cation, and involving him in perpetual difficulty and embarrassment.

We come in the next place to speak of woman in the most important and responsible relation which she sustains, as the mother. In this relation Providence fully makes up to her the inferiority of her physical powers, the narrowness of her sphere of action, and the alleged inferiority of her intellectual endowments. In the influence she has in forming the character of the young, and training up each rising generation as it comes forward, and assumes the control of the destinies of the world, she has her full share in that power which sways and governs mankind, which makes nations, families, individuals great, prosperous, virtuous, happy, or mean, degraded, vicious and wretched. Woman is mistress of the fortunes of the world, by holding in her plastic hand the minds and hearts of those who are to mould the coming age, at that decisive period when the character is determined and fixed in good, or irrecoverably bent on vice and mischief. She governs the world in the capacity of mother, because in the forming period of life, the cords of love and gentleness are stronger and more pre

vailing than all the chains which mere force has ever forged. She sways the world, because her influence is on the whole paramount in the primary element of all society, the domestic circle. Men go forth to act their parts on the great stage of life, the most gifted to exert vast influence over its affairs, but it is only to act out the character that has been formed at home.

Woman, then, whose control over the character is almost absolute, presides at the very fountain head of power.

"What is wanting," said Napoleon one day to Mad. Campan, "in order that the youth of France may be well educated?" "Good mothers," was her reply. There could not have been more wisdom condensed into so few words. The greatest treasure a nation can possess is good mothers. Their aggregate influence is greater than all the rest which operate to form the character of a people. Man's task is abroad. He must elaborate his sustenance from the soil, under the heats and the rains of heaven, or tempt the waves of the boisterous ocean, or wind the labyrinths of trade, or seclude himself in the retirement of his study. He cannot know

much of his children in their earlier years. The responsibility of course, is thrown almost entirely on the mother. If she abandons her trust, then are the children lost indeed. While the father is consuming his days and nights in toil, that his children may begin life on the vantage ground of wealth and education, his children, through the negligence or bad management of the mother, may be forming moral habits which will make every care for their fortunes worse than thrown away. The mother has it in her power to form the moral sentiments of her children, and thus to make them either the ornaments or the scourges of society. Unless she co-operates, all that is done by others is to no purpose. The father may hire instructors for his children, but if the mother, instead of aiding them in their tasks, and exacting a scrupulous attention to their studies, is indifferent or negligent, his money is in a great measure thrown away. It is in vain that the father tries to keep them out of bad company, if as soon as he is out of the way, the mother listens to their tears and entreaties, and suffers them to go where they please. It is in vain that he would train

them to energy, industry and self-denial, if she persists in indulging them in idleness, sloth, and effeminacy. And if through a weak fondness and want of decision, she supplies them with money against their father's wishes, their ruin is sealed. Nothing more is wanted to make them profligates and vagabonds.

One of the strongest evidences of the goodness of the Author of our being is the guardianship he has prepared for us in a mother's heart. There could no other bond be given so strong of our well being. No where could our young and helpless existence nestle so safely as upon a mother's breast. The first we know of life is that we are watched over by the most untiring and sleepless care. The cradle nook from which we first look forth upon the world, has been prepared for us by the most disinterested affection. The first tones to which we listen are those of unutterable love. Thus provision has been made, that the heart should receive the earliest culture. The affections are exercised before the understanding is at all developed. The angel of prayer hovers over its slum

bers before one temptation has been permitted to approach.

What deep and infinite emotions rush through the heart at the sight of sleeping infancy! What a shrine of tenderness! What a prophecy of the future! What a symbol of hope! What a crowd of anticipations cluster around the young heir of the world! What a vision

of joys and sorrows rises up before the mind as it penetrates the dim vista of coming years, which wait to receive this inheritor of the lot of humanity! Those little hands, how eloquently do they gesticulate in their ceaseless graspings, the old and irrevocable sentence of toil! On that miniature brow, Thought and Care already perch beside the Majesty of Reason. In that bosom the lion and the lamb are still slumbering together in utter unconsciousness. Those alternate smiles and tears, how emblematic of the storms and sunshine of coming life! That feeble wail, how does it chime in with the undertone of sadness which is heard in all the music of this life. Those little feet, what path shall they tread,-where shall they wander, and where shall they find their final rest?