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grown up amid storms and tempests, seems to mark
out for her a quiet path. But her ordinary reading, if
not her actual life, open to her a realm that would
have better remained closed, and she is placed in situ-
ations which, though they are but imaginary, take a
happy vail from her eyes, making her discontented with
her lot, and producing a fruit of knowledge, like that
of Eve's, which cost a paradise.
Far be it from us to consider in the education of
woman only the cradle and the fireside. But certainly
every species of cultivation which makes domestic life
intolerable to her must be wrong. Neither would we
encourage a superficial culture, which aims only at
show ; and yet we would rather her mind should be
ripened by the results of knowledge, than lose itself in
the depths of research. We are far, too, from wishing
to see a dreamy sentimentalism without strength or
power of endurance ; but the refined heart anticipates
the overloaded reason, and, at once detesting the false
and the sinful, has already given the will the right di-
rection while the other is still examining and weighing
the conflicting arguments. And over this heart let Re-
ligion hover, penetrating and enlightening it with her
mild beams, but still wrapped in a rosy vail, which
shall provoke no desire to withdraw it, and only excite
a pure and holy love. Religion should appear only to
man, never to woman, as Theology — the stately queen
whose throne is built upon the ruins of superstition,
doubt, and unbelief.
