A SCENE IN REAL LIFE. (continued 14)

"Nonsense! She has not seen Lord William for a week."

"Well, what is the matter then?"

"And you really have not heard?"

"I tell you I have heard nothing of the kind."

"And you have not seen Selden, nor Seymour, nor Marryatt, nor Cleaveland."

"Neither of them for two days. I have been a perfect hermit, shut up among my books, during that period."

"And you have heard nothing of a caricature?"

"Out upon you—caricature! No!"

"You surprise me. Well, I must be the first to inform you, that Mc—— has put his threat of revenge into execution, by making our friend the subject of a caricature, confoundedly well done, and striking in its resemblance, but so ludicrous that it is impossible to resist laughing at it. Here it is"—and he produced the sketch.

Fenella's costume was peculiar, although no way extravagant. During the winter, her street dress was a tight fitting blue cloth pelisse, trimmed in front with gold buttons, with two or three on the waist behind; a black fur tippet round the throat, and a black fur bonnet and feather. The picture did not shew her face, but represented her moving from the spectator. The dress was a perfect copy, and the figure could not be mistaken; but the skill of the artist had given to it the most masculine character, and the posture was so ludicrously vulgar, as to produce great effect. Indignant as I was at this dastardly method of casting ridicule on an amiable woman, I could not but be sensible of the talent which had rendered a mere figure so extremely ridiculous.

"And where did you get this, Nichols?" said I.

"Oh, they are to be had for money. This is the first that was exhibited. Passing by the barber's shop just below the City Hotel, yesterday morning, I saw it in the window, and purchased it for the modest sum of two crowns. Before night another was exhibited, and bought by Cleaveland for three crowns; and this morning another copy appeared, which Selden bought for five. The rascal rises in his price at every repetition, and is in a fair way to make up for the loss at his benefit. There is another in the window now, and if we pass that way you may see it. Our object in buying them was to get them out of the way, for you cannot conceive how much annoyed Fenella is, at this vulgar representation of her figure. But as long as we buy, Mc—— will produce copies."

"Come along. I will have some talk with this barber"—and we made our way to the shop, at the window of which, as Nichols had stated, the picture hung, while a crowd of idlers were stopping to laugh at this ridiculous effigy of a popular actress.

We entered the shop and demanded the price of the caricature.

"Ten dollars," was the reply.

"Have you the audacity," said I, "to demand such a sum for a daub like this?"

"I have."

"And how do you rate its value so high?"

"By the demand for it. I have not an article in my shop that commands so ready a sale. Those who buy know the intrinsic value of the picture better than I do. I only judge of it by the price which it will bring"—said the fellow with a roguish smile, which tempted me to knock him down.

"Well," said I, "you have killed the golden goose this time, or I am mistaken. You shall not sell another of them if I can prevent it."

"Oh I have no fear of that. The lady herself will buy them, rather than allow them to hang long in my window."

"You are an impertinent varlet, and I trust will be chastised as you deserve."

I should have said more; but Nichols hurried me away, lest my hot temper should get me into some awkward scrape—and we walked to Fenella's lodgings.

What happened there and afterwards, must be deferred to another chapter, when the reader shall be introduced into the watchhouse, and his curiosity gratified in regard to my sojourn there.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

DISSERTATION

On the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes. NO. II. Religious Differences.

In no respect do we find the characteristical differences between the sexes more marked than in regard to religion; and certainly, we see woman in no attitude more engaging, more interesting or useful, than in the quiet, but graceful performance of her duties to her Maker.

The belief in the providence of some superior being or beings, has ever been a source of obligation to mankind in all ages and countries. Man may be pronounced to be emphatically a religious being. Every where, whether savage or civilized, do we behold him looking to the god or gods of nature, and dreading their punishment, not only in the world to come, but even in this. It is this spirit of devotion which "calls forth the hymn of the infant bard, as well as the anthem of the poet of classic times. It prompts the nursery tale of superstition, as well as the demonstration of the school of philosophy." "If you search the world," says Plutarch, "you may find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without money; but no one ever saw a city without a deity, without a temple, or without some form of worship;" and Maximus Tyrius, another of the ancients, declares that, "in such a contest, and tumult, and disagreement of opinions on other subjects, you may see this one law and speech acknowledged by common accord, that there is one God, the king and father of all, and many gods, the children of God, and ruling together with him. This the Greek says, and this the Barbarian says; and the inhabitant of the continent, and the islander, and the wise and the unwise."

This universal consent in the operation of a superintending and controlling providence, is one of the most luminous and important facts of our nature. It rests the evidence of natural religion not upon the unsteady basis of argument or reason—not upon the sophisms of philosophers, or the edicts of monarchs, or popes, or councils; but upon the immoveable basis of nature—upon instinct itself. "There is no era," says Mr. Allison, "so barbarous, in which man has existed, in which traces are not to be seen of the alliance which he has felt between earth and heaven; and amid the wildest as amid the most genial scenes of an uncultivated world, the rude altar of the barbarian every where marks the emotions that swelled in his bosom, when he erected it to the awful or beneficent deities whose imaginary presence it records."

But although there be that within us which leads directly to the contemplation of divinity, and of the retribution which awaits us in another world, yet we are not to conclude that this belief is not strengthened and confirmed by reason and experience. On the contrary, the argument in favor of a God and rewards and punishments hereafter, gains strength, with the increasing age, experience and knowledge of the world. Religion, in the midst of ignorance and barbarism, degenerates into gross superstition and revolting idolatry. By means of reason and knowledge, we are the better enabled to overleap the vast chasm interposed between us and the divine nature; to contemplate, in the detail and in the aggregate, both the minute and the great throughout the universe; to observe their beautiful arrangement and harmony, and the wondrous unity of design in all the parts: a unity which at once prostrates all the absurdities and contradictions of the far famed polytheistical religion of the Greek and the Roman—the fanciful idolatry and star gazing worship of the Chaldean Shepherd, and the Magi of Babylon—or the more fearful, more mysterious, and yet more ridiculous superstition of the Egyptian priests of old, who at a period far back, when time was yet young, and the history of other nations was scarce begun, officiated in those mighty temples upon the banks of the Nile, whose awful ruins, now scattered through the land of Egypt, tell us of the mighty of the earth, who have lived, and strutted, and bustled for a season, but at the appointed hour, have been cut down like the flower of the field. It is this great, this beautiful unity of design, which we see manifested throughout the works of creation, which proclaims the existence of the one indivisible God, "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance." It is this same unity of design, proclaimed by philosophy and comprehended by reason alone, which so powerfully supports the monotheistic religion of the christian, and sustains that beautiful, humane and generous scheme of salvation foretold by the Jewish prophets of old, and consummated by the sacrifice on Mount Calvary, of the meek and humble Saviour of the world.

Again, when we look abroad to animated creation, and see that man alone has placed within him a principle which guides and directs him, independently of instinct—a principle which, in spite of all the arts of sophistry and self-delusion, tells him in language which cannot be mistaken, that he is responsible for his acts; and when we further see the immense amount of vice and wickedness in this world which does not meet with its deserved punishment here, and virtue failing to receive its reward;—when we behold all this, and reflect, as we cannot fail to do, that the Creator of the world is a God of justice and impartiality, we are at once driven into the belief that there must be a hereafter, where all these things will be equalized. It is when we see the wicked son, the unnatural father, and the fiendish mother—when we peruse the histories of such monsters as Nero, Caligula, Commodus, Louis XI of France, or Richard III of England—of the Tullias, the Messalinas and the Macbeths, that we are forced to acknowledge that there must be a Tartarus. Again, we meet with humble virtue and piety in this world, possessed by those who labor and toil through life, sometimes groaning under the oppression of a cruel persecutor, who, bloated with vice, is nevertheless wallowing in apparent luxury and ease, while the victims of his oppression are overwhelmed with every calamity and misfortune "which flesh is heir to"—each one of whom, in the hour of death, may truly say, in the pathetic language of the patriarch of old, "short, but replete with woe has been my day." When we contemplate this, the mind does not rest satisfied, without an elysium where the weary are to be at rest, and the wicked to cease from troubling. "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old—yea, are mighty in power? Is there no reward for the righteous? is there no punishment for the workers of iniquity? is there no God that judgeth in the earth?" It is only the awful retribution of a hereafter which can satisfactorily explain to all

"Why unassuming worth, in secret lived And died neglected; why the good man's share Was gall and bitterness of soul; Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd In starving solitude; while luxury, In palaces, lay straining her low thought, To form unreal wants; why heaven-born truth And moderation fair, wore the red marks Of superstition's scourge; why licensed pain, That cruel spoiler, that imbosom'd foe, Imbitter'd all our bliss."

Not only, however, does our belief in the supreme benevolence and justice of the deity, force upon us the conviction of a future state of rewards and punishments; but the very contemplation of the human mind, with its faculties and passions, points us to another world. We have faculties which are capable of ranging beyond the sphere in which we move. We have longings which this world, with all its stores of provisions, cannot satisfy. These faculties and these longings point distinctly to another world. Lord Bacon has truly asserted, that if the child in its mother's womb could reason like a philosopher—could survey its little hands, mouth, eyes, feet, lungs, &c. and perceive that they discharged no adequate functions in the womb, he would, if impressed with the belief of the wisdom and design of creation, come necessarily to the conclusion that this was not the place of his permanent abode—that he was ultimately to be ushered into some other world, where all his physical energies and intellectual powers would be brought into play, and have an ample field to range in. So likewise, if I may use the beautiful language of Dugald Stewart, "When tired and disgusted with this world of imperfections, we delight to contemplate another, where the charms of nature wear an eternal bloom, and where new sources of enjoyment are opened, suited to the vast capacities of the human mind." And thus do we find both instinct and reason contending alike for the truth of the great principles of religion.

With these preliminary remarks, I will now proceed to examine into the differences between the sexes in a religious point of view; and here I may assert at once, without the fear of contradiction, that woman always has been, and is now, in almost every country upon the face of the globe, more religious than man. This difference between the sexes is still more striking under the christian dispensation, than under any other religion perhaps, which has ever existed in the world. In our own country, we all know that the female communicants form an immense majority in all our churches. "Very many of them (says Timothy Dwight in the 4th vol. of his Travels, and no one was better qualified to speak on this subject)—very many of them are distinguished for moral excellence—are unaffectedly pious, humble, benevolent, patient and self-denying. In this illustrious sphere of distinction, they put our own sex to shame. Were the church of Christ stripped of her female communicants, she would lose many of her brightest ornaments, and I fear, two-thirds of her whole family."¹

¹ I have no doubt that President Dwight has underrated the number of female communicants in the United States. From conversations with the most intelligent of the clergy, I should be disposed to say they formed three-fourths, or four-fifths of the communicants.

How then does it happen that woman is more religious than man—that she is every where found yielding a more ready and more perfect devotion to the God of nature? We have seen that instinct, feeling and reason concur in the support of religion. Which of these is the main impelling cause with woman? I am disposed to say the two former. She is not so much disposed to skepticism as man; she does not wait for the slow deductions of reason, before she is willing to yield her assent. She does not withhold her belief, like man, until she can contemplate the power, majesty and unity of the deity, in the countless millions of bright orbs, rolling in harmony and magnificence, along those complicate and luminous paths which have been assigned to them in the infinitudes of space. She does not wait until she can descend from the contemplation of this grand, this sublime prospect, to the infinitesimally minute parts of nature, and view with the eye of philosophy, their order, harmony and design, where she may behold the existence of deity proclaimed in those countless millions of millions of animalculæ, which escape the unassisted vision of man—each one displaying a form, a structure, a complexity of organs as perfect, as beautiful, as well adapted to the sphere in which he moves, on that little atom of creation, which is a world to him, as the grandest and most imposing animals of nature. No! She does not require for the generation of her faith, thus to be able to range from the bottom to the top of creation—from the infinitely small to the infinitely great—to behold in the vast and the minute

"The unambitious footsteps of the god Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds."

She looks into her own heart, and finds there the want of a consoling religion. She looks into the pages of holy writ, and builds her faith on the revealed will of her Maker. "Thus saith the Lord," is the simple but stable foundation on which her hopes are rested. With man, religion is much more a matter of speculation, of reason and philosophy, than with woman.

Let us now investigate, if possible, the causes of this very interesting difference between the sexes.

Causes.—1st. Education.

And in the first place, it is in a great measure attributable to the peculiar education of the sex. I mean the education which woman receives from her parents and teachers. The education of man is much more scientific, according to the present custom of society, than that of woman. Science, as we shall soon see, whilst it enlarges the powers of comprehension and ratiocination, by leading us into the mysteries of nature, and teaching us the "causas rerum," is calculated at the same time rather to curb the feelings, and to control the imagination. The consequence is, that a scientific education fortifies the mind against the too ready admission of doctrines, whatever they may be, and prevents us from yielding assent to truths, when we are not prepared to give a reason for the faith that is within us. In the education of woman, every thing is done to preserve her native feelings in all their original purity and strength. Her studies are of a more light and literary cast, such as administer to the imagination or warm the sensibilities. In her case the play of the instincts and of the feelings is not cramped by the controlling influence of logic and reason; and hence, no doubt, one cause of the religious differences between the sexes.

For the same reason, the religious enthusiasm of woman, is very apt to degenerate into superstition—that of man, into dogmatism and fanaticism. Woman, generally, cares very little for mere creeds and doctrines, but is apt to believe in miraculous interpositions, and a special providence. Woman possesses more devotion and more genuine love for her God—her eye is fixed on heaven, and the ardor of her religious aspirations always points her to the glorious mansion prepared on high; where, in the fulness of her devotion and piety, surrounded by the bright effulgence of the throne of omnipotence, she may pour forth the torrent of her love in hymns sung to the praise of her Maker. She looks to this grand, this glorious end, and prays to her God that it may be hers, and that he will direct her into the right path.

Man, on the other hand, is so much taken up by the study and investigation of the circumstances which attend him on his religious journey through life, that he forgets in the scrupulous study of his means, the end and object of all his devotion. It is not only necessary with him, that he should go to heaven, but he is too often resolved to go there in no other way than his own. And we may almost assert with the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that by his vain reasonings, and quibbles, and sophisms, he sometimes so narrows the bridge which is to conduct us to a blissful eternity, as almost to reduce its width to that of a razor's edge, to be walked over only by those whose sophisticated intellects can comprehend the absurd jargon of his theologico-metaphysical creed. It was very difficult during the middle ages, to engage the females in those tremendous, but nonsensical disputes between the Realists and Nominalists, which involved the peace and happiness of whole nations. What cared they about universals genera and species. Little did they concern themselves with the learned disputes of the Thomists, the Scotists, and the Occamites. The amors of Peter Abelard, were much more interesting to them, than his voluminous dissertations upon the Scholastic Theology. And we can well imagine, that few women would care to read that mighty production of the Angelical Doctor Saint Thomas Aquinas, bearing the imposing title of Summa Totius Theologiæ, containing the formidable amount of 1,250 folio pages of very small print in double columns, with 19 more of errata, and 200 of index. But enough of this. Some of the other sex even may now sicken at the idea of encountering a work so formidable as this, although it be upon the vital subject of theology.

Women are much more superstitious, generally, as I have already remarked, than men. They much more readily believe in dreams, visions and miraculous interferences. Women deeply in love, have often been known to die from the effects of unfavorable dreams about a distant lover, in a perilous situation. McNish, in his interesting work on the Philosophy of Sleep, tells us of a young lady, a native of Ross-shire, who was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore in the Peninsular war. The constant danger to which he was exposed, had, of course, a very great effect on her spirits. One night, after falling asleep, she imagined she saw her lover pale, bloody, and wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains of the bed, and with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that he had been slain in battle, desiring her at the same time to comfort herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. "It is needless," says McNish, "to say what influence this vision had upon a mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the unfortunate girl died a few days thereafter." Many such instances as these might be adduced, where all the explanations and consolations of philosophy have been rejected, and the unfortunate lady has actually died from the grief produced by the confident expectation of the realization of a dream or vision. I can well imagine the eagerness with which the females of antiquity would crowd around their seers, and their oracles, to have unveiled to them the mysteries of the future. Even now, women are much more disposed to consult gypsies and fortune tellers, than men. But they are most apt to incline to these petty superstitions, if I may use the expression, when under the influence of strong passion, such as that of love. We all know, that one deeply in love, is apt to be a little superstitious; and many there are besides the Phebe of Irving, who can wander forth in the "stilly night," when the moon is pouring her silvery radiance over the world, and kneel upon the "stone in the meadow," and repeat the old traditional rhyme

"All hail to thee, moon, all hail; I pray to thee, good moon, now show to me The youth who my future husband shall be."

2nd. Religious Wants.

Another reason, no doubt, of the religious differences of the sexes, is the greater demand or want, if I may use the phraseology of political economy, which woman experiences for religion. Her whole education, physical and moral, and her consequent position in society, contribute to the creation of these religious wants. There are times and situations in which we all feel in a very peculiar manner the want of religion. There are periods when the billows of adversity are rolling high and threatening to overwhelm us with ruin—when all our ordinary resources have failed—when there is in this world no arm that can save, no power that can protect us—then does the voice of nature whisper to us to turn to him who hath promised to be a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and to him in the hour of our peril do we address the fervent prayer. There is no part of the Journal of the Landers with which I have been more affected, than that in which John Lander speaks of the disaster of Kirree, while descending the Niger. Himself and brother had been separated, they met again on the river, but in the moment of the most heart-rending peril, when a savage enemy was upon the point of immolating them, and of destroying at once all those bright visions of glory and usefulness, which ever float in the ardent imagination of the traveller, and urge him over seas, and lands, and mountains, and deserts. "This day (says John Lander,) I thought was to be my last, when I looked up and saw my brother at a little distance gazing steadfastly upon me; when he saw that I observed him, he held up his arm with a sorrowful look, and pointed his finger to the skies. O! how distinctly and eloquently were all the emotions of his soul at that moment depicted in his countenance! Who could not understand him. He would have said 'trust in God.' I was touched with grief. Thoughts of home and friends rushed upon my mind, and almost overpowered me. My heart hovered over the scenes of infancy and boyhood. Recollecting myself, I bade them as I thought an everlasting adieu; and weaning my heart and thoughts from all worldly associations, with fervor I invoked the God of my life, before whose awful throne I imagined we should shortly appear, for fortitude and consolation in the hour of trial. My heart became subdued and softened; my mind regained its serenity and composure; and though there was nothing but tumult and distraction without, within all was tranquillity and resignation." And thus do we find that adversity often leads us to pay devotion to our God. When the treasures of this world in which the heart dwelt are swept away, we are more disposed to look to the imperishable treasures of another world. "When there is no object on this side the grave on which to fix our hopes, we delight to extend them beyond the troubled horizon which bounds our earthly prospects, to wander unconfined in the regions of futurity,"

"Where all is calm as night, yet all immortal day And truth, forever shines; and love forever burns."

On the other hand, how truly dismal and appalling at such hours as those I have been describing, is the condition of the genuine Atheist. When the plans, and projects, and schemes of this world have failed him, and all his earthly hopes are untimely blighted by the sad strokes of cruel fortune; where is his consolation—where his refuge? Shall he turn to those whom the world once called his friends? Alas! they were with him in summer and sunshine, when his flocks were feeding on a hundred hills—when his indiscriminate and boundless hospitality was the theme of praise on the tongue of the selfish and sycophantic sensualist, who delighted in his "glutton meal;" and his splendid mansion was the scene of music and of revelry. In the hour of his bereavement they turn from him, and even mock him in his misfortunes! Shall he attempt again to mend his broken fortunes and rise once more in the world's thought? Perhaps some insuperable barrier stands before him; friends have deserted him, and old age may be fast incapacitating him to run again the race of earthly ambition; and the base treachery of friends, and the mortifying neglect of a cold and selfish world, may have implanted in his heart, the deep and uneradicable feeling of dark and gloomy misanthropy, which may forever unfit him for wearing the world's honors, or coveting the world's praise. Shall he throw his thoughts beyond this world's horizon, and look with the spirit of prayer and supplication to heaven for that support and consolation which is denied him here? No! no! His fatal skepticism prevents his hopes from resting on another world. It shuts him up here amid all the gloom and horror of his terrestrial mansion—concentrates all his dismal thoughts within his own overwhelmed soul, and leaves him a prey to misery and despondency.

"A woe stricken being, to whose heart The visions of earth can no rapture impart, On whose brow the pale garlands of Hope have all faded, While his soul by the midnight of sorrow is shaded; What balm could you bring to his bosom's deep sorrow, If eternity promised no glorious to-morrow?"

I hope then I have said enough to show that there are times and seasons when the heart of man turns instinctively to the God of nature for support; that there are times when philosophy, and science, and friendship, all must fail to administer consolation to the oppressed heart:—it is then that religion and religion alone can furnish the balm that can neutralize woe. Under its benign influence the billows of adversity may roll on—they may break over our heads, but cannot overwhelm the soul when sheltered securely under its divine panoply.

Now let us inquire whether woman experiences oftener than man those moments of sorrow and affliction, which religion alone can assuage; and this inquiry, I think, must be answered by all, in the affirmative. The sorrows, and griefs, and trials of woman, are not of so palpable, conspicuous, and sometimes violent a character as are those of man. They do not attract so universally the gaze of the world—their consequences are not so extensive—they do not so much occupy the pen of the historian, or draw forth the speculations of philosophy; but they are more numerous, more secret; and for this very reason more calculated to turn her to her God for consolation. I have already in the preceding number shown, that woman, from her position in society, is obliged to conceal more than man. She experiences many sorrows and afflictions, which like the Viola of Shakspeare, she never tells to any one, but keeps them locked up in her own bosom to brood over in solitude. Rousseau says, a man truly happy, neither speaks much nor laughs much—he hugs, so to speak, the happiness to his heart. "Il reserre, pour ainsi dire, le bonheur autour de son coeur." The assertion which Rousseau here makes concerning the happiness of man, is strictly true, when applied to the misery of woman—especially to that most numerous class of her griefs which spring from wounded affections. This species of misery, if I may borrow the pencil of Rousseau "elle reserre autour de son coeur." Her shrinking modesty dares not confess it to the world; sometimes even the penetrating scrutiny of an affectionate mother is shunned and deceived. What then is her resource? She knows there is a God who inhabiteth the high and lofty places of eternity, who has promised to turn from none who seek him—she feels that all her sorrows are known to him. She can truly exclaim in the language of the Psalmist, "thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting, mine uprising: thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compasseth my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord! thou knowest it altogether." With this being then, who already knows all her afflictions, does she commune—to him she pours forth the torrent of her feelings, and tells the tale of her concentrated woe, which no vulgar ear shall ever hear. This communion becomes sweet to her in the hour of her afflictions, and she bestows upon him who has promised to be the friend of the disconsolate and broken-hearted, that love which perhaps has been slighted and despised by another. "As the dove (says Irving,) will clasp its wings to its sides, and cover and conceal the wound that is preying on its vitals—so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. Even when fortunate she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace."

It is at such times as these she feels the great want of religion; and accordingly we find that on tracing the history of woman, we often see her religious career commencing after some great disappointment—after some cruel stroke which has been inflicted on the feelings and affections. In Catholic countries we frequently see women, after these great disappointments, retiring from the world and immuring themselves for the remainder of their lives within the walls of a nunnery, where at a distance from the world and free from the rude gaze of an inquisitive society, they may spend the remainder of their days in silent and pensive melancholy, softened and ameliorated by sweet communion with God. You rarely hear of this on the part of man. If he survives the misfortunes that for a time have oppressed him, he plunges into the active business and bustle of the world, and in the midst of his employments he finds new occupation for his mind—he summons it away from the contemplation of his grief. New feelings are called into play, and often succeed in banishing the old. How often do we find ambition becoming the succedaneum of love.

But woman has not this opportunity of withdrawing herself from the scenes of her misfortunes and griefs. Every object around her reflects back their images upon her mind; and, go where she will, she is still like those unfortunate beings, laboring under the illusions of spectral apparitions;—the phantoms are around her still, gazing on her with lurid glare whilst awake, haunting her whilst asleep. Nothing but religion can afford her solace, under afflictions so oppressive and crushing. Without it, she may well exclaim in the language of the "Dirge,"

"Vain is the boasted force of mind, When hope has ta'en her flight; Then memory is most unkind— And thought is as the dread whirlwind That works on earth its blight."

In addition to what is said above, it may be observed that the physical infirmities of woman, are greater than those of man; she is liable to sudden changes in health, which endanger her life. Every child which comes into the world, is an admonition to the mother on the precariousness of human life, and the necessity of living in a state of constant preparation for another world.

3d. Dependence and Physical Weakness.

Another cause, no doubt, of the more religious character of woman, is her greater feebleness and dependence upon the powers around her, than that felt by man. When we look to the stupendous mechanism of the heavens and the earth, and contemplate the mighty powers that are at work in the universe, the mind naturally turns, in the spirit of devotion and prayer, to that infinite, incomprehensible, mysterious being, who guides and directs those powers. When we contemplate, for example, the globe on which we stand—think of it as moving at the rate of more than sixty thousand miles per hour, around that luminous orb, which at the distance of millions of miles, binds it down to its prescribed orbit; when we think again of this mass on which we stand, vast and grand to us, but an atom to him who placed it here, rolling on its axis, carrying us forward with a compound velocity, which if it could be suddenly arrested by some opposing mass competent to the resistance, would be sufficient to tear from their bases all the mountains and hills of the earth, and hurl their scattered fragments o'er the vallies—a velocity, whose sudden cessation would prostrate alike the animal and vegetable kingdoms, burying all in one common chaotic ruin, from which no one being would escape to sing the funeral dirge of a dead world. When we contemplate all this, and know that there is a hand competent to the control of these mighty powers; that under its influence, while thus rapidly hurled along through the illimitable regions of space, the busy operations of men are going forward; that the grand tower, the enormous pyramid, the slender reed, and the delicate spire of grass, stand alike unaffected and unshaken by this velocity; that the slumbers of the infant on its little couch, and the spider weaving her delicate web in the "autumnal fields," are alike undisturbed;—when we look again, and contemplate that thin elastic medium which we breathe, covering the earth like an invisible mantle, all quiet and calm at the sunset hour, so that even the thistle-down lies still and motionless on the earth's surface; then think again of that same medium, lashed into the fearful tempest, spreading dismay and destruction along its desolating track, and scattering the mariner and his cargoes over the billows of the sea; or when we contemplate that principle of heat which pervades the universe, constituting the great vis vivica, or enlivening power of nature,—so placid, so sweet, and it would scarcely be metaphor to add, so tender, as it exists around us in the mild and bland atmosphere of a summer's morning, when

"The lark, Shrill voiced and loud, the messenger of morn, Calls up the tuneful nations. And ev'ry copse Deep tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony."

And then think again of this same agent confined in the earth's mass; by its sudden action laying hold on the globe with the grasp of more than ten thousand giants, upheaving the dense and mighty stratum which lies above it, shaking whole continents by its power, and burying the toppling cities with the accumulated wealth of ages under its fearful ruins; when we contemplate, I say, all these powers around us, we see our dependence on them, and again their dependence on omnipotence. The feeling of dependence forced upon the mind, begets a spirit of devotion and trust towards the God of nature. At first, overwhelmed by the evidences of mighty power exerted around and over us, we are almost disposed to cry out in the language of holy writ, "what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldst deign to visit him." But our confidence revives when we recollect the promise that "if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith."

This spirit of dependence, wherever felt, always begets more or less a religious spirit of devotion. It is this spirit which, in ages of ignorance and superstition, begets the worship of heroes, of statesmen, and philanthropists. It is this spirit which has added such as Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Isis, Osiris, &c. to the vast catalogue of the gods in the polytheistic religions of antiquity. It is this same spirit, which makes the subordinate officer and the soldier, look with awe and the most confident reliance on the successful military chieftain, who has so often manoeuvred them like a machine, and has gained victory after victory by those rapid combinations and skilful evolutions, which to the mind that does not comprehend, appear to be the result of inspiration rather than the effects of human wisdom. Wherever in fine, there is a system of dependence, there you will find always more or less a spirit of reverence. How intensely does this spirit manifest itself in a father or mother, who has knelt before an emperor or king, and obtained the pardon of a condemned son. Now, as I have already observed, woman feels this dependency much more strongly than man. She is the weaker vessel, and hence there is a devotional feeling excited by this dependence, which follows the chain of dependence up, link by link, until it reaches the throne of omnipotence. Woman does not feel this dependence from a contemplation of the mighty physical energies exerted around her by the great powers of nature; but it arises from her greater weakness and dependency when compared with the other sex.

Do we not all know that there is something much more devotional in the love of woman than man—a something much more nearly allied to religion? Do we not know that this same weakness and consequent dependence, makes woman more confiding, more trusting, more submissive than man? She feels much greater veneration for the great and the powerful, and acquiesces much more readily in the tyranny and oppression of rulers. Even women of the very first order of intellect feel this reliance and trust on the greater powers around them. Mrs. Jameson says, in speaking of the Portia of Shakspeare, "I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or history, of any woman distinguished for intellect of the highest order, who was not also remarkable for this trustingness of spirit, this hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley Montague was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another much more memorable."

The physical weakness of woman and her consequent dependence on man, makes religion more necessary to her for another reason. It is her interest that every restraint should be imposed on the passions of man; that he should walk in the paths of virtue and morality; that his superior strength should be subdued and tempered by motives of humanity. He is then more kind, more attentive, and more loving to her. He is then a better father, a better economist,—in fine, a better citizen, fulfilling more perfectly all the relations of life. The Christian religion, as we shall soon see, is eminently calculated to produce this happy result, and consequently woman is deeply interested in its spread. Let no one start forward with the objection, that in this way she is the better enabled to govern her husband. I admit this, if, to govern him, means to restrain him from vice and immorality; but surely this is a government which no honest good citizen can object to. Every lady has a fearfully deep interest in the whole character and temperament of her husband's mind and feelings. Upon them depend, indeed, her weal or woe. Her condition may be deplorable, and sometimes irremediable, if a wicked husband choose to oppress her. But that is certainly a holy and a virtuous selfishness, if selfishness it can possibly be called, which secures our own welfare and happiness while adding to that of another, by curbing and controlling his more violent and malignant feelings and passions, and attuning the whole inner man to harmony and concord.

4th. Seclusion and Meditation.

Again, the life of woman, as has been before remarked, is much more sedentary, more secluded, and consequently more contemplative than that of man. Solitude and contemplation are very favorable to the production of religious impressions and the generation of a spirit of piety and devotion. Man is so constantly occupied amid the busy scenes of active employment, so much engrossed with his schemes of ambition and self-aggrandizement, so rapidly whirled forward by the eddying current of active life, that he scarcely will take time to pause in the hurry and bustle of existence to contemplate his Maker, and render to him the homage that is his due. Public devotion even often breaks in upon his regular routine of life, and frequently mars some little pet scheme of the day. He is a Sabbath-day worshipper; a worshipper at spare times and leisure seasons. But the solitary chamber of a woman, is often by day and by night, the temple from which in her lone hours she sends her silent prayers to heaven; the temple from which, in her silent meditations, her thoughts wander forth and hold sweet communion with the God of nature.

But, let us investigate a little more philosophically, the effects of this secluded, meditative, contemplative life of woman. And, in the first place, all will acknowledge that occasional solitude and consequent meditation are extremely favorable to the cause of virtue generally. Whilst we are running our dissipated career, under the excitement of the passions, we rarely have time, leisure, and reflection sufficient to determine on reform. "It is not in the madness of intemperate enjoyment," says Dr. Brown, in one of his most brilliant lectures, "that we see drunkenness in the goblet, or disease in the feast. Under the actual seduction of the passion we see dimly, if we see at all, any of the evils to which it leads." It is in the hour of solitude and reflection, that the remorseful thought of our errors and vices, comes across the mind; then, in the coolness and calmness of solitude, can we trace out the blighting evils that are likely to follow on our career; then, and then alone, can we dispassionately view, in the vista of the future, our loss of character, of health and riches, by the course we are pursuing; then we behold the melancholy consequences, widening out, until they embrace our family, friends, neighborhood, and state; we then can summon, in gloomy review before the mind's eye, our wives and children, dearer to us than life, living in penury and misfortune, and perhaps dependent for a scanty subsistence upon the cold hand of charity. When the mind is capable of reflection—of sketching out this sad picture, there may be hopes of reform. The individual is never absolutely, hopelessly lost, who indulges in silent meditations on the past; such an individual may even be saved at the eleventh hour. Hence, too, there is virtue in mere intelligence, because intelligence can always think and meditate. Hence, too, the efficacy of solitary confinement in the gloomy walls of the prison, and the very deleterious influence of all prison discipline not based on the principle of solitary confinement.

Again, any scene of distress, any monuments or associations, which remind us of the instability of the boasted works of man; anything which forces a comparison in the mind between the transitory character and nothingness of the things of earth, when compared with the eternity of ages that are to follow, or with the perfections and immutability of God; all such reflections as these are calculated to make a deep religious impression upon the mind. What classic scholar, for example, can stand upon the Capitol on the Capitoline Mount, in Modern Rome, and look over the mouldering but still magnificent ruins of the imperial city, as they lie scattered and confused over the vallies and the seven hills, and cast a retrospective glance at the ages which have gone by, without a deep feeling of religious awe and of veneration towards the God of nature? When he reflects that the poet of antiquity describes this classic ground, over which the eye of the traveller is now wandering in pensive and bewildering gaze, as a solitary wilderness; when Evander, and afterwards when Æneas came to the Latian Coast; that the brier and the bramble then grew together in wild luxuriance on the Tarpeian Hill; that the foxes had their holes and the birds their nests on the Palatine and the Aventine. When he looks again to the time of the poet, and beholds the proud imperial city, the mistress of the world, enthroned in all her gorgeous splendor and costly magnificence upon the seven hills, wielding the sceptre of her dominion over the earth,

"Until the o'ercanopied horizon fail'd,"

and sees upon the Tarpeian hill, the splendid temple with its golden ornaments and its stately columns, instead of the brier and the bramble, and beholds,

"Pretors, proconsuls to their provinces Hasting, or on return, in robes of state, Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power, Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings: Or embassies from regions far remote, In various habits on the Appian road, Or on the Emilian."

And then looks to her again—when in the awful language of the poet,

"The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood and fire Have dealt upon the seven hill'd city's pride,"

and sees that the temple upon the Tarpeian mount has been overthrown and rifled, and the brier and the bramble have come back again, that owl answers owl upon the Palatine, that the din of arms and the active bustle and hum of citizens and functionaries of imperial Rome, have ceased forever on the Appian and Emilian ways, that no stately triumph mounts the Capitoline hill, to administer to the insatiate ambition of the rapacious and remorseless Roman, that

"Cypress, and ivy, weed and wall flower grown Matted and massed together, hillocks heap'd On what were chambers, arch'd crush'd, columns strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd In subterranean damps,"

now meets his eye where'er it turns. Well may he exclaim with such a prospect before him, in the language of the same poet,

"The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless in her voiceless woes. * * * * * Alas! the lofty city! and alas! The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword, in bearing fame away. Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, And Livy's pictured page!"

When he sees all these mutations and revolutions on a single spot of earth, in the hour of his meditations his mind reverts to Him who alone is immutable and unchangeable, upon whose brow, time writes no wrinkles. "Alas, the pride of man goes down with him into the dust! it withers when the lamp of his transient existence flickers out into the long slumbering of the tomb." Eternal youth, eternal majesty, eternal duration, belong only to the great, the unchangeable I AM. The bustling transitory career of the mighty of the earth, when duly contemplated, should but the more strongly impress on the mind the infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of Deity. "Where now are they who sounded the clarion of war along the plains of Thessaly, the mount of Marathon and Samos's rocky isle. The trumpet's voice hath died upon the breeze; the thousands which it aroused have gone to rest; the castles which have been subdued and won, on whose walls the spear glittered and the cannon pealed, have crumbled into dust; the ivy lingers about the decaying turrets; the raven builds her nest in the casement, and sends upon the ear of midnight her desolate wailings; the owl hoots where the song was heard; and man, proud man, who once fought and won—he who reared the structure,"

"Sleeps where all must sleep."

There is religion, yes a deep abiding religion in such a retrospect as this, and the mind which can trace back in its reflections the history of man along the pathway of ages, and see how dynasties have been overthrown, and thrones crumbled, how nations have risen, flourished for a day, then have declined and fallen, and been numbered among the things that are past and gone, cannot fail to turn, upon the principle of contrast, to the God of nature, whose throne is eternal, and whose dominion can never pass away.

Such may be the salutary effect of the reflection of man, when man reflects. Let us now turn to woman, and see the character of her meditations and reflections. She perhaps may not, in her solitary musing, so much delight, as man, to look to the history of nations, and draw the mighty moral from their fluctuations and vicissitudes. But there are scenes around her—there are events constantly occurring in her own limited sphere, which much more frequently, upon the principles just explained, excite her meditations, and lead her on to religious devotion. Woman, as I before remarked, is the tender, constant, and affectionate nurse of our race. Hers is the heavenly office to watch the sorrows of man and mitigate them, by her sweet, her benevolent ministrations.

"The very first Of human life must spring from woman's breast. Your first small words are taught you from her lips, Your first tears quenched by her, and your last sighs Too often breathed out in woman's hearing, When men have shrunk from the ignoble care Of watching the last hour of him who led them."

Now this contemplation of pain and suffering, notwithstanding all the magnificence which pride or grandeur may spread around the couch of sickness and death, is calculated to force upon the mind the gloomy truth of the instability of the things of earth, and that there is nothing but God upon whom we can rely amid all the vicissitudes of earthly scenes. "The sight of death," says Dr. Brown, "or of the great home of the dead, seldom fails to bring before us our common and equal nature. In spite of all the little distinctions which a churchyard exhibits in mimic imitations, and almost in mockery of the great distinctions of life, the turf, the stone with its petty sculpture, and all the columns and images of the marble monument; as we read the inscription, or walk over the sod, we think only of what lies beneath, in undistinguishable equality." Here then is the scene to which woman in her meditations is oftener transported than man. Our last sufferings are longer remembered by her than by man—they produce a more mighty influence on her mind, and frequently do we see that the death of a child, of a husband, of a brother, sister, parent, or even friend, produces a sudden but lasting impression on woman's mind, arrests her in her gay and thoughtless career—makes her reflect upon the vanities of this world, and in the end is the cause of her being gathered into the fold of the faithful and the righteous, where she can ever after, with truth and feeling, amid all her earthly prosperity, exclaim in the beautiful language of Gray, in his Churchyard,

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave Await alike the inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

5th. Peculiar Character of the Christian Religion.

But one of the most important causes of the religious differences of the sexes, remains yet to be told. It is the character of the christian religion, and its peculiar suitability to the whole female nature and economy. It may boldly, without fear of contradiction be asserted, that never since the foundation of the world, has there been propagated a religion so consolatory to woman in all her sorrows and difficulties—so liberal in promises—so congenial, in fine, with all the undefined wants and longings of her heart, as the Religion of Christ. Throughout the world, in all ages and countries where this religion has not been preached, it may be truly said, that the great religious wants of woman have not been administered to. She has pined, if I may use the expression, for the want of religious culture, and has entirely failed to accomplish, in consequence of it, her sweetest and most graceful destinies on earth.

Shall we turn for example to the boasted polytheistical religion of Greece and Rome? how illy adapted do we find it to the wants, the habits, the sensibilities, and I may add, the virtue and chastity of woman. It is true, that in the innumerable host of their divinities, they numbered some distinguished female goddesses. Minerva, Juno, Diana, Ceres, Venus, &c. occupied very conspicuous stations in the celestial hierarchy. But we are not to infer from this compliment to the ladies, that the religion was one adapted to the female character. When we come to examine it, we perceive at once its barbarous and uncivilized origin, and see that the progress of science and civilization in Greece and Rome, merely refined and polished it, without adapting it to the real wants of society, or purging it of its enormities and vices.

In the first place, Jupiter, the king of the gods, who could shake all Olympus with his nod, was not omnipotent. He was restrained by the fates, and in constant apprehension of combinations among other gods, to resist or cheat him. Nor was Jupiter, with all the gods to back him, omnipotent. On one occasion, they were all thrown into consternation, by the formidable array of the giants, who were attempting to pile mountain on mountain, Ossa upon Pelion, in order that they might scale the ramparts of heaven. This great dread proved the want of omnipotence. Again; Xenophon tells us that the Lacedemonians used to send up their prayers early in the morning, to be beforehand with their enemies. Sometimes, according to Seneca, persons bribed the sexton in the temple to secure a place near the god, so that he might the more certainly hear them. When the Tyrians were besieged by Alexander the Great, they chained the Hercules in the temple to prevent his desertion. Augustus Cæsar, after twice losing his fleet by storm, determined to insult Neptune, the god of the sea, publicly; and therefore ordered that he should not be carried in procession with the other gods. And we are told, that after the death of Germanicus in Rome, who was a great favorite with the people, they were so much incensed with the gods, that they stoned and renounced them.

In the Iliad, after the celebrated quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, when the latter urges his mother Thetis, to lay his complaints before Jupiter, she tells him that Jupiter has gone in procession with the other gods, to pay honors to the Ethiopians, and on his return, she will present his petition. But besides the want of omnipotence in one or all the gods combined, the polytheistical religion presented a multitude of gods, among whom reigned the wildest disorders, the fiercest contentions, and the most revolting vices and crimes. Jupiter was the king of heaven, and he ruled not like the Jehovah of the christian, with mildness and love, but depended upon his thunder and his might. By these terrible means and not by love for him, his subjects were kept in awe. Listen to him in the 8th book of the Iliad, where he forbids the gods to take any part in the contest between the Greeks and Trojans. I give Pope's translation. Jupiter does not speak in the language of mildness, but threatens and denounces the most cruel punishment for disobedience, merely because his power enables him to enforce it.

"What god but enters yon forbidden field, Who yields assistance or but wills to yield; Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven," &c.

And the gods obeyed, not from love or affection to Jupiter, but from absolute terror, inspired by his power.

"The Almighty spoke, nor durst the powers reply, A reverend horror silenced all the sky; Trembling they stood before the sov'reign's look," &c.

Poor Juno, the ox-eyed Juno, the unfortunate wife of the Olympic thunderer, was the most unhappy of women, eternally quarrelling with her imperial husband and complaining of his partiality to her enemies. Minerva, too, more beloved by Jupiter than his own wife, complains of him as raging with an evil mind, in perpetual opposition to her inclinations. Old Vulcan, it is well known, got his lameness by being thrown out of heaven by Jupiter in a mad fit, occasioned by Vulcan's interference in behalf of Juno, when persecuted by her unreasonable and irascible husband.

The gods, too, are represented as frequently engaged in actual strife with men, and with one another. In the 20th book of the Iliad, when Jupiter permits the gods to enter the hitherto forbidden field of Troy, and take sides according to their inclinations, we have a regular battle between them. Diomed wounds no less than two gods in the engagement; Venus, who went off weeping to Jupiter, and Mars, the great god of war. In the same engagement, we have Neptune pitted against Apollo, the god of the sun, and Pallas or Minerva, matched with Mars, and actually prostrating him by a huge rock, a most unfeminine, unlady-like act.

"Thundering he falls: a mass of monstrous size, And seven broad acres covers, as he lies."

This wise, but most austere and forbidding old maid, appears truly terrific in this battle of the gods, and seems an overmatch for all, save the Olympic thunderer.

But again, the morals of the gods were of the most corrupt and profligate character. Jupiter was the greatest rake of all the ancient world. How many wives and maidens was he represented as seducing by the most unfair means? and so regardless was he of his wife Juno, that she was obliged to borrow the girdle and charms of Venus, when she wished to captivate the thunderer. The historian tells us that the Amphitrion of Aristophanes, was supposed in Greece, to be very pleasing to Jupiter—that he was like all rakes, exceedingly fond of the recital of his prowess in the arts of love and seduction. Venus, the goddess of beauty, as we might well suppose, after hearing a description of her ungainly hard favored husband, was no better than the thunderer. Her levities bred disturbances in heaven, and heroes on earth.² In view of these circumstances, no one need wonder at the account which St. Peter gives of the Gentiles in his time, that "they walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries."

² The Trojan wanderer, the hero of the Æneid, was the son of Venus, by Anchises a mortal.

Besides all this, the polytheistical religion was entirely inattentive to all those rules of morality which civilize and humanize the race of man, while they bind them together in peace and harmony like a band of brothers. Minerva, for example, is represented in the 4th book of the Iliad, as advising Pandarus to endeavor to bribe Apollo with the promise of a Hecatomb to assist him in assassinating Menalaus, contrary to the faith of a solemn treaty; and even Jupiter himself joins with that goddess and Juno in promoting so foul a murder. When we consider the vices and immoralities of the heavenly host, and then think of the virtues of the first Romans, we are almost disposed to assert with Rousseau, that virtue seemed to have been banished from heaven's confines, to take up her residence on earth. Did human nature in the ancient world, ever appear in a more stern and dignified attitude, than when Lucretia was represented as worshipping Venus, and still plunging the dagger in her bosom, because she had lost her virtue? What a practical rebuke was here given to the lascivious queen of beauty.

I need scarcely conclude this little episode in which I have been indulging, by the assertion that such a religion was unsuited to the wants of the human race, but particularly of woman. She likes to send from her closet, or from her silent and solitary chamber her prayers to heaven. She therefore requires an all-seeing, all-searching eye, which can behold her in the prayerful moments of her solitude. She likes to commune with a God who is omnipotent and able to heal and save. Her nature shudders at the conflicts and broils of the gods of the heathen—at their immoralities and vices. The female deities are all gross, lewd, masculine conceptions, unworthy of the delicacy, chastity, modesty and grace of the virtuous female. The gods were all unworthy of her confidence and entire trustingness. Where is the virtuous woman of the modern world, who, in the hour of affliction and trial, would unbosom herself before so terrible, so wicked, and so licentious a being as the Jupiter of the ancients? Or what female could bear to contemplate the amours of Venus, or to imitate the acts, and the monstrous immorality of the goddess of wisdom. Well then might the worshippers of such beings be described as "dead in trespasses and sins," and well might St. John, in view of such a religion, exclaim "the whole world lieth in wickedness."

If we turn from the Polytheistic religion of the ancient world, to the Monotheistic religion of the Mohammedan, we shall find the whole of this system more gloomy, more revolting, and more repugnant to woman's feelings, than even the Polytheistical. The fiery warlike character of the prophet, the propagation of the religion by fire and sword—the total degradation of the female character—the seraglio and the attendant eunuchs, and the low and sensual offices of the black-eyed Houris in Mohammed's paradise, are all too revolting to the women of christian countries, to be even contemplated with composure for a moment. We are not to wonder at the implacable hostility of christian females all over the world towards the moslem. Women have always attended in considerable numbers the armies of Europe, when it was threatened with invasion by the devastating armies of the Turks. D'Israeli in his very interesting collection of the curiosities of literature, has a chapter on "events, which have not happened," and gives us some speculations on the fate of Europe, if the Saracens under Abderam had beaten Charles Martel at Tours. What woman now moving with freedom and grace in the social circles of christendom, but shudders at the bare idea of such a result.

Let us now turn to the religion of Christ, and contemplate its character for a moment. And here shall we find a religion in every respect suited to the character of woman. It has been truly and emphatically pronounced to be a religion of love. The very scheme of salvation was conceived by the Almighty in a spirit of love. God is represented as so loving the world, that he gave his only begotten Son to save it. And when that Son came into the flesh, and was asked by the Pharisees for the most important commandments of the law, Christ answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind; and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Now I have already shown in my first number, that woman loves more tenderly, more devotedly, and constantly than man. This religion of Christ, then, above every other, is fitted for that deep abiding love which woman feels so much oftener than man. It is eminently and peculiarly adapted to that being whose whole history has been pronounced to be a history of the affections. "There is nothing surely on earth (says Mrs. Butler,) that can satisfy and utterly fulfil the capacity for loving, which exist in every woman's nature. Even when her situation in life is such as to call forth and constantly keep in exercise the best affections of her heart, as a wife and a mother; it still seems to me as if more would be wanting to fill the measure of yearning tenderness, which like an eternal fountain gushes up in every woman's heart; therefore, I think it is, that we turn, in the plenitude of our affections, to that belief which is a religion of love, where the broadest channel is open to receive the devotedness, the clinging, the confiding trustfulness, which are idolatry when spent upon creatures like ourselves, but becomes a holy worship when offered to heaven."³

³ In an Epistle supposed to be written by the famous Abbé Rencé, of la Trappe, this alliance between love and religion is well described, though rather too much in the peculiar style of a thoughtless Frenchman, "Je n'avois plus d'amante (says the Abbé,) il me fallùt un dieu."

But again—was there ever a being so congenial, so suitable to the character of woman, as the Saviour of the world. He condescended to be born of woman. Mary was his mother; and while executing the high behests of his father on earth, he treated his mother with the most affectionate and filial tenderness. And then his character was all mildness and meekness. He who could come forth in all the might of his father,

"Into terror chang'd, With countenance too severe to be beheld; And full of wrath,"

hurl the fearful host of fallen and rebellious angels into the bottomless pit, and chain them there through the endless ages of eternity—could, whilst in this world, bear the scoffings, the revilings, the buffetings of sinful man, could beg his father to forgive his persecutors, because they knew not what they did. His dominion in this world was not based upon violence, devastation and bloodshed. In his glorious career, he made no widows and orphans. Wherever he moved, he carried consolation and healing to the lowly and the humble. He restored the sick, and made the lame to walk, the blind to see, and the dead to come forth from their sepulchres. His kingdom was one of peace, and harmony, and forbearance. He commanded his disciples to love one another, and to serve his father in spirit and in truth. He did not, like Mohammed, exclude woman from an equal participation in all the promises of the gospel; and he declared that Mary and Martha had chosen that good part which should not be taken from them. Woman ministered to him while on earth; she was with him at the cross; she was with him at his grave:

"Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung— Not she denied him with unholy tongue; She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave— Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave."

The religion of the cross has been very truly pronounced to be a species of legislation in behalf of the rights of woman. The promulgation of the new gospel elevated her at once to that station which she deserves, and which adds so much to the refinement, happiness and prosperity of the world. Compare the woman of the modern with her of the ancient world; compare the woman of christendom with her of the heathen, and then will you behold the mighty agency of the religion of Christ in the amelioration of her destiny. Well then may woman cleave to this religion, as the ark of her safety and dependence. Well may she worship the Saviour of the world, for he was the true friend of woman—the husband to the widow, and father to the fatherless.

Woman is most deeply interested in the success of every scheme which curbs the passions and enforces a true morality. She is the weaker portion of the human family. When wickedness reigns in the land, and might is recognized as constituting right, she is always the great sufferer. Behold her among barbarians—among nations and people engaged in deadly strife, and how miserable do you always find her condition. Now the new gospel, in addition to the best religion which has ever been given to the world, contains likewise the very best system of morality. I have always thought that it was one of the most beautifully characterising traits of the christian religion, that it has ever been found better and better adapted to our condition, as the human race advances in civilization, knowledge and morality; and in this respect, no religion was ever found like it. The sermon of Christ on the mount, contains a system of morality which will be more and more appreciated as long as the world stands.

6th. Nervous System.

In giving an account of the causes of religious differences between the sexes, I have not adverted to the effects produced by physiological differences of the nervous systems of the sexes. The whole frame and nervous system of woman, is said to be much more delicate and sensitive than that of man. Hence an additional tendency to the reception of quick and sudden impressions of all kinds. Hence too, the great proneness of woman to irritation and to hysteric affections,⁴ and her liability to great and frequently overpowering excitement, in those religious congregations where enthusiasm is propagated by contagion. I have frequently seen indiscriminate multitudes assembled together for worship, when every soul was concentrated, and every mind was mingled in the same thought; when all hearts were blended in song—"The poor man by the side of the rich, without being jealous, had forgotten his miseries—the rich man had learned his indigence." All seemed to have obtained intelligence of their bright celestial destiny; all seemed prepared for it, rejoicing together, and all seemed advancing towards it. On these occasions, I have always witnessed more feeling, more earnestness, and more enthusiasm among the women than the men; and not unfrequently have I seen them cry aloud, and continue in a state of violent agitation for many minutes. The greater nervous irritability of the female then, must certainly be ranked among the causes of her peculiarly religious temperament. But I will not dwell longer on the causes of the religious differences between the sexes. It is sufficient to know that woman is more religious every where than man, and that the causes assigned for this difference, if not the only ones, are certainly the most important and most powerful in their operation. I will conclude my remarks on this deeply interesting subject, by a brief consideration of some of the effects of religion on the character of woman.

⁴ Babington tells us, that in orphan asylums, hospitals and convents, the effect of contagion is so great, that the nervous disorder of one female easily and quickly becomes the disorder of all. He tells us, upon the authority of a medical work, on which he places the most implicit reliance, of a large convent in France, where the example of one female who imitated the mewing of a cat, set the whole convent to mewing, so as to make every day a complete cat concert. And upon the authority of Carden, he tells of a nun in a German convent, who commenced biting her companions like a mad dog. The contagion spread from one to the other, until all in the nunnery were affected with this rabid humor, which spread from convent to convent until it reached Rome. These cases, however, if they actually occurred, were of a very extraordinary character, and could only happen under such circumstances as generally attend on the secluded, contemplative and eccentric life of a convent, which nature never intended to be the life of a rational, active, social being.

Effects of Religion on Woman.

Religion, I mean the religion of the heart and of the feelings, such as woman generally possesses, has undoubtedly a tendency to heighten and improve all those qualities and attributes which we consider as most essential to the female character. All the great duties of life, those of wife, mother, friend, &c. she performs with a double relish, and under the influence of a double motive. Religion furnishes a new and powerful impulse to virtue. Virtue, it is true, has its own charms, and may be said, by the happiness which it affords, to constitute its own reward; but you have never so well fortified it and guarded it against dangerous assault, as when you have thrown over it the sacred panoply of the christian religion. Most of the religions of the world have chimed in with the prevailing tendencies of the corrupt portions of our nature, and have flattered and ministered to some of the worst and most malignant passions of the human heart. Not so with the christian religion; it has exalted the humble and meek in spirit, and pulled down the proud and wicked: it has waged war on vice and the indulgence of evil passions of every description, and has proclaimed the great law on which the whole code of morality hangs, that "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

The religious female then, in addition to all the ordinary motives which can incite to virtue, has the additional one of wishing to please her God and of providing for her happiness hereafter. Religion softens and disciplines the feelings, it quickens and heightens the tender sensibilities, and increases all the sympathies of our nature. It throws, in fine, a drapery of grace, of amiableness and loveliness over the whole female character. Woman is never so lovely as in the quiet unobtrusive discharge of her religious duties. "Men," says Dr. Cogan, "contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror, than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles." Even those who do not believe in the truth of christianity, turn frequently with disgust from unbelieving women; they know too well the value of religion and piety in the mother and the wife; they know full well that the religious woman is generally the one who loves most tenderly, most engrossingly, and most constantly. There is a mysterious connection between even human love and religion. Rousseau has long ago remarked upon the similarity of the languages of the two.⁵ How soon does a man in love, convert his mistress into an angel; he is ready to make every sacrifice for her; he kneels at her shrine; he worships, he adores her; 'tis heaven where she is, torment where she is not.

⁵ He says that "the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the language of love; the enthusiasm of love borrows the language of devotion."

I have already spoken of some of the effects of human love on man; it is through the medium of the same powerful, mysterious agent, that woman can frequently do so much for the cause of religion. There are few men who can be deeply devoted to a pious female without a deep sense of the beauty, the loveliness, and the holiness of true religion. I once knew a being who loved, and loved devotedly a pious lady. I have seen him gaze on her, as she moved before him in all the loveliness of modesty and grace. Her looks, her words, her actions, were all the subject of his intensest thoughts. I do believe he had wrought them into a science, which he did most dearly love to study.

"She could bend him to her ev'ry will, His soul's emotions all were in her power."

This being was not an unbeliever, but yet he was indifferent towards religion. As soon, however, as he had felt the sweet influence of human love, his mind assumed decidedly a religious cast; his thoughts were more frequently turned on high. He declared, in the plenitude of his affections, that he felt an indescribable pleasure in kneeling beside the object of his affections at the altar, and mingling his prayers with hers. He felt a deeper veneration and love for the God of nature, because that God was loved by her, whose pure love, in his mind at least, could sanctify and hallow every object which it embraced. Reader! you who have wandered into distant climes, have you not sometimes at sunset hour, when the great orb of day was pouring his last flood of dimmed light over a world fast sinking into rest, when every breeze had died away and every noise was hushed, reflected, with feelings which no language could adequately describe, that the same great luminary might be shedding his light on the dear friends of your bosom, and that she whom you most tenderly loved, might then, perhaps far away, be gazing on the same object? With feelings like these, would the being just described direct his prayers and thoughts to heaven. It almost seemed to him that they met hers there, and held communion together.

And yet, be not surprised, he never told his tale of love to her! She might have known it, for acts and looks are more eloquent than words. But the impression produced on this individual by the absorbing affection which he felt for one pious woman, remained with him; he declares that the bare remembrance of her who seems to him even now a vision of loveliness and piety on earth, has made him a better and a holier man. He can truly and feelingly declare in those exquisite lines of Petrarch's, whose beauty no translation can express,

"Gentil mia donna, io veggio Nel mover de' vostri occhi un dolce lume Che mi mostra la via che al ciel conduce."

Yes, and there are thousands besides who, like him, have been indebted to pious females for that "sweet light" which illumines the path to heaven.

I have already said that the female communicants in our country, form from two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole church. If you will examine into this small comparative number of male communicants, you will find that one-half, or perhaps three-fourths have been brought into the church either directly or indirectly by female influence. But we must remember that this great, this salutary influence of woman, is exercised through the medium of her example, and of the sweet propriety and purity of her demeanor before God and man. She need not preach her own goodness, like the Pharisee; she need not obtrude her sentiments, with the enthusiasm of the fanatic, on those around her. It is not her province to go upon the highway and compel all to come in to the feast. She is not the being to force you by denunciation and terror, to enter the church; all this is offensive, but particularly so in a modest female.⁶

⁶ St. Peter speaks in the following terms, to christian ladies whose husbands were not yet converted to the new faith: "Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also without the word, may be won by the conversation of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." This recommendation of the apostle, marks out the true province of woman in matters of religion.

Under the present system of education it is rarely the case that woman can discuss with grace, and elegance, and truth, the doctrinal points of religion. "Judge not that ye be not judged," is a text which every woman should bear constantly in mind. A female persecutor is the most odious of her sex. I have often thought that the bigoted, bloody-minded Mary, queen of England, was the most unlovely woman mentioned in the page of English history; and we can scarcely blame her equally bigoted husband, in withholding all affection and love from a woman who resembled him so closely. I do not believe that even the bigoted husband can love a ferocious, blood-thirsty, bigoted wife.

Mrs. Sandford blames those enthusiastic females "who wander about from house to house, retailing the spiritual errors of the day, feeling the religious pulse, dispensing prescriptions, and giving notoriety, at least, to every new nostrum which would impose on the credulity of weak and wayward christians; going about with their little casket of specifics, they excite and foster the diseases they affect to cure." Such enthusiasm as this, she well observes, "bears not the rose of Sharon, but the apple of discord: not clusters of the celestial vine, but spurious berries, which have the form, but not the sweetness of the genuine fruit." There is a something in the quiet, meek, gentle, and unobtrusive aspect and demeanor of the truly pious woman, which, of itself, produces a mighty influence on the other sex. In the collection of Lely's famous Windsor Beauties, there is one which strikes the eye of the beholder, and rivets it in steadfast and extatic gaze, it is the picture of Mrs. Nott. In Mrs. Jameson's description of those Beauties, I have been more struck with Mrs. Nott, although her tale is untold, than with any in the collection, not excepting even the beautiful, the lovely Miss Hamilton. This fair creature is represented with her book, and her flowers, and her village church, in the back ground. These are the beautiful and graceful appendages of piety and virtue. "As for the picture," says Mrs. J. "it is some satisfaction to know, that slander has never breathed upon those features to sully them to our fancy; that sorrow, which comes to all, can never come there." Gazing on such a lovely, I had like to have said holy picture, well might she exclaim, "Is there no power in conjuration to make those ruby lips unclose and reveal all we long to know? Are they forever silent? The soul that once inhabited there, that looked through those mild eyes, the heart that beat beneath that modest vest; are they fled and cold? And of all the thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the joys, the fears, 'the hoard of unsunn'd griefs' that once had their dwelling there; is this—this surface—where beauty yet lives, 'clothed in the rainbow tints of heaven,' but mute, cold, impassive—all that remains." And such will ever be the curiosity which a meek, beautiful, and pious female, will excite in the bosom of sensibility and affection.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. IV.

She like a solitary rose that springs In the first warmth of summer days, and flings A perfume the more sweet because alone Just bursting into beauty, with a zone— Half girl's—half woman's.—Marcian Colonna.

The gentle ease, and simple tranquillity which reigned at Chalgrave, found me its most obedient vassal. I lounged in the library the whole day, devouring with a morbid appetite, romance, poetry, and light fantasy. I shunned the gay circle of its inmates, not through misanthropy or boyish modesty, but from an utter contempt of the form and spirit of social intercourse. I communed alone with myself, and in the wanton dreams which a sickly fancy conjured before me, I was alternately the victim of caprice, restlessness, and disquietude. Though secluded I was not solitary—though a hermit I was not a misanthrope. Arthur Ludwell was a little nucleus, about whom the affections and friendships of the whole household gathered themselves. His occasional visits to the library—his frank and open address, and his serious and manly sense, all conspired to teach me the value of his usefulness, and the degradation of my own worthlessness. He could laugh at my sentimental reveries, yet he had a deep and chastened taste for poetry; and though he was in the full tide of elastic youth, he could read me a homily on the errors of an ill regulated mind, with all the grave solemnity of referend age. His expostulations—the remonstrances of my mother, and the broad hints about bad breeding which the old dining-room servant gave me, could not seduce me from my much loved retreat. I adhered to its fascinations even as the ivy to the falling tower, and was simple enough to believe that wisdom was gained by the bopeep game between reason, fancy and folly.

One morning while I was engaged in my usual speculations, the door of the library was suddenly opened, and Lucy entered, exclaiming! "Your cousin Isa has arrived; shut your books! and do, my dear Lionel, arrange your disordered dress. Look at your dishevelled hair. 'Twill curl in graceful ringlets! and now do take it away from your pale and melancholy brow." Twining her fingers in my hair, "I declare," cried she, "I will not leave you till you come into the parlor. Isa is a lovely girl, and is now receiving the affectionate salutations of the whole family. Do, for my sake! for our mother's! and for the character of the name you bear, grant my request." I could not hesitate, when she impressed her entreaty with a kiss; and promising that I would appear before my cousin, I soon commenced the unusual labors of my toilette. I felt a wish, from some unaccountable emotion, to impress my cousin with my appearance, and went into my toilette as a warrior into an armory. Scipio's countenance was lit up with joy, when I summoned his assistance; and with much deference he ventured to hope that I would now let the old books rest—that I would sometimes sail in our pleasure boat—that I would look at the Janus colts—that I would let him go with me to our old walks, and that we would be boys again.

So soon as I had descended into the parlor, my mother advancing towards me, led me to a recess in the dormant window; and with much solemnity introduced me in due form to my cousin Isa Gordon! My fair relative was much abashed at the gravity of my introduction, and something like fear checked the furtive glance which was beaming over her countenance. For my own part I was confused, alarmed, and agitated, and trembled beneath that silent eloquence, and impassioned sympathy, which in making woman lovely, ever makes man a fool. To me the situation was painful and singular, for I had never before quailed under the smiles or frowns of female society. I had gained their contempt by apathy; and studiously avoiding the little attentions demanded by the honor of gallantry, I stood among them a heartless being, whose company was tolerated only because his satire was dangerous.

"I am truly happy to see you at Chalgrave," were the first words which were stammered through my confusion!

She blushed more deeply when I had spoken, and was hesitating a reply, when Lucy advancing relieved her from her embarrassment. At the call of my mother they moved across the room, and I was left gazing in mute rapture, at the grace and sylph-like gentleness, which characterized the footsteps of my cousin.

This was Isa Gordon! that morning star which still shines on with purity and brightness over the dark horizon of memory, and which even now pours its bold and mellow light over the dreary waste of my affections. Though not of tall stature, her form was one of exquisite grace and symmetry, and her beauty mingled itself with the eye and memory of the beholder. Her golden locks relieved a blushing cheek, where laughing summer had set its seal, while her countenance expressed a sensibility, intelligence, sweetness of temper and innocence which disarmed flattery, and kindled affection. She was grave more from gentle thoughtfulness than melancholy; and the low, rich and soft music of her voice, stole upon the heart like the swelling cadence of the Æolian harp. To firmness she united delicacy of character, and possessing softness without weakness, humility without arrogance, and beauty without affectation, her life became a rare and happy combination of dignity, elevation and gentleness, with the virtues which ennoble man, and the winning graces which endear woman. She was in all the pride and power of conquering seventeen, yet still no girlishness weakened the unobtrusive dignity of her character. Romance might have decked her with all the gorgeous hues of its fond imaginings. Poetry might have lingered around the silent purity of her life, but reason alone could truly love—and wisdom adore her.

On that day I felt a new passion adding itself to my dreamy solitude; and when I returned to my tranquil room, I found myself the victim of wild and impassioned love, betraying every symptom of its curious and wayward power. I was alternately humble and arrogant—stubborn and infirm—now a gallant cavalier, winning woman's heart by martial prowess—now a finished coxcomb with a plentiful store of that harmless folly which is frittered away from common sense, and now a rhyme stricken poet, drawing inspiration from my own distempered vanity, and struggling for metre in the odds and ends of language. I loved with a holy and fervent ardor; yet the purity which I fondly believed was the characteristic of my passion, was stained into grossness by individual pride. Self love made me a little deity, and woman's regard was an offering demanded by my insatiate egotism. I do not know that I erred more than most young lovers, in thus reasoning from the cause to the effect, and in believing that the existence of love arises solely from our own latent merits and fascinations. Kindness makes us arrogant, while pride deduces from a blush or a smile, positive evidence of woman's unhesitating love. If she reason with the folly of our passion, she is cold—if she shew the least sunshine of tenderness, she is indelicate, and if she exercise the common prudence of a reasoning being, she is a coquette. Man must have all the constancy of her love, all the devotion of her guileless heart, and he alone must mould its delicate texture to the wanton caprice of his own vanity. He grants her all that love which he can spare from the faction and turmoil of the world, and demands in return her esteem for his errors, and her adoration for his infirmities. We treat them as fools, when we breathe our false and treacherous love, and thus cheat ourselves into a belief of our own purity and truth. A woman of dignity will smile at the fantastic tricks which duplicity enacts before her; and if she truly love she will crush our pride by coldness, and blind the searching eye of our vanity by indifference. She risks her total happiness—she nobly throws all her treasured hopes into the scale of marriage, and when once resolved, she hesitates no longer over the trembling sacrifice of her implicit confidence. Man calls the considerations of her judgment insincerity—and the justifiable warfare of defence—coquetry. He loves from pride; while prudence teaches her to inspire him with that true passion, which takes its brightness like the diamond, only from the attrition of its own fragments.

Excited by the influence of my new passion, I became a being of different habits, and boldly entered into the spirit of that social circle whose gaiety I had shunned. The rays of love had beamed athwart the darkness of my solitude, and I basked in their brilliancy till seclusion lost its philosophy and study its excitement. I was happy only in the company of Isa Gordon, and revelled like a martyr, in the funereal pyre, which consumed my tranquillity. With the quick penetration of her sex she perceived my love, and though it hourly disported its vagaries before her, it failed to move either her serenity of temper, or unbend her dignity of character. In her intercourse with me she was courteous, kind and polite, and I vainly labored to find some of those thousand signs of reciprocal attachment with which egotism flatters pride, and with which vanity sustains folly. I thought she was cold and heartless, and have often gazed on her beauty with that chilled rapture which would dwell on the rainbow that lends its glittering canopy to the brow of the glacier.

Time wore away on downy feet, and the period was rapidly approaching when Isa was to leave Chalgrave, and I was to enter college. I dared not breathe my love; for though blinded by excess of passion, I had enough of reason to know that I should be rejected; but could she refuse when I plainly declared my sentiments? My vanity whispered her acceptance, and I believed that her indifference proceeded not from dislike but from my silence on that necessary and important declaration which the pride and pretended ignorance of every woman imperiously demands.

"You are singularly romantic, Lionel!" said she, as I was earnestly employed in repeating some wild stanzas which I had inscribed to the evening star! "What a curious conceit to make it the bridal torch of the moon, and why people it with the genius of light. Many a poet has sighed away his sense in searching for metaphors to exalt it—yet it still shines on, careless of the poor folly which labors to adorn it." "There is destiny in it, Isa! and even now as it arrests your gaze, does it not tell thee of futurity? and does it not give a dreamy melancholy—an incoherent imagining to thy young, thy cold, thy uncorrupted heart?"