rrent, if it draws its waters in both from the same source, oves with her not only in a narrower stream, and less imuous tide, but sets also in a different direction. Hence it that the influence of the society of woman, is, almost always, soften the violence of those impulses, which would otherse act with so constant and fatal an influence on the soul man. The domestic fireside is the great guardian of society ainst the excesses of human passions. When man, after intercourse with the world,-where, alas! he finds so much inflame him with a feverous anxiety for wealth and disaction,-retires, at evening, to the bosom of his family, he ds there a repose for his tormenting cares. He finds mething to bring him back to human sympathies. The nderness of his wife, and the caresses of his children, introce a new train of softer thoughts and gentler feelings. is reminded of what constitutes the real felicity of man; d, while his heart expands itself to the influence of the nple and intimate delights of the domestic circle, the deons of avarice and ambition, if not exorcised from his east, at least for a time, relax their grasp. How deplorable uld be the consequence, if all these were reversed; and man, instead of checking the violence of these passions, re to employ her blandishments and charms to add fuel to eir rage! How much wider would become the empire of ilt! What a portentous and intolerable amount would be ded to the sum of the crimes and miseries of the human ce! But the influence of the female character, on the virtue of an, is not seen merely in restraining and softening the vioace of human passions. To her is mainly committed the sk of pouring into the opening mind of infancy its first imessions of duty, and of stamping on its susceptible heart e first image of its God. Who will not confess the influce of a mother in forming the heart of a child? What an is there, who cannot trace the origin of many of the best xims of his life to the lips of her who gave him birth? ow wide, how lasting, how sacred is that part of woman's Huence! Who that thinks of it, who that ascribes any oral effect to education, who that believes that any good luced, or any evil prevented by it, can need any to prove the importance of the character and her, who gives its earliest bias to the infant yet another mode, by which woman may exert a fluence on the virtue of a community. It rests a preeminent degree, to give tone and elevation I character of the age, by deciding the degree of shall be necessary to afford a passport to her soe extent of this influence has, perhaps, never been and, if the character of our sex is not better, it fessed that it is, in no trifling degree, to be ascribfault of yours. If all the favor of woman were to the good; if it were known that the charms ions of beauty, and wisdom, and wit, were reserved e pure; if, in one word, something of a similar exerted to exclude the profligate and abandoned from your society, as is shown to those, who have virtue in your own,-how much would be done Le the motives to moral purity among us, and imhe minds of all, a reverence for the sanctity and of virtue! uence of woman on the moral sentiments of socimately connected with her influence on its religious for religion and a pure and elevated morality, must in the relation to each other of effect and cause. of woman is formed for the abode of Christian for reasons alike honorable to her character and the gospel. From the nature of Christianity, this 6. The foundation of evangelical religion is laid and constant sense of the presence, providence and of an invisible Spirit, who claims the adoration, I gratitude and love of his creatures. By man, he is in the cares, and absorbed in the pursuits, of this great truth is, alas! too often and too easily and disregarded; while woman, less engrossed by ocmore at leisure to be good," led often by her duties ent, at a distance from many temptations, and enan imagination more easily excited and raised than 66 han's, is better prepared to admit and cherish, and be af ected by, this solemn and glorious acknowledgment of a tod. Again; the gospel reveals to us a Savior, invested with ttle of that brilliant and dazzling glory, with which conuest and success would array him in the eyes of proud and spiring man; but rather as a meek and magnanimous suferer, clothed in all the mild and passive graces, all the ympathy with human wo, all the compassion for human ailty, all the benevolent interest in human welfare, which he heart of woman is formed to love; together with all that olemn and supernatural dignity, which the heart of woman sformed peculiarly to feel and to reverence. To obey the ommands, and aspire to imitate the peculiar virtues, of such being, must always be more natural and easy for her than or man. So, too, it is with that future life which the gospel unveils, here all that is dark and doubtful in this shall be explained, here penitence shall be forgiven, and faith and virtue acepted; where the tear of sorrow shall be dried, the wounded osom of bereavement be healed; where love and joy shall e unclouded and immortal. To these high and holy visions f faith I trust that man is not always insensible; but the uperior sensibility of woman, as it makes her feel, more eeply, the emptiness and wants of human existence here, so makes her welcome, with more deep and ardent emotions, ne glad tidings of salvation, the thought of communion with fod, the hope of the purity, happiness and peace of another nd a better world. In this peculiar susceptibility of religion in the female haracter, who does not discern a proof of the benignant are of Heaven of the best interest of man? How wise it , that she, whose instructions and example must have so owerful an influence on the infant mind, should be formed o own and cherish the most sublime and important of uths! The vestal flame of piety, lighted up by Heaven in ne breast of woman, diffuses its light and warmth over the orld;—and dark would be the world, if it should ever be Extinguished and lost. LESSON LXXI. ne in a private Mad-House.-M. G. LEWIS. , jailer, stay, and hear my wo! y language shall be mild, though sad: im not mad; I am not mad. yrant husband forged the tale, miles in scorn, and turns the key; sure some dream, some vision vain; hat! I,-the child of rank and wealth,I the wretch who clanks this chain, reft of freedom, friends and health? while I dwell on blessings fled, hich never more my heart must glad, aches my heart, how burns my head; at 'tis not mad; no, 'tis not mad. Hast thou, my child, forgot, ere this, A mother's face, a mother's tongue? Nor how that suit your sire forbade ; His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled! His mild blue eyes, how bright they shone! None ever bore a lovelier child: And art thou now for ever gone? I am not mad; I am not mad. Oh! hark! what mean those yells and cries? Now, now my dungeon grate he shakes. Yes, soon ;-for, lo you !—while I speakMark how yon Demon's eye-balls glare! with dreadful shriek, He sees me; now, He whirls a serpent high in air. |