THE AUTUMN EVENING. BY WILLIAM B. 0. PEABODY. BEHOLD the western evening light! The wind breathes low; the withering leaf So gently flows the parting breath, How beautiful on all the hills How mildly on the wandering cloud "T is like the memory left behind And now, above the dews of night But soon the morning's happier light And eyelids that are sealed in death WOMAN AND CHRISTIANITY. BY REV. JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. EVERY favorable conclusion which we have been disposed to form of the influence of christianity on the character of your sex, is confirmed by a survey of modern Europe. Notwithstanding the progress of what is called refinement in nations, wherever religion has been most corrupted, woman is yet most depraved, and shows a more sensible degradation than our sex. It would be easy to refer you to modern Italy and Spain for illustrations of this; but it will be sufficient to confine ourselves to that country, where the dregs of chivalry seem to have settled in the form of gallantry, after the pure spirit of honor had evaporated. In France the female understanding has been as highly cultivated as in any part of Christendom. There your sex has often dictated the fashions of philosophy and taste, and exercised a sensible sway over the republic of letters; and if, with this high culture of the female imagination, and this invisible influence and authority in criticism, France had also produced the best female instructers of the world, and the purest examples in the walks of domestic usefulness, we should be obliged to relinquish some of the conclusions which we have already embraced, and acknowledge that the state of christianity in a country has little to do in the formation of female perfection. But, when we look over the roll of the female writers of France, how often are we compelled to pause, and wonder at their strange union of sentiment and affectation, of moral delicacy and voluptuousness, of philosophy and paradox, of exquisite sensibility and practical unprincipledness; so that there is hardly one of their most celebrated females, whose works you may venture to recommend without reserve, or to read without exception. It may be set down, perhaps, to the prejudices of a protestant education, or to national pride, that though I am disposed to allow the singular merit and piety of the celebrated Madame Dacier, I could wish that she had not translated Aristophanes and Anacreon; and must be allowed to prefer the severer accomplishments of the venerable Mrs. Carter, and even the curious learning and delicate ripeness of that modest prodigy, Elizabeth Smith. I have felt occasional sympathy with the devout and mystical genius of Madame Guyon, but I cannot give to her that homage which I pay to the angelic vision of Klopstock's wife. I acknowledge the enchanting sensibility of Madame de Sevigné, the practical good sense of Madame de Genlis, the Delphic inspiration of Madame de Stäel, the passionate touches of Madame Cottin; but my admiration, at least of these latter writers, is often clouded with sorrow and disgust. I look in vain for one sun, clad in perfect purity," and turn for relief to the sound philosophy of Elizabeth Hamilton, or delight myself with the exquisite elegance and hallowed fancy of Mrs. Barbauld, the exuberant diction and evangelical morality of Hannah More, the well-attempered maxims of the sensible Chapone, the practical sagacity and miraculous invention of Maria Edgeworth. These names, except perhaps the last, who has not yet authorized us to class her, all belong to christianity. They were nourished at the breast of protestantism; they are daughters of the christian family; and they have breathed, though a colder, yet a purer air, than their rivals. It is our glory to belong to the age, which they have illustrated by their genius, and our happiness to believe that they will light the way for our children to glory, honor and immortality. With these names I finish this division of my subject; WOMAN AND CHRISTIANITY. 169 and if you are still asked, what christianity has done for your sex, you have only to repeat these names. You have heard us with so much patience on the past condition and character of your sex, we hope you will not be wearied with what remains of this discourse, in which we intend to explain what you may and ought to do for christianity, which has done so much for you. Nature, when she endowed you with superior tenderness of frame and sensibility of mind, directed you to the almost instinctive exercise of the kind and compassionate duties. But christianity, by raising you to a community of rights and interests with the other sex, while it has still left you this sphere of action, has given you, in fact, the government of the world. Το you is every where intrusted, in civilized Christendom, that precious deposit, the infant's mind; and thus, while it has made your example of early and everlasting effect, it has also made the culture of your understandings of infinite importance. Still, it may be doubted whether the influence you have as mothers or as wives, is greater than that which you have already exercised, and which your daughters will exercise in their turn, upon entering the world, awakening the love, and leading away the admiration of our sex. My young friends, who will hereafter give to many homes their charm, or change them into dens of horror, when you know and feel that christianity is every thing to you, you will make it every thing to us. Think then, what you may do for pure, rational, unaffected, practical christianity. Is it not worthy of your ambition, instead of countenancing, by your youthful favor, the unprincipled of our sex, to attempt to raise the tone of masculine understanding and morals, and the standard of juvenile accomplishments? To insure these effects, is it not time that female education were generally directed to a higher mark, not of accomplishments, as they are called, for of them we have enough, even to satiety, but of intellectual furniture and vigor? Is it not time that a race of females should be formed, who may practice with intelligence and with confidence on those rules which have been given, and those ideas which have been suggested in the immortal works on education, which we already owe to the extraordinary women of the present age? Is it not time that some plan of more liberal and extensive female education were devised to form the mothers of your children's children; an education which shall save many a ripening female mind from that feebleness to which it might otherwise be destined in this age of vanity and books; so that women may be more generally furnished with principles as well as sentiments, with logic as well as taste, with true knowledge as well as with a morbid thirst for entertainment; to all which should be superadded a religious fear and love of God and his Son, so that, as they draw toward the close of life, visions of celestial bliss may fill their minds, instead of those vanishing scenes of pleasure which are now so frequently gliding before their idle fancies? We look to you, ladies, to raise the standard of character in our own sex; we look to you, to guard and fortify those barriers which still exist in society, against the encroachments of impudence and licentiousness. We look to you for the continuance of domestic purity, for the revival of domestic religion, for the increase of our charities and the support of what remains of religion in our private habits and public institutions. O, you who are at the head of families, husbands and wives, you who intrust each other with your closest secrets and your most important interests, let God be admitted to share your mutual confidence. Where there is no communication of religious sentiment and affection, believe me, the richest spring of social and domestic bliss is unopened and untasted. The subject of religion is one on which the female mind feels more, perhaps, than on almost any other, a need of the most perfect confidence, in order to develope |