it is to have a purpose in life, or you would wonder how you ever existed without one. Do let me show you in what simple pleasures happiness consists. Do let me teach you to live out of yourself and exist more for others, you cannot think how far a little kindness goes, what great happiness you may give, both to yourself and others, by only one self-denying action."

"No," replies listlessness, "I have never been brought up to that sort of thing, I should not like it; besides I have a great objection to appearing to be better than other people, or setting myself up as a village Lady Bountiful. I am very glad to be able to assist any poor people when they are pointed out to me, but I do not see why I should thrust myself into their cottages."

There is, however, a worse phase of mind than this, viz., when the poor sickly ill-educated daughter of the house catches the infection of the atmosphere of luxury and false sentiment in which she has been reared, and conceives upon it some misplaced attach

ment or disappointed affection. Then begin jealousies, heart burnings, wearinesses, despair. The empty mind preys upon itself, and scourges itself a thousand times over with its own weapons. It cannot conceive even of the power to rise against its own sorrows; it sacrifices its own happiness, and that of those who surround it, (for no one can be unhappy alone,) to the force of existing circumstances. Happiness is over for it in the world-its dream of life is faded—it has nothing to do, but to "go down mourning to the grave," and between that interval and this make every one as wretched and as uncomfortable as possible. Never taught selfgovernment, the weak vexed spirit would consider it a sacrilege to affection even to dream of such martyrdom. It thanks Heaven devoutly that it is not as other women are, practical, hard-headed, and willing to strive and conquer, if it may be, in the stern battle of life. It calls duty hard-heartedness; self-sacrifice, want of feeling; heroism, stoicism! So it exalts itself and preys on its own sick feelings; so it passes on into the disappointed, soured old maid; or changes, chameleon-like, its skin, and emerges once more into the vain butterfly of society, or the mere heartless coquette of the season.

Does any one think we are too harsh upon these our sisters? It is only that we would probe the wound before we heal it. It is only that we would say, with all our hearts, to the weary, listless, and dissatisfied, "Go forth into the harvest fields of the world; seek for work, and whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might, knowing that there is indeed neither work nor device in the grave whither thou art hastening;" and what thou sowest thou shalt reap. Thou that sowest of the world's petty follies and vanities, and trifles light as air, shalt receive from the world the wind as thine inheritance, whilst thou that sowest to God of an upright purpose, humble faith, and earnest endeavor, shalt assuredly, like the husbandman, return again at the end of the harvest, and bring thy sheaves with thee.' Who, that has worked, ever doubted the assertion, "That better far is it to wear out than to rust out," and "That it is not work which kills men but worry," even that world's mind-worry that bringeth rust to the blade, and canker to the soul?

A. L.

XXXI.-CHARITY AS A PORTION OF THE PUBLIC VOCATION OF WOMEN.

THAT there is a necessity for the employment of women in occupations beyond those attaching to household and domestic duties, cannot but be admitted upon unprejudiced observation of the existing order of things. As a means of livelihood, such employments are by circumstances rendered imperative to no inconsiderable

VOL. III.

P

portion of the great English commonwealth, comprising in its numbers successive ranks, from the least fortunate claimants, devoted to merely mechanical toil, to the rising grades of those engaged in skilled handicraft, or higher still, in actual mental labor. Work, then, is demonstrated to be the essential condition of the existence of many women, as it is the inevitable allotment of almost all men. Admitting this, we must consider the enlargement of legitimate channels of industry as desirable, when we reflect not only on the narrow range of employments available for women, but on the impediments surrounding these, the combat with which is often a no less arduous task than the exercise of the duties involved in those employments.

To discover the true nature of the vocation of woman, the appropriate objects of labor, and the methods by which it would insure to her the highest advantage, is still a fruitful matter of reflection and inquiry, which it imports all really interested in the cause of progress to endeavor to solve and to define.

It is an anomaly in the existing organization of the work of women that exactly in inverse ratio to the superiority in the kind of employment, do we find the benefits and advantages derivable from it. The female servant and shopkeeper have their position recognised. Their diligence is respected, and as a rule well rewarded. Rising successively, we come to the assistants in various manufactories, and to dressmakers and needlewomen, whose endurance our poets have immortalised and our philanthropists have mourned. Another step and we arrive at a class whose sufferings, because more subtile, are not less acute, and whose services are liable to be more utterly repudiated, morally and financially, than that of any other section of the community-we mean the class engaged in the education of the young. Revision there is greatly called for; but how insure the due rewards of industry, how elevate the position of the governess, and redeem from the discount caused by too great a pressure on a few sources of emolument, except by opening up fresh avenues of honorable and remunerative exertion, which while in many instances answering the need of gain, in others might furnish a stimulus to nobler impulses, and the attainment of loftier ends?

We are aware that to advocate the entry of women into paths of enterprise hitherto monopolised by men, is to assail the very citadel of prejudice. But to confine them to merely subterranean channels of action without the hope of acknowledgment or distinction, is it not to degrade them into a condition little better than servile?

Moreover, women possess a moral necessity for action which cannot surely be disregarded with impunity. It is not alone in those classes incited by pecuniary need that work is called for, but among the comparatively affluent ranks women lament a monotony of existence resulting from the narrow sphere of action assigned them. This becomes the source of an indescribable ennui by which they reproach society, and almost Providence, for the misery of inaction and ob

scurity. It is the prerogative only of a few rare natures to find sufficient incitement to exertion in the pursuit of abstract ends, without the presence of exterior incentive and palpable aim. Numberless temptations beset this life-torpor, from which refuge is sought in excitements either frivolous or culpable. Impulses capable of the highest attainments, undirected to better ends, become the busy agents of a career of levity or vice. This is the more to be regretted, since it is to the finest capacities that inactivity proves most detrimental. In such cases there is a consciousness of aspiration for which no available medium of realisation appears; and nothing is so deteriorating to moral force of character as the conviction of the possession of powers perpetually debarred by adverse circumstances from the accomplishment of their legitimate aims. Surely it should not be the stigma of an age of civilization that it permits, in any human creature, stagnation of those energies of the soul which are the pledges of our origin and destiny, as members of a glorious humanity.

Yet while the various means adapted for the employment of our leisure, our resources, and our faculties, still remain the problem which it is infinitely desirable to solve, there is one path of exertion open, which, immeasurable in its capacity for good, is susceptible of a peculiar degree of improvement by women, because facilitated by absence of the restraints and prejudices which beset more signal courses of action. This is the exercise of charity-charity in the best and highest phase, which ministers to the wants of the minds and souls of our species as well as to their bodies. The poor we have always with us, and the requirement for the exercise of this virtue is ever before us. Much is to be done in the vineyard, though too many stand all the day idle; and never was the great work of charity more appropriate, and the neglect of it more inexcusable, than in the present age, which, notwithstanding its evils, presents one original and meritorious distinction in a pervading spirit of benevolence, and a desire for the physical and spiritual welfare of man under every condition of existence. Want and suffering are now sought out as the object of sympathy in a superior degree, and the institutes of reform have proportionably multiplied.

The amelioration of humanity under its varied phases of misfortune has now become a science, the appliances of which are studied to an extent which removes many obstacles to good works. The spirit of association involving unity of purpose and division of labor, which is of late so much the character of our social institutions, while it offers the means of realisation to the loftiest enter

prise, gives efficacy to the humblest efforts. It is in the power of women to become invincible agents in the work of charity. The very attributes of the feminine nature are of essential value in such a cause. Funds, programmes, and committees, indispensable though they are, form but a slender part, and can only partially effect the good which results from the comprehensive sway of charity. Kindly

VOL. III.

P 2

and sympathetic contact, the expression of benevolence ardent and sincere, is needful and irresistible in its power to console and benefit the unfortunate and distressed.

Many, sincerely compassionate, are deterred from the practice of benevolence by false and exaggerated conceptions of its requirements. Position, influence, wealth, are deemed indispensable to success, whereas the most unpretending efforts, judiciously restricted to a particular locality and a limited arena of operation, might easily achieve what is sometimes despaired of, and, directed to a single end, would prove successful, though without benefit when promiscuously divided. If the alms bestowed in a single month capriciously, were at the expiration of that time collected and distributed with order and intelligence, how immeasurably more beneficial would the result prove! Women have it in their power to give that which is invaluable in the cause-leisure, thought, and sympathy. In charity there will ever be found a congenial sphere for the fruition of the unemployed energies of women. Let them not neglect then this crowning virtue which should "never fail," but let the energy and diligence brought to its pursuance prove them entitled to share in the inalienable rights of humanity to a free use of every faculty. To deny this prerogative to any human creature is to bring discord into the moral government of the universe. To assent, is indirectly to admit the injustice of those obstacles which render ineligible to women the varied paths of mental progress and employment, indispensable to the realisation of her human rights to life, liberty, and happiness-rights which the spirit of charity itself cannot but advocate and commend.

XXXII-SENT FROM ITALY.

It is very good for all who habitually dwell in the atmosphere of any social question, to come for a while into scenes where its large proportions assume the likeness of a dream, standing it may be in mountainous reality upon the horizon, yet so softened by distance and rendered delicate by intervening air, that its size and importance, its difficult heights and dangerous chasms, are lost in the fair faint lines of its form, as it rises afar off in the pale depths of the sky.

This simile comes home to me with peculiar force, as I look abroad from the top of the enormous arches of the baths of Caracalla, and see on either hand the distant mountain ranges which encircle Rome. There is a world beyond the mountains, a world of activities and of reforms, but its murmur is here unheard. There is a life of the conscience, as distinguished from the life of the soul, and here it seems as if conscience retreated into the back ground, and the soul had it all her own way. I do not pretend to feel, as many do,