The great fire of Hamburg in 1842, gave occasion for the enlargement of the Amalienstift. The association erected two large white houses, each comprising twenty-four tenements, which were incorporated with the one already existing as the Amalienstift. At the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the association, she stated that she had no fears for her work; she believed it would survive her; for it was built upon the only foundation that ensures permanence—faith in Christ. The idea that filled her whole soul, the raising and ennobling of her sex by works of saving, serving love, had become a fact and a reality. There grew out of the parent stem in Hamburg several kindred institutions; and similar associations on the plan of Miss Sieveking’s have been founded in many cities of Northern Germany, in Switzerland, in the Baltic provinces of Russia, in Sweden, Denmark, and Holland. It was the experience of this eminent philanthropist, as it is the experience of all who have thought carefully on the subject in the light of Scripture, that all higher kinds of benefit to the poor are connected with personal intercourse with them. _SPINSTERS RESPECTABLE, HAPPY, AND USEFUL._ Miss Sieveking had on two occasions cherished in secret those wishes and dreams which probably no young girl is wholly without. In both cases the object was worthy of her regard. She was not likely either to shut her eyes to reason and common sense, and marry a fool; or to flirt with a man, and in consequence die an old maid. In fact she declined an offer of marriage from a man whom many would have looked upon as a desirable match, because he was not after her own heart. She knew that the married life was only beautiful and happy when wisely entered and truthfully lived. In December, 1822, she writes:—“Doubtless it is sweet to be loved by a truly good man with his whole heart, and to give one’s self to him in return. I can understand this, and I am not unsusceptible to the happiness of the wife and mother; on the contrary, their joys seem to me among the sweetest and highest on earth.” Yet she well knew, that the married state was not essential to the respectability, happiness, and usefulness of woman. In novels and in Campe’s book, “A Father’s Advice to his Daughters,” she found marriage represented as the only proper destiny for a girl; but something within her secretly protested against that view. Yes; to her it constantly grew clearer that an all-bounteous God could not have given His blessing to one state of life alone, but must have a blessing for each. God had evidently reserved her for another career; and, like many other spinsters, she was unquestionably respectable, and evidently enjoyed more real happiness, and was more extensively useful, than numbers of married females. The marriage relation must be rightly used or it turns to evil. Some young men marry dimples, some ears, some noses; the contest, however, generally lies between eyes and hair.