Christian literature for children; Women -- Social and moral questions; Young women -- Conduct of life
Another encouragement to female effort may be found in the general
Facilities for Improvement in our age. Education is receiving more
thought, than in any former period of the world. She, who desires it,
can enjoy higher literary advantages, better instruction, more useful
manuals, and other aids in the school-room, than were ever before
possessed in any community. The pulpit is emitting new light for the
spiritual man, and the press is redolent with a moral fragrance. Such
is the progress of society, that conversation, social manners, and the
incitements of example, now combine in furtherance of personal culture.
Our Political Institutions present, likewise, eminent incentives to a
higher self-training than has ever yet been witnessed. The republican
principle not only gives scope for individual freedom of thought and
action, but awakens associated effort. We have, hence, Female Societies
for benevolent purposes, Maternal Associations to assist the female
parent in her responsible tasks, and Young Ladies Circles for reading
and intellectual sympathy and mutual enlightenment. These are a portion
of the fruits of our free institutions. They create an healthful
atmosphere, and, associated as they are with the memory of their noble
founders, they utter to woman the inspiring summons,
"Through thy veins
The blood of Heroes runs its race!
And nobly shouldst thou brook the chains
That, for the virtuous, Life prepares,
The fetters which the matron wears,
The Patriot Mother's weight of anxious cares."
The growing elevation of your sex in popular estimation should also
encourage you, my friends, to untiring devotedness, and patient
self-culture. She, who was once regarded as but the satellite of a proud
planet, is now herself marked in the catalogue of heaven's luminaries.
Already are the names of Madam de Stael, Edgeworth, Jameson, Martineau,
and Hemans, abroad, and of Sigourney, Sedgwick, Child, Lee, and others,
in our own land, enrolled on this bright register. Nor is the moral
advancement of woman less remarkable than her literary attainments. The
Alcoran may exclude her from Paradise, and teach her that she has no
soul; practically, if not literally, it has done this. But Christianity
places her in the same high rank with man. She is an heir of the
Redeemer's kingdom. In the social edifice, she is viewed as the rich
tracery of its massive frame-work; the more graceful and delicate part,
yet as essential to the completeness of the structure, as its giant
pillars and solid masonry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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