The Young Woman's Guide through Life to Immortality

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But there is another mark of the wisdom of God in this arrangement, which is, that as religion is so momentous to the interests of society and the welfare of immortal souls, that sex should be most inclined to it to, which is consigned the first formation of the human character.

I will now set before you the BENEFITS which will accrue to you from early piety.

Are the blessings of religion itself nothing? Recollect, piety is not merely the performance of duties—but also the enjoyment of benefits. This is too much forgotten, and the whole business of a holy life is regarded by many in something of the light of penance; or at any rate of a service somewhat rigid and severe. If it were so, it would still be our wisdom to attend to it, since it is the only thing that can prepare us for heaven and eternity. That it is service, is very true; but it is also a state of privilege. It is the service, not of a slave, but of a child; and with the duties of a child, it brings also the privileges of a child. Dwell upon that one thought, a child of God! Can you conceive of anything higher, greater, nobler? Does an angel stand in any higher relation to God? To be able to say in the fullest, richest sense of the language, "Our Father who is in heaven," to be an object of the love, care, interest, of the one Infinite Being—to be savingly interested in all the privileges of the divine, redeemed, and heavenly family! O, my young friends, is this nothing? Is it not everything? Many of you are orphans, and is it not blissful to say, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up?" Is it not a blessed thing to have Him for the guide of your youth? Hear what God says, "Therefore, come out from among them, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and my daughters, says the Lord Almighty." O, hear his voice, accept his invitation, and come into his family. Hence it is we propose religion to you, not simply in the shape of duty—but of bliss! Yes! Saving religion is another name for happiness—and can you be happy too soon? You want to be happy. You are made for happiness, and are capable of it; and where will you find it? Pleasure says, "It is not in me;" and knowledge says, "It is not in me." Rank, fashion, and wealth affirm, "We have heard the fame thereof with our ears." But true religion says, "Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the fountain and take of the water of life freely!"

Universal experience attests that pure and full satisfaction is not to be found for the soul of man in any of the possessions of this world; and if they were satisfying, they are all uncertain—mere unsubstantial shadows, which flit before us, and are lost. You have perhaps formed totally wrong conceptions of religion. "Happiness," you say, "in religion! We can conceive of it as duty, somewhat severe, though incumbent duty; but to speak of religion yielding pleasure, is like supposing the entrance of a violent lunatic would increase the delights of a ball-room!" Yes, I know it is in the imagination, of some of you at least, a spectral form, muffled, sullen, and gloomy; frightening the young by its dreadful look, petrifying them by its icy touch, and casting over them its gloomy shadow. But you mistake it! It is on the contrary—a seraph from the presence of God, lighting on our orb, clad in robes of celestial beauty, radiant with beams of glory, shedding smiles of joy on this dark scene, and echoing the angels' song, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good-will to men." True religion meets you, my female friends, just setting out in life, offers to be your guide, protector, and comforter, through all your perilous journey to eternity. Hear her voice as she beckons you to follow her. "If you are in danger I will shield you; if you are desolate I will befriend you; if you are poor I will enrich you; if you are sorrowful I will comfort you; if you are sick I will visit you; in the dangerous walks of life I will protect you; in the agonies of death I will sustain you—and when your spirit flees its clay tabernacle, I will conduct you into the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy, and place you at his right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore."

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And will you refuse such a friend? Will you turn away from such bliss? Religion—gloom and melancholy? Yes—if Eden was a gloomy place. Yes—if heaven be a region of sighs and tears. Yes, if saints made perfect and holy angels are clad in sackcloth, and the song of the seraphim is changed into the groan of despair! Oh no! "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Her duties are pleasant, her very sorrows are mixed with joys, to say nothing of her privileges.

To exhort you, therefore, to be pious, is only in other words to invite you to true pleasure. A pleasure high, rational, holy, angelical—a pleasure accompanied by no envenomed sting, no subsequent loathing, no remorseful recollections, no bitter farewells—such a pleasure as being honey in the mouth, which never turns to gall in the stomach. A pleasure made for the soul and the soul for it, adapted to its nature, because suited to its spirituality; adequate to its capacities, because the enjoyment of an infinite good; and lasting as its duration, because itself eternal. Such a pleasure as grows fresher, instead of becoming wearisome, by enjoyment. A pleasure which a man may truly call his own, because seated in his heart, and carried with him into all places and all circumstances; and therefore neither liable to accident nor exposed to injury. It is the foretaste of heaven and the pledge of eternity. In a word, beginning in grace, it passes into glory and immortality—and those joys which neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

Perhaps I may suggest, without at all intending to utter a suspicion of your regard to virtue, or a reflection upon your firm attachment to its rules, that you may need religion in youth to protect you from the moral dangers to which even women are exposed. An immoral woman, I have already admitted, is a much rarer character than an immoral man; but still it sometimes occurs. What instances could not the records of some institutions reveal? How many victims of the tempter's wiles could there be found, who would have been preserved from degradation and misery, had they been found under the protecting influence of true religion when the assault was made upon their purity or honesty! I know that multitudes are kept strictly chaste and upright without religion; but I know that of the numbers which have fallen, not one would have lapsed if they had been living in the fear of God. After Eve's fall from perfect innocence in Paradise, no woman should feel offended by the admonition to be cautious and vigilant—nor suppose that her circumstances, feelings, or principles, place her so far beyond the reach of temptation that her safety is guaranteed with absolute certainty. "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." To many a once high-minded woman, proud of her reputation, the taunt has been uttered by the victims of frailty, "Have you also become weak as us?" "Be not high-minded, then, but fear."

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But you need religion for your consolation amid the sorrows of your lot. If it be truly said of man, that he "is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards," it may with greater emphasis be so said of woman. As if in the way of righteous retribution—she who mixed the bitter cup of human woe, is called to drink the deepest of its dregs. Sorrows are apportioned to her sex in common with ours, and there is scarcely an affliction to which humanity is incident to which she is not herself exposed. In addition, how many has she peculiar to herself! The weaker vessel, she is liable to be oppressed by the stronger; and to what an extent is this oppression carried on! How is she trodden down, not only in countries where the protective influence of Christianity is not known, but in this country also! To how much greater bodily infirmity is her more delicately wrought and more sensitive frame subjected, than ours! Dwell upon her dependence, and her helplessness in many cases. To me some single friendless women are the very types of desolation.

Then think of her privations, her sufferings, cares, and labors as a mother! I admire the patience, contentment, and submission, which enable her to say, "I am a woman," without repining or complaining of the hardness of her lot; for certain it is, that her groans are the loudest in creation. Do not think, my young friends, I am scaring you into religion by filling your minds with these gloomy forebodings. By no means; but I am anxious to prepare you by its sweet, soothing, tranquilizing, and alleviating power, to meet a woman's trials with a woman's piety.

Early piety is at once the most secure basis, and the most complete finish, of all female excellence. Look over what is said in a previous chapter on "Woman's Mission," and the virtues and tenderness that qualify her to fulfill it, and think what a support to all these is furnished by sincere piety. The surest basis of all moral excellence will be found in it. What is so productive of humility, of meekness and gentleness, of contentment and submission, and of self-denial and fortitude? In what soil will these mild and yet heroic dispositions grow and flourish so luxuriantly as in that of piety? We have stated that woman is created to love and be loved. To love is natural to her—and what cherishes this state of mind like religion, which, both in its doctrines and duties, is one bright and glorious manifestation of love to the universe? To all these varied excellences religion adds the firmness and consistency of principle, and the power and government of conscience, and takes them out of the region of mere taste.

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And what a holy and ineffable loveliness does true religion throw over the female character? Beauty is woman's attribute, and her form is the most perfect type of exquisite symmetry to be found in the whole material universe. And if woman's form be the finest specimen of material beauty, woman's piety is the most attractive instance of moral beauty. Who can look upon any well-executed pictorial representation of it without admiration? Where does woman look so altogether lovely as when seen lifting the eye of devotion to heaven; that eye which expresses the mingled emotions of faith, hope, and love? The Church of Rome has known the power of this, and has maintained its dominion in some measure over its votaries, by the power of the painter's art in depicting female beauty associated with female piety. In a religious female, the beauty of heaven and earth combines—the graces of the seraph and those of the daughters of Adam are united.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, many of you are not pious. Do consider what a chasm in excellence remains to be filled up, what a deficiency to be supplied, while religion is lacking in the female character. There are few men, however irreligious, but would shrink from impiety in a woman—it involves a coldness and hardness of character offensive both to taste and feeling. "Even when infidelity was more in vogue than at present, when it had almost monopolized talent, and identified itself with enlightened sentiment, the few women who volunteered under its banner were treated with the contempt they deserved. The female Quixote broke her lance in vindicating the 'Rights of Woman;' and no one sympathized with her in her defeat. And depend upon it, whatever other female follows Mary Wolstencroft, and essays the emancipation of her sex from the obligations of piety, will, like her, be consigned to abhorrence by the verdict of society. The mere suspicion of irreligion lowers a woman in general esteem. Religion is indeed woman's armor, and no one who wishes her happiness would divest her of it; no one who appreciates her virtues, would weaken their best security." ("Woman, in her Social and Domestic Character", by Mrs. Sandford.)

What is it, then, that prevents your giving to the subject of religion that attention which its infinite and eternal importance demands and deserves? Let me ask you with a beseeching importunity, as the apostle did the Galatians, "Who (or what) hindered you, that you should not obey the truth?" Ah! what? Let me speak to you of the HINDRANCES that are in the way of your obtaining life eternal. Hindrances! Should anything but absolute impossibilities prevent you? It is not infidelity? No. You are not infidels. You shudder at the idea. A female infidel is a character as rare as it is odious. Nor is it that you are absolutely against religion—but that of 'no religion' that we have most to complain of. Not of direct opposition to its claims, but the neglect of them for other things. It is a guilty apathy to the most momentous subject in the universe; a careless indifference to the most valuable interests of time and eternity; a fatal oblivion of all that belongs to the eternal world, which we regret; a contentment with things seen and temporal, without any concern about things unseen and eternal, which we deplore. Your minds are preoccupied. You are taken up with other things, and say to religion when it appeals to you, "Go your way for this time, and when I have a convenient season I will call for you."

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There is, I know, a repugnance to true, spiritual, vital, earnest piety, which is the natural working of an unrenewed heart. You can observe the outer forms of religion, by attending the house of God; but even this is more from custom than from choice, a kind of weekly compromise with piety, that you may for so much Sabbath occupation, be left to yourselves and other pursuits all the rest of the week. Your religion is nothing more than a Sunday dress, worn for the place and the season. But this is not saving religion, but merely a substitute and an apology for it.

Some of you are bent upon present worldly enjoyment. The apostle has described your taste and your pursuits where he says, "Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." Ponder that description. Does it not startle you; horrify you? Lovers of parties, of the dance and the song, of the gay scene and frivolous chat, more than God! Just look at this thought in all its naked deformity. A ball, a concert, a festivity, a party—loved more than God! Not to love God at all for higher objects than these; for science, literature, fame, rank, wealth, is a dreadful state of mind; but to neglect and despise God for scenes of frivolity, mirth, and pleasure—is it not shocking? Did you ever yet seriously reflect thus? "What a dreadful heart I must have, which can love pleasure, but cannot love God!" Consider what this desire for pleasure will do for you in the hour of sickness, in the scenes of poverty, in the season of calamity, in the agonies of death, and in the bottomless pit?

In the case of some of those who possess a more than ordinary degree of personal beauty, the consciousness of beauty fills the mind with self-delight, and constant thirst for the admiration and attention of others. No really elegant woman can be ignorant of her natural accomplishments—and too rarely is a beautiful mind the lovely tenant of a beautiful body. What an odious spectacle is presented when mind and body are thus exhibited in contrast. "Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion." What beauty can be compared with that of the soul, and what beauty of the soul can be compared with holiness? This is the beauty of angels, yes, of God himself. How foolish is it to be vain of that which a disease may soon turn into loathsome deformity, and which, if sickness does not destroy it at once—advancing age must obliterate, and the grave consume. Many a woman, even in this world, has had to rue the possession of a captivating face or form, and to deplore it forever in the world to come. Beauty has lost body and soul, character and happiness, in thousands of instances!

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Vanity displays itself also in attention to personal decoration, even where there is no pretension to beauty, and not infrequently attempts to supply the lack of it. How many are a thousand times more concerned about jewelry than religion, the pearl of great price; and about fine clothing, than about the robe of righteousness and the garments of salvation. A love of fine dress is not only a foible and a fault, but almost a sin, and in innumerable cases has led to confirmed vice. Is it not lamentable to conceive of a rational and immortal being spending her time and exhausting her solicitude in adorning her body, and caring nothing about her soul—thinking only how she shall appear in the eyes of man, and caring nothing how she shall appear in the sight of God!

With this is too often associated a levity and a frivolity of disposition which are the very opposite to that seriousness and sobriety of mind, which a real regard to spiritual religion requires. There is no sin in cheerfulness—nor piety in gloom. Religion is the happiest thing in the world, for it is in fact the beginning of heaven upon earth. Religion gives a peace that passes all understanding, and yields a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory; so that I wish you to understand, my young friends, I do not require you in becoming Christians to put on the veil, cut off your hair, put aside every elegant dress, part with your smiles, and clothe yourself like a spectre in the gloom, and sullen silence of the convent. But saving religion is still a serious thing—a thing that deals with God, salvation, heaven, eternity. And surely the frivolity and the levity that can do nothing but laugh, and rattle, and court attention by studied airs, empty talkativeness, and personal display, are utterly incompatible with that dignified and chastened (yet by no means formal, much less gloomy), sobriety of mind which religion requires.

Friendships hinder many from giving their attention to this momentous subject. They are surrounded by associates who have no taste for religion—and they have perhaps formed a still closer friendship with some who unhappily do not conceal their distaste for this high and holy concern. From the spell of such a circle, it is difficult indeed to break away. It has been thought and said by some, that the influence of companionship both for good and for evil, is greater with women than with men; on the ground that there is less of robust independence and of self-reliance in woman than in man. If so, how much does it behoove every female to take care what companions she selects!

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        How difficult it is to oppose the spirit and conduct of those with whom we associate! Generally speaking, we must conform to them—or give up their friendship. Even if a solicitude about religion is in some degree awakened, it will soon be checked and extinguished in the society of those who have no sympathy with such concerns. Shall the dearest friends you have on earth keep you from salvation? Will you sacrifice your soul, your immortal soul, at the shrine of friendship? Will you refuse to go to heaven because others will not accompany you—and will you go with them to perdition rather than part company on earth? Will you carry your friendship so far as to be willing to be friends even in the bottomless pit?

        You are perhaps prejudiced against religion by the conduct of some of its professors. And it may be that some of your own age and sex are included in the number. I am sorry there is any ground for this. I admit that much you see in many of them has but little in it to recommend religion to your favor. But all this was foretold by Christ, and must be expected because of the sinfulness of human nature—and ought not to be allowed to prejudice your minds against piety. If you saw a number of people under a course of medical treatment which required them to observe a particular regimen, but which they constantly violated, and were of course no better for the medicines they took, you would not reject the system because it did not cure them.

        Just so it is with religion. These people, though they profess to be under it, are constantly violating its rules, and are no better than those who do not profess it. But is this a valid reason for rejecting the system? You are to test Christianity by its own nature, as set forth in the Bible—and not by the conduct of its professors. If your soul should be lost, it will be no excuse before the judgement of God, nor any comfort to yourselves in the world of despair, that you allowed your mind to be prejudiced against religion by the misconduct of some who professed it.

        And now, in conclusion of this chapter, let me, young women, conjure you at the outset of life to consider the great end and purpose for which, as regards yourselves, your great Creator placed you in this world. Do not think too highly of yourselves, for you are sinners as well as others, and need, and may obtain, the salvation that is in Jesus Christ, and along with it, eternal glory. Do not think too basely of yourselves, for you are immortal creatures, and may inherit everlasting life. Rise to the true dignity of your nature by rising into the region of true religion. Do not consume your life in pursuits, innocent it may be, but frivolous and unworthy of your powers, your destiny, and your duty! With a clear and right understanding of your mission as regards this world, connect as clear a perception of your mission as regards the world to come. Behold an existence opening before you, which you may fill with the sanctity, bliss, and honor of a Christian, as well as with all the virtues of a woman. Withdraw your heart from vanity—and consecrate it to piety. Give the morning of your day to God, and then whether it be long or short, whether it be passed in wedded or in single life, whether it be bright with the sun of prosperity, or dark with the clouds, and stormy with the winds, of adversity; if it shall close suddenly by one of those visitations to which your sex is peculiarly exposed; or if it shall include a long and gloomy evening, it shall usher in for your happy spirit, delivered from the burden of the flesh—that cloudless and eternal morning to which there shall be no night. Then shall it be found that the chief end of woman, as well as man, was to glorify God and enjoy him forever!

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CHRISTIAN ZEAL

"Those women who labored with me in the Gospel." Philippians 4:3

The subject of this chapter harmonizes with the scenes which we often witness in the metropolis of our country, I mean the missionary and other religious meetings, which are held annually in that great center of the world's family. The month of May is wisely selected for the time of holding the anniversaries of these organizations of Christian zeal. Then, when the principle of fertility, after the dreariness of another winter, is flowing in a thousand channels, and when all nature in this country is verdant and blossoms with the hopes of another year, it is well for the church of Christ to exhibit those institutions which are, in the moral world, the vernal signs of retiring frosts and approaching summer. It is a glorious sight to behold the trooping multitudes hastening with willing feet and joyful countenances, and beating hearts, to the place of convocation, and blending all the joys of friendly greetings with all the sublimer delights of Christian zeal. We feel called upon there to bless God, not only that we live in a world which he has visited in mercy by the person and work of his incarnate Son, but in an age and country in which so much is done for the spread of the knowledge of this great fact to the ends of the earth. At these meetings all is matter of delight. The crowded platforms, containing the pastors, deacons, and members of our churches, who have connected themselves with the Missionary Society; the presence of missionaries from the fields of holy labor; the eloquent addresses of the speakers; the vast crowd of listening hearers, the thunders of eloquence reverberated in other thunders of applause; all, all, are calculated to make one feel how happy an exchange we have made in giving up the pleasures of sin and the world for those of religion.

But there is one other sight on these occasions which is as delightful as it is common; and that is the number of women, and especially of young women, that are always present—thus reminding us how deep an interest they have in these proceedings, and how large a share they bear in them. And indeed, without going to the metropolis in the month of May, or witnessing the scenes of Exeter Hall, what public meeting for any religious object is ever held in our own, or any other town, of which women do not form by far the larger portion? But I do not adopt the world's vocabulary and talk of the beautiful and elegantly dressed women who are there, I would rather speak of "the holy women," like one apostle, and refer to them as another apostle does, as "those women who labor in the gospel."

Let us attend to what the passage at the head of the chapter says, "Help those women who labored with me in the gospel." Then women may labor in the gospel, for they did so in apostolic times, and received the commendation of the apostle for it. If they did then, they may now; and if they may, they ought. Hard would be woman's lot, bitter her privation, and degraded her condition, if on account of her sex she was excluded from all participation, beyond her own personal religion, in the most sublime enterprise in the universe. She might well deplore her misfortune, if while man was permitted the exercise of religious zeal, she was denied all service at the altar of God. "Even heathenism," she would mournfully exclaim, "honored our sex, as it was represented by the Vestals, to whose vigilance was committed the guardianship of the sacred fire; and also by its priestesses, to whose inspiration was entrusted the responses of the oracles. And does the religion of Jesus exclude us?" No, it does not, and I refer you back to the first two chapters for proof that it does not; and I call your attention in the present one to learn how you may avail yourselves of the honor placed within your reach, and discharge the obligations which you are under to promote the interests of religion in this dark, disordered world.

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To be useful in the cause of God! How noble, how vast, how sublime, how godlike an idea! Dwell for a moment upon it. Did you ever weigh the import of that very common, but very delightful word, 'usefulness'? Did you ever ponder in sober seriousness of thought the kindred phrase, "To be useful?" Have you never had your admiration excited by hearing it said of any one, "She is a useful woman?" I cannot let you read another syllable until I have endeavored to fascinate you if possible by the beauty, and to captivate you by the force, of that glorious word, usefulness.

Look at its opposite, uselessness. How low, and dull, and mean a sound; and how despicable the character it represents! A rational, social, and immortal being, useless—doing no good, carrying on no benevolent activity, exerting no beneficial influence—a worthless weed, and not a flower; a pebble, and not a gem, a piece of dead wood floating down the stream, instead of a living fruit tree growing on its bank! Yes, worse than all these, for the weeds, stones, and wood may be converted to some good purpose; but to what purpose can one who does no good be turned, except it be to serve as a warning to others? Let your young hearts, then, beat with a desire to do good. Aspire to the honor of doing good. Contract not, shrivel not, into a despicable selfishness. Cherish a yearning after benevolent activity, and feel as if it were but half-living to live only for yourselves.

In this cause I want you to be even zealous. The apostle says, "It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing." Zeal, as you know, means an earnest, ardent desire, giving rise to a correspondent energy of action, to obtain some favorite object; and when directed to a right object is a noble and elevated state of mind. It is, however, a state of mind that requires great caution in its exercise, especially in the young, and most of all in young women. It is like fire, which may be applied to many useful purposes when under wise direction, but which if not kept in its proper place and under proper restraint may cause a conflagration. Or to change the illustration, it may be only as the healthful vital heat which keeps the body in comfort and in action, or it may become a fever of the soul, to consume its strength and destroy its life. Or, to venture, for the sake of emphasis, even upon a third comparison, many a zealous mind is set on fire by the speed of its own action, and for lack of some regulator to check its speed, and some lubricator to lessen its friction, bursts into a flame and consumes the whole machine, and does mischief to others as well as to itself.

A warm heart requires a cool judgment to prevent these consequences from a misguided zeal. The female mind being so susceptible, is far more liable to incautious action than that of the other sex, and is less disposed to reflection. In man the judgment more generally keeps the heart in check until it is itself enlightened and convinced. In woman the heart is often engaged before the judgment; and hence the danger of female zeal being sometimes wrong in its object, excessive in its degree, and impetuous in its action. Almost all new theories, whether relating to medicine, theology, or any other practical matters, find favor first of all chiefly with women. Too often led more by their feelings than by their reason, they get entangled, like their first mother, by appeals to their passions and affections, and allow their hearts to lead astray their judgment. The Greek philosophers classed zeal under three heads—zeal of envy, the zeal of achievement, and the zeal of piety. Extinguish all feelings of the first, as so many sparks thrown off from a flame kindled by the fire of the bottomless pit. Have very little to do with the second beyond an unenvious imitation of what is good; and let the third be put under the guardianship of a sound judgment, and the guidance of the Holy Scripture.

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I will first of all advert to the  OBJECTS of your zealous activity. You dwell in a valley of tears, and amid the groans of creation, occasioned by poverty, disease, misfortune, and death, and are not to be insensible to the sights and sounds of affliction by which you are surrounded. The female heart is supposed to be the very dwelling-place of mercy, and an unfeeling woman is a libel upon her sex—formed by nature to weep with those who weep, and to minister to the bodily woes of humanity, she should enter into the design of Providence, and become a ministering angel in the chamber of sickness. You have seen those cloaked and demure women who issue from Catholic convents on errands of mercy to the abodes of sickness and poverty, deeming no office too menial, no service too self-denying, which can alleviate the pains, or promote the comfort, of the sufferer. We would not question the purity of their motives, or the tenderness of the offices which they perform for the children of want and woe; but they look, after all, like a device of the church which employs them, to obtrude itself on public notice and to win converts to itself. We call upon you, without cutting the ties of your connection with society and abjuring the characters of wives and mothers, to be our Sisters of Mercy, and to make it your business and your pleasure to visit the scenes of sickness and the abodes of poverty. Even in youth, acquire the habits, the tenderness, the delicate tact, of a nurse. Loathe that spurious sentimentality which can weep over the imaginary woes of a novel—but turns away, either with a callous or a coward heart, from the real sufferings which abound on every hand.

But I now more particularly refer to zeal for Biblical religion, or for matters connected with it. Religion is every one's business, not only as regards the possession and practice of it as a personal concern, but also as regards its diffusion. Everyone can not only be truly pious, but, by the blessing of God, can do something to make others so. To spread religion in our world is not merely the work and duty of its ministers, but of all Christians without exception, whether young or old, rich or poor, learned or illiterate, male or female. Everyone who understands the nature, feels the influence, and values the privileges, of the gospel of Christ, can do something to bring others into the same happy condition. Where there is no desire and no effort to do this, there can be no real piety. Those who have no concern for the salvation of others have no right to conclude they are in a state of salvation themselves. There is room, and opportunity, and obligation, for all to work in this cause. Even children can do something here, and have done it.

God sometimes employs the humblest instruments for accomplishing great purposes, as I observed when remarking upon the conduct of the little Hebrew maid in Naaman's family. Paganism teaches us something here; for what said Jehovah to the prophet when referring to the heathen practices which the Jews had imitated? "Do you not see what they are doing throughout the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? No wonder I am so angry! Watch how the children gather wood and the fathers build sacrificial fires. See how the women knead dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. And they give drink offerings to their other idol gods!" Jeremiah 7:17-18. What a busy scene—all minds engaged, all hands employed, men, women, and children! Let us be instructed by this example of misguided zeal, and show a zeal for the true God equal to that which the apostate Jews did for false ones. Christianity can find work for women and children as well as Paganism; and how solemn are the obligations to propagate it which it imposes on all who profess it!

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As no service can be well performed by those who are not QUALIFIED for it, I will here enumerate the chief prerequisites for a course of female activity in the cause of religion.

Religious zeal should in every case be the offspring of personal piety. Without this there can be no intelligent, well-sustained, or very efficient effort. Something no doubt may be accomplished without it. God may make use of labors which were not directed to his glory. But it is only the truly pious mind that can understand the object of religious zeal, be actuated by right motives, and be likely long to continue the work, or to bring down the blessing of God upon what is done. Your own heart must be right with God or you will know little about the way of making others so. Example must support exhortation, or the latter will have little effect. Much of the effort of the present day is sadly lacking in devout seriousness, spiritual earnestness, and holy solemnity. It is a bustling, prayerless, unsanctified activity. There is, in too many, a frivolity about it that looks as if those who are engaged in it know not, or forget, that they are doing the work of the Lord—all is so light and trifling that it is evident in this case zeal is only another species of amusement. The zeal that is likely to be continuous, to honor God, to do good to our fellow-creatures, is that which is cherished in the closet of devotion, fed by the oil of Scripture, and fanned by the breath of prayer. There is upon the minds of those who manifest it that awe which warns them how they touch a holy thing.

Scriptural knowledge is essential to well-directed efforts to do good. I now more particularly refer to a knowledge of the object to be accomplished, and of the means of accomplishing it. A young person anxious to do spiritual good should well understand three great principles in religion—the ruin of human nature by sin, its redemption by Christ, and its regeneration by the Spirit—and should consider that all efforts of zeal must be directed to the accomplishment of the two latter. To fit her for this work, she should study well the Word of God, read some of the many treatises on the subject of religion with which the press teems, and make herself acquainted with some of the best tracts and books for putting into the handy of those who become anxious about religion.

An intense and longing desire to be useful must lie at the bottom of all her efforts. It is not a mere love of activity, a taste for social union and occupation, a desire for power and influence over others, an ambition for distinction, which are the impulsive causes of religious activity; but a tender pity for the immortal souls of our fellow-creatures, and an earnest solicitude for their salvation, coupled with an enlightened and fervent zeal for the glory of God. It is that piety which melted the heart of David when he said, "Rivers of waters run down my eyes because they keep not your law;" which agitated the soul of Paul, when amid the splendors of Athenian architecture and sculpture, he was insensible to all the magnificence that surrounded him, in consequence of the sin with which it was associated, and felt his spirit moved within him at seeing the city "wholly given to idolatry;" and which, indeed, is taught in the first three petitions of our Lord's prayer—"Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

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Understand, my young friends, then, what you have to do; not the work of a low and narrow sectarianism, in proselyting people from one denomination to another, nothing resembling the operations of female Jesuitism, nothing of zeal to establish one denomination upon the ruins of another—no, but the nobler and holier work of saving the souls of your fellow-creatures, especially those of your own sex, from the dominion of sin here, and from "the wrath to come" hereafter. Begin life with an abhorrence of bigotry, and never let your zeal degenerate into the baseness and malignity of that earth-born spirit; let it be a fire kindled by a coal taken by the seraphim from the altar of God—and not a flame lighted by a spark from the bottomless pit. Be it your aim to spread that religion which consists not in forms of government and religious ceremonies—but in faith in Christ, love to God, and love to man. To accomplish this, let there be a real engagement of your heart. Give up your soul to a passion for being useful. Cherish the most expansive benevolence. Feel as if you did not understand, or secure, or enjoy, the end of life—unless you lived to be useful. Consider usefulness the charm of existence, the sugar that sweetens the cup of life. Ever feel as if you heard a voice saying to you, "Do something—do it at once—do it heartily—do good, this good, good to the soul."

A habit of self-denial is essential to the exercise of religious zeal and Christian benevolence. Our Lord said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." This is true of the way of holiness, but it is especially so of that of benevolent activity. Christ could do us no good without his cross—nor can we do others much good without ours. We would not deceive you, and endeavor to lure you into the career of holy activity by representing it as leading through a garden of Eden where all is blooming and beautiful, ease and enjoyment. No such thing. The course of religious zeal is often in a wilderness, over sharp stones and bare rocks, and amid thorns and nettles. You must make sacrifices of time, ease, enjoyment, feeling, perhaps of friendship. You must bear hardships, and encounter many disagreeable things. You must be prepared to give up self-will, your own comfort, and claims to pre-eminence. Can you be zealous of good works on such terms? If so, come on; if not, go back; for the career of mercy is not for such tender feet as yours to tread.

But, my young friends, can you allow yourselves to sink into such delicacy and feebleness of character? Can you be content to degenerate into littleness, and pass through life as a species of nonentity, because you cannot endure noble self-denial? I do not appeal to your love of romance. I would not set your imagination on fire, in order that you may offer up yourselves a burnt offering to benevolence, in the flames of enthusiasm. I do not stimulate you to become heroines of mercy, and to set all the comforts of life at defiance. There are some who love the adventures of a career of active mercy. There may be romance in everything, even in pity. I do not want this—but I do want to see young women practicing a sober self-denial, a judicious disregard of ease and comfort—in order to do good. Unite a masculine hardihood of endurance with a feminine tenderness of feeling and delicacy of manner. Passive fortitude belongs to you.

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Patience and endurance is another qualification for doing good. Those who would accomplish this must not be "weary in well-doing." There are many things to make them so, the neglect of others, opposition, disappointment, ingratitude, perhaps censure. Those who expect to benefit their fellow-creatures with as much ease and as speedily as some do them injury, had better not make the attempt, for they are sure to fail. Scarcely any people in the world have more need of patience than those who set themselves to instruct the ignorance, to relieve the needs, to alleviate the sorrows, and to reform the vices, of their fellow-creatures.

See how this was illustrated in the history of our Lord. Consider how his benevolence was ever resisted by the malignity of those whom he sought to benefit. He lavished upon them his mercy, and it was repaid by their ingratitude. They refused his offers, rejected his invitations, misrepresented his actions, disbelieved his words, and misconstrued his motives. Never was so much goodness met by so much envenomed opposition! Yet behold his patience. A thousandth part of the opposition which he met with, would have exhausted the forbearance of an archangel; and yet "he endured the contradiction of sinners against himself;" gave them his tears when they had refused his miracles; shed for them his blood when they despised his tears; and bade his disciples to make to them the first proclamation of his grace, when they had even scoffed at his death.

Study the history of Christ, my young friends, for the purpose of seeing an example for you to imitate in the career of mercy. Follow him who "went about doing good," in order to teach you with what patience you should go and do likewise. Many who are all ardor at starting, soon grow tired, because they do not find the course easy, and reach the goal, at a bound—or are opposed in the way. It is a despicable as well as pitiable sight, to behold a young person entering into the work of benevolence as confident and eager as if she would surpass all others, and then almost at the first stage, when the novelty is over, and difficulties arise, and the expected flowers do not appear in the path, giving all up, and turning back to indolence, ease, and uselessness. On the contrary, it is a sight on which angels and God himself look down with delight, to see another holding on her way in her humble career of benevolence, amid disappointment and opposition, persevering in her attempts to do good, and finding in the consciousness of her aims and motives, and her knowledge of the excellence of her object, a sufficient inducement to persevere—though at present she reaps little else but discouragement and defeat.

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A spirit of dependence upon God for success, united with a high sense of the importance and necessity of human effort, is essential to religious zeal. This gives a twofold boldness of mind, and firmness of step; and makes us strong, not only as instruments, in ourselves, but also in the Lord and in the power of his might. What courage is derived in the career of benevolence from such a consideration as this—"I know I am seeking a good object by right means, and I will go in the strength of the Lord!" Young women, even in your humble sphere and feeble efforts to do good, a spirit of believing prayer, (which indeed is the spirit in which everything should be done) will bring the God of angels to your help, the Lord Almighty to your aid! Go forth with the consciousness that you are doing right, and with a belief that Omnipotence is by your side. It does not betoken pride nor self-conceit, but only that proper sense of capability which every one should cherish, to say, "I feel I am something, and can do something; I need not be a cipher, for God has not made me one. I have a mind, and heart, and will, and tongue, and with these I may do something for God and my fellow-creatures. Others of my own age and sex, feeble and humble as I am, have done something, and so may I, and by God's help and blessing, I will." You are right; it is all true. This is self-knowledge, and right self-esteem. Cherish these thoughts; act upon them, and you will do something. With such qualifications you may go to the work of religious zeal.

Permit me now to point out to you the WAYS in which your zeal may be employed appropriately to your sex, age, and circumstances. "As we have opportunity," said the apostle, "let us do good." Opportunities are more precious than rubies, and should never be lost by neglect. There are three things which, if lost, can never be recovered—time, the soul, and an opportunity. And it is of importance for you to ponder this. It becomes us all to remember the advice of the sage to his disciples, "Be mindful of opportunities." Youth is your opportunity for doing good; not indeed if you live, your only one, but it is a very precious one. The remarks made in the last chapter on the subject of the leisure afforded by your present situation for the cultivation of piety, apply with equal force to the opportunities it affords for usefulness. In married life, with a family around you, and all the cares it brings with it, you will have comparatively little opportunity, at least for some of those activities which you can now carry forward.

Among the ways in which female activity could be appropriately carried on, I must begin of course with the education of children in our Sunday Schools. The instruction of the girls is entrusted to women, and what an honor is thus assigned to them! It is strange how any young woman pretending to religion can satisfy herself that she is doing all she can, or all she ought, for God's glory and the good of her fellow creatures—who is not devoting her youthful energies to this blessed work. And yet it is painful to observe how many of the young women of the more respectable families of our congregations, withhold their services from this useful and valuable sphere of female activity. I am not unaware of some difficulties and objections to this engagement for her daughters, which present themselves to the mind of a careful, judicious, and anxious mother. But surely the proper exercise of maternal influence and authority would, in most cases, be sufficient to counterbalance those contingent evils to which the mixed society of the Sunday-school community might expose young women, I mean in the way of forming acquaintances and unsuitable connections. A well-taught and wisely-trained girl will know, and ought to know, how to avoid general and undesirable familiarity—without being suspected of haughty disdain or proud neglect of those who are not upon her level in the ranks of social life. It does require care, I admit, but care will be sufficient to avoid the evils alluded to. And I freely confess that the frequent and mixed meetings of teachers of both sexes which are held in some schools, are by no means necessary for the good working of the system, and are very undesirable on other accounts; and it is not to be wondered at, that for this reason, many mothers do not allow their daughters to become teachers, and that daughters themselves do not wish to engage in the work. Acquaintances, by no means suitable, have, no doubt, in some cases been formed. It is therefore incumbent upon all who are thus engaged to be anxiously watchful that no part of their conduct give to those who seek it, occasion to speak ill of the effect of Sunday-school teaching upon the character and conduct of the women who devote themselves to it.

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District-visiting Societies and benevolent institutions for affording temporal relief and spiritual instruction to the sick poor, conducted by female agency, are become very common both in the Church of England and among Dissenters. It would not be desirable, of course, that these should be chiefly conducted by young women. Matronly age, experience, and weight, are necessary to give propriety and effect to such a labor of love, but surely there is no impropriety in associating even in these good works, a youthful female with an elderly one.

The Bible and Missionary Societies, and other religious institutions, have called into operation a large number of women who are employed in collecting money for those important organizations, and for supplying the poor with copies of the word of God. There can be no objection to this, provided the more youthful portion of the sex so employed be associated with those who are older, and also that very young girls be not employed at all in the work. Nothing can be more repugnant to my sense of propriety, than for young women to be sent out with what are called "collecting cards," to wander over a town knocking at the doors of anybody and everybody for the purpose of begging money, and sometimes even entering counting-houses, and assailing young men with their importunities.

The distribution of religious tracts is another line of female activity in which many may be eminently useful. This is a means of doing good universally characteristic of the age. The press was never so active either for good or for evil as it is now. Its productions are instruments which every hand can wield—even that of a young and even comparatively illiterate female. But the same caution must be here applied also, that nothing be done to break down the barriers of female modesty.

Perhaps it will be thought I ought not to overlook one line of female usefulness peculiar to the sex, and especially to the youthful portion of it, and that is, furnishing articles of the pencil and needle, the products of which when sold shall go to the support of the cause of Christ. There is one way of doing this, about which I confess I have serious doubt; I mean the modern practice of bazaars, or as they are now called, "Fancy Sales." I am aware of all the arguments that are employed in favor of them, such as their gainfulness, and their calling forth contributions from those who would give or could give in no other way. A very beautiful little tract, entitled "The Bazaar," was published two years ago, in which the writer, not without a show of argument, endeavored to prove that these means for the support of religion hardly comport with the sanctity of the object. A certain air of frivolity and worldliness at these sales is thrown over the whole; so that such a scene looks like piety keeping a stall at "Vanity Fair." "Recall," says this writer, "the scene itself—the gay dress, the music and the raffle, flattery and compliment instead of truth. Purchases made from regard to man, and not free-will offerings to God. Mortification and disappointment in place of the approving consciousness of her who 'had done what she could.' Skill exercised in making that which is worthless pass for much. Arts practiced, advantages taken, with the excuse that it is for a religious purpose, that would be thought dishonorable in the common business transactions of the world. Then follows the feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction after excitement; the gaze at the heap of left things to be disposed of, or that will do for other bazaars, with the false estimate of the result of this. There is another fact in the history of such sales; some who shun the ball-room and the concert, and never entered a theater, act there the shop-woman, talk the nonsense befitting the bazaar room, and are as worldly, vain, and foolish, as she who seldom dreams of anything but pleasure, earth, and time."

Now this, I admit, is rather severe, and is perhaps a little exaggerated. Still there is much truth in it, and it may serve as a corrective, if it should not as a dissuasive. To the pure, all things are pure, and there may be those who can enter, pass through, and leave such scenes, without receiving the smallest injury to the devout and happy seriousness of their religious character. At any rate it is coming near "the appearance of evil," and should excite caution and prayer on the part of those who consider the matter as innocent and therefore lawful. Bazaars, however, are not the only way in which the needle is employed by pious women for works of charity. Working parties are very common—one meets periodically in my vestry, at which articles of utility are made and shipped for sale in India, the produce of which, amounting sometimes for one year's labor to eighty pounds, is devoted to the support of orphan schools connected with our missionary stations abroad. At these meetings, piety, friendship, and zeal, all blend their feelings of enjoyment, and furnish happy seasons for those who attend them.

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