“Ask the poor pilgrim, on this convex cast, His grizzled locks distorted in the blast; Ask him what accents soothe, what hand bestows The cordial beverage, raiment, and repose? Oh! he will dart a spark of ardent flame, And clasp his tremulous hands, and woman name.” The most beautiful features in human nature, as well as the most heroic elements of character, are called up and brought into action by sympathy. The women, who, during the late war, smoothed the pillow of the sick soldier in the hospital, have as high a place to-day in the esteem and affection of the nation as the heroes who turned the tide of battle on the heights of Alma and amid the hills of Balaklava. In thoughtless flattery, woman is sometimes called an angel; but an angel, in sober truth, she is,—a messenger sent by God to assuage the sorrows of humanity. Through sympathy, she lives in high communion with the great workers and sufferers of the past, and imbibes the spirit which stimulated and sustained them. “O woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!” Daniel bestowed the highest encomiums on the affection of Jonathan, when he exclaimed— “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan! Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: Thy love to me was wonderful,— _Passing the love of women_!” We could fill a book with facts illustrative of the sincere and strong affection of sisters, aunts, and grandmothers. But perhaps widows afford the most affecting examples of the constancy of woman’s love. “The new-made widow, too, I’ve sometimes spied; Sad sight! slow moving o’er the prostrate dead; Listless she crawls along in doleful black, While bursts of sorrow burst from either eye, Fast falling down her now untasted cheek. Prone on the lonely grave of the dear man She drops, whilst busy meddling memory, In barbarous succession, musters up The past endearments of her softer hours, Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks She sees him, and, indulging the fond thought, Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf, Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way.” _LOVE OF APPROBATION._