For thy rising and setting are blest. May hope and may prayer still be woke by thy rays, EXERCISE CXXVIII. INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD. MISS ELIZABETH TOWNSEND. "I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I can not perceive Him." 1. Where art Thou? Thou! Source and support of all I look abroad among Thy works: the sky, And speaking winds,—and ask, if these are Thee ! 2. The stars that twinkle on, the eternal hills, Since first intelligence could reach its source, (If such, perchance, were mine,) did they behold Thée ? 3. And next interrogate Futurity,— 4. 5. So fondly tenanted with better things Than e'er Experience owned,-but both are mute, So full of memories and phantasies, Are deaf and speechless here! Fatigued, I turn From all vain parley with the elements, And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn inward From each material thing its anxious quest, If, in the stillness of the waiting soul, He may vouchsafe himself, Spirit to spirit! Which soon or late must come. Who would not dare to die? For light, like this, Peace, my proud aim, And hush the wish that knows not what it asks ; With every other trial. Be that will On Him-the Unrevealed-learn hence, instead, 6. Pass thy novitiate in these outer courts, E'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind, EXERCISE CXXIX. 1. AB'-BÉ DE FLEU'-RY, a French historian and divine, born 1640. He was associated with Fenelon, in the task of educating the young Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou and Berri. He died in 1723. 2. FEN'-E-LON, the amiable and virtous archbishop of Cambray, was born in 1651. He was intrusted by Louis XIV. with the education of his grandsons, the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and Berri. He wrote many excellent works, among which, the most celebrated, is the "Adventures of Telemachus." Died in January, 1715. 3. ROUS-SEAU', a most eloquent writer, though eccentric in the highest degree, was born at Geneva in 1712. He was the author of various works. He died 1778. WOMAN,-HER POWER, AND HER PROGRESS. L. AIMÉ MARTIN. 1. Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, the women of it decide the morals. Free or subjugated, they reign, because they hold possession of our passions. But this influence is more or less salutary, according to the degree of esteem which is granted to them. Whether they are our idols, or companions, relatives, slaves, or beasts of burden, the reaction is complete, and they make us such as they are themselves. It seems as if nature connected our intelligence with their dignity, as we connect our happiness with their virtue. 2. This, therefore, is a law of eternal justice,-man can not degrade women without himself falling into degradation; he can not raise them without becoming better. Let us cast our eyes over the globe, and observe those two great divisions of the human race, the East and the West. One half of the ancient world remains without progress, without thought, and under the load of a barbarous civilization; women there are slaves. The other half advances toward freedom and light; the women there are loved and honored. 3. That which has been done to lower women, and that which they have done toward our civilization, offer, perhaps, the most moral and dramatic part of our history. There was a time when their beauty alone wrestled against barbarism. Shut up in castles like prisoners, they there civilized the warriors who despised their weakness, but who adored their charms. Accused of ignorance, and deprived of instruction, disgraced by prejudice, and deified by love,-feeble, timid,seeing around them nothing but soldiers and the sword, they adopted the passions of their tyrants, but, in adopting, they ameliorated them. 4. They directed combatants toward the defense of the helpless. Chivalry became a protecting power; it repaired injuries, and paved the way for laws; and, at last, after having fought in order to conquer kingdoms, it was softened into fighting for the beauty of women, and civilization began by gallantry. A great revolution was accomplished in France, on the day, when a noble knight drew off his men, in consequence of hearing that the castle, of which he was just about to commence the siege, had become the asylum of the wife of his enemy, and that this wife was about to become a mother. 5. At a later period, some glimpses of science began to pierce through the shades which covered the world; all eyes were dazzled by it, and it was then, that the destiny of women was pitiable. While men only believed themselves to be superior from the strength of their bodies, and the force of their courage, they had ceded to the power of feebleness and beauty; but scarcely had they acquired a smattering of science, when pride seized them, and women nearly lost their empire. 6. But the worst period for them was the age of scribes and doctors; for, at that time, all the impertinent questions concerning the pre-eminence of men, and the inferiority of women, were brought forward. Even the existence of their souls became a matter of doubt, and theologians themselves, amidst these agitating discussions, forgot, for a moment, that our Savior was made human by his mother. These disputes led to this deplorable result, that the ignorance of women became a moral system, as the ignorance of the lower classes had become a system of policy. 7. Our forefathers long confounded ignorance with innocence, and thence came all their troubles; they wished women to be silly for the sake of their husbands, and the people to be ignorant for the sake of power. Women, thus assimilated to the people, like thom, did not receive any species of instruction. Every thing was against them; science, legislature, and theology,-that theology, indeed, which was mistaken for religion. It was by depriving them of their souls, by subjecting them to mean and vulgar habits, which stupefy the mind, that they hoped to preserve them in spotless purity. 8. In the time of Louis XIV., when women busied themselves with affairs of state, the Abbé de Fleury' declared, that girls ought to be taught something beside their catechism, sewing, singing, dancing, how to dress, to speak civilly, and to make a good courtesy. But the progress he wished them to attain, consisted in knowing how to read, write, and cipher, -to know when to ask advice in matters of business, and enough of medicine to take care of the sick. 9. Then came Fenelon, who wished them to read ancient and modern history, to understand Latin, to peruse works of eloquence, literature, and poesy; and yet such was the prejudice belonging to a period when women exercised an almost romantic power, and gave grace and politeness to society, that the archbishop was obliged to add certain restrictions, and to justify himself on theological principles. "Women," said the venerable ecclesiastic, are half of the human race, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and, like us, destined to eternal life." Since the time of Rousseau and Fenelon, great progress has taken place among men, and consequently the education of women has, in some measure, profited. 66 10. The question is no longer asked whether it be advisable to instruct them; we consent to the development of their understanding, and lessons are given to them by artists and masters of languages; they skim, as it were, a general course of study, but, in this study, nothing leads them to think with their own thoughts; it is chiefly the school routine which gives |