My dear friend, have I said anything in this sermon, or do I say anything in this book, which leads you to suppose that I think men better than women? It is because I believe that, in the constitution of the race, you are the fountain-head of social, moral and religious influence, that I come directly to you. My mother taught me, long ago, the great moral superiority of woman. She taught me that most of the good and pure in this world comes from woman. So far from thinking that man is an angel, and woman a nothing, and a bad nothing, the strongest article in my religious creed is, that when woman has been redeemed from the shilly-shally, lace, ribbon, and feather life, into which she has so unhappily drifted,--when woman shall be restored to herself, she will be strong enough in soul to take us men in her arms, and carry us to heaven. I beg you will not suppose that, in my criticisms upon woman, I am prompted by the belief that she needs special exhortation on her own account. I appeal to her on account of us all, believing that the most direct and effective way to redeem the race, is to induce woman to lay aside every weight and the special sins that so beset her, and to run the race with the highest womanly heroism. PIANO MUSIC. Nothing so constantly troubled and pained me during the progress of the school at Lexington, as the strange passion for the piano. Of the one hundred and forty girls present during the third year, I cannot recall more than three or four who possessed any decided musical capacity, while nearly a hundred studied music. Fifteen pianos were going constantly. Take any one of sixty or seventy who were studying music, simply because it was fashionable, and consider the waste. One hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars a year for instruction, with two to five hours' exhaustive daily practice. I cannot bear to think that this foolish waste, and worse than waste, was going on for years, in an institution under my management. But there are influences at work stronger than the will of the teachers. Those influences come from established prejudices. Although the money and time given to the piano, among a large proportion of the girls in our school, was worse than wasted, I soon found that three out of four of them would refuse to enter the school, or remain in it, if they were urged not to study music. After a young woman has studied music for five years, and has twisted her spine all out of shape in practicing upon the piano, she marries, plays a little on the splendid "Grand" which "Dear Aunt" gives her as a wedding present, and then drops it forever. If there is decided talent, she may continue; but I speak of the results as I have seen them. IMPORTANCE OF VOCAL MUSIC.