Beautiful in the family is this spirit of cheerfulness; and surely it is an office of woman to cherish it. It can be wooed and won. Wherever woman goes, and especially at home, let it be as an halo of light around her head, and then shall she be a blessing to the circle in which she moves. Despondency is death, cheerfulness life. But remember that levity and boisterous mirth are no essential ingredients of this wholesome cordial. Its chief element is rather that which Paul spake of when he said, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Another office of woman is, _to check the utilitarianism, the money-loving spirit of the day_. There is something beside bread and water to be cared for in this probationary world of ours, inhabited by living _spirits_. And yet one is almost compelled to the conclusion that the whole race, at the present day, has given itself up to the worship of Mammon. That which is a _physical_ fact, which is capable of being _used_, is the _summum bonum. Cui bono_, in a terrene sense, is the great question. "Will it pay," the grand idea of the age. And men are hurrying along, life in hand, breathless and bootless, over the highways and byways to the Great Mogul's temple, where there is no spiritual Divinity to revere. We almost wish the return of the old Grecian's faith, who enveloped himself with a spiritual world, and this, at least, elevated his intellect, if it did not renovate his heart. To him the majestic mountain was peopled with august entities. To us it is of no account, if it do not contain in its bowels buried stores of wealth, though it may awaken the feeling of the sublime, and lift the soul up to God. To him the shady tree was the habitation of dryads, the rippling brook of naïads: to us, neither has beauty, unless the one can turn a mill, and the other furnish us fire-wood or lumber. We have made the soul slave to the body; have stripped the Universe of its glory, as a reflecting mirror, pouring down upon us such rays of Heaven's brilliancy as our vision can endure. God's sun is only to lighten us on our pathway of business; His mighty ocean only to bear the burden of our commerce; His magnificent lakes to carry our trade; His beautiful hills and smiling vales but to grow our corn, feed our cattle, and be the substratum for our railways. This utilitarianism of the day, too, has but little sympathy with the fine arts. It laughs at music and painting, poetry and sculpture, as things of naught, although they may tend mightily to the culture of the spirit and the refinement of humanity. Classical learning it discards, because with its dusty eyes it can not just see how that can qualify man or woman for the better enjoyment of life, or how it will help us plow or measure our fields, grind our grain, or churn our butter.