Part 4 — WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES. (continued 2)

This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.

"It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling, the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions produced by light reading, or to make them understand the different effect produced by the highest order of works of imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the 'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."

The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God, the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer observes—

"The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with these doctrines, and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable to take a just view of their particular duties, or of the uses and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse, slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects. The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them, now spends itself on religion, which it degrades. Whatever the former defects of their character, whether selfishness, vanity, pride, ill-temper, indolence, or any other, it remains unconquered, though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they easily be undeceived, because, when about to examine their hearts and their conduct, the error in their views directs their efforts to a false standard."

We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline, in which we have endeavoured, however feebly, to shadow forth the merit of these volumes, than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed excellence, which this touching and finished picture is intended to convey.

"Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement, fantastic and complicated subtleties, angry zeal, and dissocial passions, I turn to the records of memory, where are graven for ever the lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ, and whose character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there was existence her benevolence flowed forth, never enfeebled by the distance of its object, yet flushing the least of daily pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most comprehensive moral grandeur, while her calm, uncompromising energy against sin, was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system of active beneficence, in which her business, her projects, her pleasures, were but so many varied forms of serving her fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so went with their distresses and their joys, that she scarcely seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of her character was peculiarly striking, in the unhesitating readiness with which she received—I might even say, with which she grasped at—the correction of her errors, and listened to the suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her mind—it was not to seem right, but to do right.

"What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she followed, was, that her counsels came not from a bosom that had never been shaken with the passions she admonished, or the sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came, that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup, and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy in the happiness she gave.

"It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality, and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended to the effusions and perturbations of grief, seemed the earnest of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils, but know not the reward that awaits them.

"Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind, but she imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly, she followed it throughout with such singleness of heart, that its influence affected her minutest actions, not by an effort of studied attention, but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the other; her views were therefore all practical and free from confusion, and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim that the motive dignified the action, however trivial in itself; and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of obedience to an all-powerful Being, because he is the pure essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had not the consoling belief of the Christian, she still saw the handwriting of God, that cannot be effaced from a generous mind; and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man, from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life, would arise with rapture in the next, to the knowledge that a happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe.

"It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at a glance, or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or a prejudice. Hence, also, her lofty undeviating justice; her regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous, that every one within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of those she loved best were involved, have cast a shadow of doubt over her stainless impartiality.

"She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always to conceive the objects of base minds:—

"'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill, Where no ill seems.' Paradise Lost.

"Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely. Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.

"She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life, nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined, apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved, she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy. She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which she had lived!—hours that exalted the feelings, informed the understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds, who found that forty years of difference between their age and hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and rare delight to their intercourse.

"But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness, that to them had been given a living evidence of the true Christian spirit, for if hers were not true, than many errors be more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps, they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with the charity she always taught."

Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity? who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to lead armies, not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, and armies led, and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible infirmity the frail, and as yet spotless creature whose moral, no less than his physical, being must be derived from her; to inspire those principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments, which generations yet unborn, and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honour into refinement, to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the anguish of the body, and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that are blighted, for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has passed away. Such is her vocation—the couch of the tortured sufferer, the prison of the deserted friend, the scaffold of the godlike patriot, the cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence, these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved. Such is her destiny—to visit the forsaken, to attend to the neglected; amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember—amid the execrations of multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when justice persecutes, when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken and unchanged; and to exhibit, on this lower world, a type of that love—pure, constant, and ineffable—which in another world we are taught to believe the best reward of virtue.

* * * * *