I saw her upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! A countenance in which did meet Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles, And now I see, with eye serene, WORDSWORTH. WOMAN'S MISSION. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. .... Spirits are not finely touched, But to fine issues. SHAKSPEARE. THE age in which we live is pre-eminently one of novelty,-new plans, new discoveries, new truths, new opinions, at least, whether true or chimerical. Some of these relate to the position, political and social, of woman, whose importance in the scale of humanity, no rational being, above all, no Christian, can doubt. The "last at the Cross, and earliest at the grave,"* are dignified in the eyes of all Christian believers by the noble qualities of unworldliness and self-devotion; and it is one among many of the internal and collateral evidences of Christianity, that its historians have so beautifully and faithfully portrayed the distinction between man's and woman's devotedness. That the sex, characterized by such noble moral [* Barrett's "Woman; a Poem."] development, is destined to exercise no unimpor tant influence on the political and social condition of mankind, we must all believe; indeed, the united testimony of ages leaves this an undoubted fact. There is a popular cry raised of injustice and oppression on the part of the other sex. Yet men, in all ages, have shown a sufficient willingness to allow woman a share of influence, sometimes a very undue share. There is no hyperbole in the phrase, "Vainqueurs des vainqueurs de la terre ;" and this influence is so powerful, and so generally felt, that it becomes a question whether it is used as it ought to be,-for good. But, it is said, it is degrading to work by influence, instead of by power,-indirectly, instead of directly, as subordinates, not as principals. Here is the question at issue. Would mankind be benefitted by the exchange of influence for power, in the case of woman? Would the greatest possible good be procured by bringing her out of her present sphere into the arena of public life, by introducing to our homes and to our hearths the violent dissensions, the hard and rancorous feelings, engendered by political strife? It is really difficult to approach the subject in the form to which it has by some writers been reduced, with any degree of gravity; and it is somewhat to the credit of the other sex, that it has not more frequently been treated with the keen and indelicate satire which it deserves, and might provoke. Yet we are not one iota behind these fiery champions of womanhood, in exalted notions of its dignity and mission. We are as anxious as they can be, that women should be roused to a sense of their own importance; but we affirm, that it is not so much social institutions that are wanting to women, as women who are wanting to themselves. We claim for them no less an office than that of instruments (under God)* for the regeneration of the world,— restorers of God's image in the human soul. Can any of the warmest advocates of the political rights of woman claim or exert for her a more exalted mission,-a nobler destiny! That she will best accomplish this mission by moving in the sphere which God and nature have appointed, and not by quitting that sphere for another, it is the object of these pages to prove. [* The constant reference to the Divine blessing as the source of female influence, and to the Holy Spirit as inspiring and directing" Woman's Mission," and crowning it with due is what renders this a most attractive, not only, but most practicable book.] success, |