Part 2

A true system of popular education in connection with our laws regarding inheritance, is raising up a generation which will not long be ignorant of the power of intelligence, industry, and friendly accommodation, in developing a social policy beyond the reach of the fanatical theorists of the old world, who have impoverished the nations in their promise of plenty, and shed blood in rivers in the name of fraternity. The great mass of the people, it is to be hoped, will continue to have that home feeling, which is as mighty in conservation as in defence. We shall remain as we are in the best sense of the term--the most conservative nation on the face of the earth. That race of Ishmaelites, the homeless, the desperate, the Bedouins of civilization, whose hand is against every man's, whose delight is in commotion, whose life is in destruction, whose hope is in the despair of others, will disappear, kept down in their true place, or what is better, transformed into intelligent, industrious citizens, lovers of the state, the church, and the home.

Thus do we commend the worth of industry and the education upon which it rests, in diffusing the household blessings that we enjoy. But we build upon a sandy foundation without a positive religious basis. Upon that the household rests for its primary dependence, and they that sustain and practise Christian principles are benefactors alike of the dwelling and the church. Not merely among the wretched and ignorant does the gospel utter its rebukes, and urge its duties in reference to this point. It is in quarters far different that the great wrong has been done, and a great work is demanded. Errors of principle as errors of life, have power from the station that renders them conspicuous, or the refinement that clothes them with grace. Of errors of life in those who give to dissipation the prestige of eloquence, and throw the grace of splendor around vices that strike at the foundations of domestic purity, I will not now undertake to treat. A passing word, however, upon certain modes of thinking and talking, which sow the seeds of those vices in quarters the most opposite. The pantheistic theories that confound all moral distinctions by confounding the distinction between God and nature, and make of passion a devotion, by calling all enthusiasm inspiration, have had their origin chiefly among secluded dreamers, bent, perhaps, upon amusing leisure by reckless speculation. Idly as the summer winds that float the thistle-down on their breath, have they vented their speculations, until amazed that their own fields and their neighbor's have been sown with tares by these gossamer voyagers. Wherever pantheism goes, there license follows in its train. More perilous than atheism, because more alluring, it defies passion, and in the name of inspiration degrades man to the brute. It blasts life with its torrid fires, as atheism freezes by its polar cold. In the extremes of society--the affluent and the wretched--this tendency is found, alike in its speculative and practical form, in its denial of personal responsibility, its enthroning of indulgence in the place of discipline. Many a stately home is desolate, many an humble dwelling miserable, because the God of the gospel is denied, and that uncompromising law which secures the home its purity, peace and power, has been broken.

Chief among the blessings of the household, then, we name the gospel. It gives the crown to industry and education. Crowning industry and education thus alike by our personal bearing, our public policy, we give as we have received, and acknowledge our duty, as we own God's love in our domestic blessings.

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Bring near to ourselves now, in its personal and cheering aspect, the topic before us. To God, the Lord of nature, Ruler of events, Father of our spirits, be all the glory. Be his love the spring of our humanity. In the bounty of our hand, in the bounty of an example personal and domestic, which in itself is a benefaction, in an enlarged public, nay Christian spirit, let us freely give as we have received; that plenty, peace, piety, may cheer the dwellings of men and regenerate the world. This day be our thanksgiving at once a prayer of faith and a vow of humanity. It is the old home festival of our fathers that we are to keep. Whose heart does not yearn with sacred remembrances and affections to-day? The emigrant, the traveller, the sailor, all turn their thoughts homeward as the day approaches, and lament that their steps cannot follow their desires. Under sunny skies, amid the balmy gales and luscious fruits of the tropics, the wanderer yearns to cross the familiar threshold, and our bleak North in her wintry robe is dearer than Italy or the Indies. Many an exile has feelings that speak in such simple words as these:

"My father's bones, New England, Sleep in thy hallowed ground, My living kin, New England, In thy precious paths are found; And though my body dwelleth here, And my weary feet here roam, My spirit and my hopes are still In thee, my own loved home."

Yet distance does not rob even the exile of all the blessings, and he knows that he is not forgotten. Families separated throughout the year, now gather together. Sons and daughters return to the parental fireside and are children again. The patriarchal times, surely among all of the Pilgrim race, and not among them alone, come back. The father stands as head and minister of the family. Many a happy band of children rise up and call the mother blessed. The absent are not forgotten--the departed are tenderly remembered--seats vacant at the table have occupants in the hearts of the survivors.

It is well--it is well--this home-festival of the ingathering. God gives the abounding harvest, and our fellow-men are to us the stewards of his bounty. Devoutly to Him, kindly to them, let the hours pass. Health to the absent, a tear for the departed--a smile for the present--good will to all on earth--glory to God in the highest.

Let the young rejoice, and the old be young again. Let memory solemnize us by her images of scenes and days gone by, whilst hope cheers us by auspicious promises of the future on earth, and of the heavenly mansions, the soul's eternal home.

_Thanksgiving Day._

The Ideal of Womanhood.

THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD.

It is the Eve of Christmas, and above the cheerful family circle that gathers about the hearth, the faces of the holy family look benignly down, and Mary's own smile seems to brighten the genial light. All surely must call that mother blessed, who celebrate the birth of the Holy Child. The Angel of the annunciation seems always to be speaking anew in the anthem of the Nativity as if the voice which told Mary of her high destiny celebrated also its fulfilment, and the "Hail Mary" were but the prelude of the "Glory to God in the Highest."

Our thought this evening turns upon the Mother of Christ, as illustrating the ideal of woman and the sources of her power. In the manger at Bethlehem, the mother and child were together--together during the years of preparation for the public ministry--together at the cross. We honor both in honoring either. Especially in calling Mary blessed, do we honor Christ, for we remember not merely what she was to him, but what he has been to her and her sex and her race.

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Let us look at the subject from our own point of view, nor try to put on the mask of affected sentiment or to stand on the stilts of borrowed dogmas. There is much beauty and power in the Catholic notions of the Blessed Virgin, but they are not our convictions. The sweetest hymns in the Breviary are in her praise, and her heavenly face has been the chief charm of Catholic art, else altogether too grim with spectral monks and ghostly confessors. This one fact it is most interesting to remark, that as Christianity was divested of its genial and humane graces, and our Saviour himself was removed from the personal sympathies of men by a faith too forgetful of his humanity in vindicating his divinity, the affections of Christians sought in the Blessed Mother the solace denied them by prevalent views of the Divine Son. As the monkish spirit grew darker, the face of Mary beamed more brightly. The age that embodied its terrors in the "Dies Iræ," breathed its tenderness in the "Stabat Mater," the exquisite hymn whose authorship, strange to say, has been with show of reason ascribed to the most thorough-going of the Popes, Innocent the Third, the man who dared to put England under an interdict. It is not for such reasons that we are moved to speak of Mary now. We are not oppressed by a religion that so crushes the natural affections and rebukes the domestic feelings, that we need to look for solace to one taken arbitrarily from her place among women and invoked as Queen of Heaven, above all saints and angels, next to God. Looking upon our homes, so pleasant and so genial with woman's graces and children's gladness, we prefer to say the "Hail Mary" as the gospel gives it, and not as the priest has understood it. We can say, "Blessed art thou _among_ women"--_among_ them, not _above_ them--among them to illustrate their mission from God, their work on earth--their part in heaven.

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Think of Mary first as illustrating true womanhood in its mission from God. Fathers and sons, as well as mothers and daughters, think. In our notions of education, society, reform, we are all afloat unless we start with right ideas; and whence are they but from the Eternal Mind. We know God as he reveals himself, and creation in its highest aspects reveals the thought of God. The Divine Being is Self-Existent, Almighty, All-wise, Ever-blessed, dwelling in light and love unspeakable. But the moment that we pass from the contemplation of his attributes to the survey of his works, we see every where partial manifestations of his fulness. Only as we bring together the various elements and beings of nature, do we comprehend the universe as expressing the mind of God. Throughout the whole we observe a law of duality, a harmony of contrasts, the two parallel footprints in the majestic march of Him who is the infinite Wisdom and Love. We see this form of development from the lowest to the highest plane of nature--in the affinities of the gases--in the strange and mighty forces of electricity and magnetism--in the rays of light--in the kingdom of plants--in the animated kingdom. In the human race it has its fullest expression. There the Most High has left most clearly the image of himself, and recorded the might and the loveliness of his own attributes. To the one sex he has given, in largest measure, strength,--to the other, beauty; to the one, aggressive force--to the other, winning affections--to the one, the palm in the empire of thought--to the other, the palm in the empire of feeling. We need not pursue the parallel, nor rebuke the folly of those who would make the line of separation too sharp, and deny heart to man or wisdom to woman, forgetting that in man thought should be pervaded with feeling, and in woman feeling should be guided by thought. It is enough to look to Mary as she stood in the hour of her joy, and listen to what she said, who has been called beyond any other of her sex, to be their benefactor and interpreter:--

My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit doth rejoice in God, my Saviour, For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden; For behold! from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Various ages may have various degrees of culture, and in knowledge and accomplishment the daughters of Christendom may now far surpass those taught in the simpler homes of Israel. Yet where among those favored with education or gifted with genius, shall we find a better interpreter of womanhood in its mission from God, than that trusting Hebrew in her filial faith and unwavering devotion. Of her, the Aspasias proud of the society of sages and orators, might learn that there is a faith passing knowledge, and a purity more refining than any literary taste; from her the Cornelias might learn of a kingdom greater than that to which they vowed their sons; from her the Sapphos might hear of a vision beyond that of any impassioned fancy; and the Cleopatras of a gem brighter than any in their crown. Her soul attuned to devotion by the Psalms of her great ancestor, David, and inflamed with hope by the visions of prophets, and schooled to patient charity by the choicest examples of the mothers in Israel, she stands at the centre of Providential history, receiving from the former ages their mantle of honor, and transmitting it to the new ages enriched with a divine grace, destined to brighten with time.

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Of Mary's life and work, few particulars are given--but those few are expressive of her whole character. She who kept her faithful watch on the night of the nativity, never belied the promise of that time. With mingled solicitude and reverence, tenderness and fortitude, she guarded her child, marked the gradual rising of the consciousness of Divinity within him, and waited between hope and fear for the development of his mysterious life.

One of the most gifted women of our age, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, thus portrays Mary's feelings as she looked upon her child sleeping:

"Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One. * * * * I am not proud--meek angels, put ye on New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest On mortal lips, 'I am not proud'--_not proud_! Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son, Albeit over Him my head is bowed, As others bow before Him, still mine heart, Bows lower then their knees! O centuries That roll, in vision, your futurities My grave athwart! Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep Watch o'er this sleep! Say of me as the Heavenly said, 'Thou art The blessedest of women!' blessedest, Not holiest, not noblest--no high name, Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame, When I sit meek in heaven!-- For me--for me-- I often wandered forth, more child than maiden, Among the lonely hills of Galilee, Whose summits looked heaven-laden! Listening to silentness, that seemed to be God's voice, so soft, yet strong--so fain to press Upon my heart, as Heaven did on the height,-- And waken up its shadows by a light, And show its vileness by a holiness! Then I knelt down, as silent as the night, Too self-renounced for fears; Raising my small face to the boundless blue, Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears! God heard _them_ falling often--with his dew."

Think of the lot of Christ, and remember how closely another heart beat in unison with his heart--how nearly parallel her life ran with his life. Pass from the manger to the Cross, and those two scenes are enough to suggest the outlines of her experience during that eventful interval. Listen to the words--"Woman, behold thy son"--and to the disciple, "behold thy mother." Think of what followed--the joy at Christ's rising to dwell in visible presence with his own, and after his ascension to dwell with them in his witnessing Spirit. Among those who remembered the promise: "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," there was one who added a mother's love to a disciple's faith, as in the coming of the Comforter to her soul, she received her new birth into the kingdom of God, through him who had his birth on earth from her. Confided as she had been to the disciple whom Jesus so loved, a guest in his household, the constant companion of the growing circle of believers, how could she be without great influence on their faith and fellowship? When she passed away, a new light rose for them in the heavens. Their religion was not a code of moral precepts, or a set of theological propositions, but a gospel of speaking facts and living words. Their religion was Christ and all that is Christlike. Their heaven was no ethereal abstraction, no pantheistic merging of spirits in infinity; but the home of true souls--the mansions of the Father opened by Christ to all the faithful, and surely unto her who guarded his infant weakness and wept over his dying agonies. On earth and in heaven the blessed mother stood to them for the ideal of true womanhood, and early Christian antiquity is full of traces of the tender and beautiful affection felt for her, before superstition seized upon the lovely sentiment and hardened it into a priestly dogma. Yet under the dogma, the true feeling has never been wholly lost sight of, and with many who are called idolatrous, the homage to St. Mary is but an exalted form of reverence to a moral loveliness, now in heaven. Our own Germanic ancestors shared more deeply in the sentiment probably than any other people, as they came from their cold homes in northern Europe--received the gospel of Christ from the missionaries of the church, and rejoiced to find their national feeling of chivalrous respect for woman confirmed and spiritualized by the honors paid to her, whom angels hailed as full of grace, and whose name all Christendom spoke with blessing. This high sentiment, somewhat sobered by our Protestant faith and our household utilities, has come to us with our religion and our homes.

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It is becoming a somewhat practical, and in both hemispheres, an agitating question, how far the accepted Christian idea of true womanhood should be enlarged or amended to meet the demands of our own age. The voice of Mary Wolstoncroft, claiming masculine freedom for sex, has found a thousand echoes, and assemblies of women, no strangers to Christian culture, clamor for a new day of social and political emancipation. Their demands are not to be treated with ridicule, for under all their extravagance lurk truths of momentous import. Who can think of the thousands and hundreds of thousands of the sex, whose utmost labors hardly keep off cold and starvation--of the wretched notions of education and life, which so enfeeble the poor and corrupt the affluent--of the false social system which is so ready to smile upon the destroyer of innocence, and curse the victim of his arts; who can think of the scenes in the hovels of innocent poverty, the dens of loathsome vice, and the gilded saloons of painted misery, upon which the shadows of this blessed eve are now falling, and not be willing to pardon some thing to the spirit of mercy, even if its tones seem to us too shrill for gentle lips? Who is not willing to remember, moreover, that if they assert a folly, who claim for woman the political offices that must rob the home of her fidelity; they assert, and actually are diffusing a more dangerous error, who in more silken speech brand the household virtues as servile drudgery, and whose lives are a continued and studious round of elegant and jewelled vagrancy from the sacred uses and blessed companionships of their own fireside; nay, whose eyes seem only to open when the lights of the theatre and ball-room blaze, and whose pulses really beat only in exciting assemblies under the delirium of the wine-cup and the voluptuous dance. From both errors the true idea of womanhood may save our time, and, nevertheless, confer upon us the substantial good, which is so dimly seen by the rival schools of culture--the fashionable and the masculine. Well taught and trained, our daughters may have all true graces without Parisian levity, and all intellectual discipline without Amazonian boldness.

No greater mistake can be made than that which would take woman from her sphere of dignity and power, and make her the rival of man in pursuits which require his ruder nature and sterner will. Mary, the wife of Godwin, with her obtrusive band of far more extravagant followers, opens no path of honor and power compared with that pointed out by Mary of Nazareth, the light of her home, the guardian of her Holy Child; encouraging the disciples by a voice, the mightier on account of its not being heard in the streets, and to them and to all after them, a name for spiritual loveliness, and all gentle and confiding graces, among the souls exalted to heaven. Using present agencies, and following the guidance of the gospel, the mothers and sisters in our Israel, may deal more wisely and strongly with the social problems of our time, and do their part for the kingdom of God--than by crowding to the ballot-box, screaming in the caucus, or snatching at the staff of office. So deeply is this the conviction of the most judicious of the sex, that many words on the subject would be superfluous. Nor would we add any to the many words that have been shed upon the question of the equality of the sexes. As well let the rays of the solar light dispute for precedence, and the red ray, so blazing, presume to deny the equal worth of the violet ray, which, science teaches us, has power to make iron magnetic, and which more than its more bold companion on the other side of the prism, makes the impression on the silvered plate--itself the most magical pencil in the skilful hand of that unrivalled painter, the sun. God has united both rays in the sweet light of true humanity, and what He has joined together, let not man try to put asunder.

The greater danger is in a servile acquiescence in prevalent worldliness and mediocrity--a disposition to repeat the common pleas of precedent, and to live solely in the externals of society. In our own beloved country, where liberty, without example, is extended to woman, and a courtesy, without limit, is shown her, they who hold in their keeping the future of their sex should not be content to follow the rule of court journals, or bow to the dicta of Parisian modists, who are fond of ruling over morals, as over costume. Our liberty should give them a stronger and more rational intellectual discipline than in the lands more enslaved by precedent. Our courtesy, that national chivalry, which insists on deference as much towards the rustic maiden as the city belle, will be sadly abused if made the occasion of an obtrusive arrogance, which claims precedence as a right, and elbows its way through crowds of men who are more ready to yield by grace than by command.

Our country has from the first cherished a noble idea of womanhood, and under its influence the strength of its sons, and the refinement of its daughters have been nurtured. Kindly omens abounded in the first days of its history. Our continent itself is one of the omens. That you may not call me too fanciful or sentimental, let me quote from an eloquent writer on the philosophy of geography, as he compares the Old and New Worlds. "The number of the continents in the Old World," which is double that of the New World, their grouping in a more compact and solid mass--make it already and pre-eminently the continental world. It is a mighty oak, with a stout and sturdy trunk, whilst America is the slender and flexible palm-tree, so dear to this continent. The Old World, if it is allowable to employ here comparisons of this nature, calls to mind the square, solid figure of man; America the lithe shape and delicate form of woman.