WOMAN'S WORTH.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

"Remember thou art made man's reasonable companion, not the slave of his passions; the end of thy being is not merely to gratify his loose desires, but to assist him in the trials of life, to sooth him with thy tenderness and recompense his care with soft endearments."-DoDSLEY.

"BUT for Adam there was found no help meet for him!" Such is the simple yet expressive account of the design of the Almighty in the formation of woman. The works of creation were ended; earth, sea, and air, were peopled with living creatures, and man, the great lord of all, had entered upon his reign! And beautiful, beyond the dreams of poets or the pencillings of imagination, must the home of man then have been, before the thorn and the thistle sprung from the cursed ground and marred its loveliness: all then was sunny and smiling, and entranced and wonder-stricken Adam must have gazed with rapturous delight upon the rich scene before him; but he gazed alone-there was no form by his side, whose heart, beating in unison with his own, felt the same glow that was kindled in his breast; there were none to whom he might breathe out his feelings

-none who felt reciprocal joys and delights. One can not think of our first parent, as he walked to and fro through the garden of Eden, and gathered in the beautiful and glorious things which were glowing in the firmament, and mapped on the landscape, and painted on every flower, and sculptured on every beast, and bird, and insect, without supposing that he panted for a kindred being, who, like himself, of the " earth, earthy," yet had a soul to feel, and a spirit which could be stirred by the wonder-workings of God.

Angelic beings, bright and beautiful in form and raiment, might have stood by his side, and pointed out to his astonished gaze the uses of the glorious things by which he was surrounded. They might have spoken with an eloquence so pathetic and persuasive that the like never fell from human lips, and have declared to him the ends for which he was created, and exhorted him to continue steadfast during the time of his probation by the hopes of heaven and the fears of death; but the speakers and the auditor were too far removed for the silken cords of companionship to bind them. It could only have been with awe and veneration that Adam listened to the words of the heavenly visitants, though love to the solitary man might have caused them to make the disclosures. There was something in those forms of fire which forbade men to seek a friendship there.

Seeing that it was not "good for man to be alone," the great and merciful JEHOVAH was pleased to give another rational and intelligent being to the garden he had planted. "Bone of man's bone and flesh of his flesh," woman was made a friend and companion -a sharer in all the pleasures of earth-a participator in the joys of that promised heaven which was designed for their everlasting home.

"The friend of man!" -such her rank in life.

Such is woman's station She comes not up to the point which Providence designed, if she be degraded

to his slave; she aspires to a height which Providence never intended, if she seek to become his lord. And it is the object of this little work to endeavor to raise the female character to its true height, position, and dignity. Fully conscious that the elements of all that is good and amiable are found more abundantly in woman's heart than in that of the ruder sex, it seems a thing at which the finger of scorn might justly be raised-that while schools and colleges are founded for the one, the other should be left to glean the knowledge of her several duties from the sermons of preachers, or, from a yet more barren field, the tone of the world without. Naturally disposed as, from the very susceptibility of her nature, woman is, to be more virtuous than man; and, from timidity and modesty, to be less vicious; it seems hard that so little pains should be taken to cultivate the good disposition and eradicate the evil. Weeds she has, for what human being is perfect? But surely these may in a great measure be rooted out: God gives the rain and the sunshine, but those who would raise a fair flower must clear the ground of all that might injure its roots or drain from them the moisture of the earth; they must cover them from frost and shelter them from storms, and then watch the result of their assiduous care with only hope for its success. And surely, if a flower be worth this toil, woman, the fairest of earth's productions, is worthy of it. She is man's friend.-Friend! there is no word so full of power as this. Mother, sister, daughter! these, if the expression be allowable, depend upon chance; at least we ourselves have no control as to who shall be our own. But Friend! this is a being who thinks of us and for us-who joys with our joy, and sorrows with our sorrow.

Choose then, men of learning-philosophers, moralists, and sages, you whose lot it is to cultivate the garden of the mind. Will you devote the strength of your intellect and the skill of your husbandry to