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young people against extravagance. A more intimate acquaintance with the simple rules of arithmetic, too much neglected in female education, will do much towards setting the matter in a clear point of view. Extravagance ought, moreover, to be represented in its true light that of selfishness —and the meanness of the many shifts and subterfuges, to which it is often compelled to resort, made abhorrent to the mind.

Children of wealthy parents ought never to be profusely supplied with money; it must either lead to a habit of reckless squandering, or to a love of hoarding. Education that sort of education, which, if it have not already been intelligibly set forth in the preceding chapters, the author must now despair of explaining will teach a right use of money. Certain it is, that if Christianity were made the guiding principle of action, we should not be so prone to fall down and worship the Golden Calf. The Cross would triumph -the idol would be hurled from its throne.

How eloquently does Dr. Channing,* the purest and most profound of American writers, deplore the Mammon-worship, the insatiable lust of gold, which is, only too obviously, the besetting sin of his countrymen. "Our present civilization," says he, "is characterized and tainted by a devouring greediness of wealth. The passion for gain is everywhere sapping pure and generous feeling, and raising up bitter foes against any reform which * Now, alas! the late.

may threaten to turn aside the stream of wealth. I sometimes feel as if a great reform were necessary to break up our present mercenary civilization, in order that Christianity, now repelled by the universal worldliness, may come into near contact with the soul, and reconstruct society after its own pure and disinterested principles."

CHAPTER XIV.

Fortitude-Petty Vexations most formidable to Women-Religion the best teacher of Fortitude-Fortitude under Calumny -Suspense-Prayer.

WITH the heroic courage of the olden time, which defied, nay, often courted death, we, in the nineteenth century, have little to do except to reverence and admire. Pages traced by a female hand must be considered as chiefly, though not exclusively, addressed to the female sex; consequently, it is of FORTITUDE, as it usually displays itself in women, or as it best suits their circumstances and condition, that I design to treat.

The fortitude of women, in domestic life, is and ever must be essentially passive; and it is always the firmest, the most perfect, and the most salutary, when constituted of hope and resignation. Indeed, when otherwise constituted, it is little else than the calmness of despair. Happily, the days of civil warfare and religious persecution are over in this country; were it not so, I doubt not that English women would still display the same heroism and magnanimity which distinguished them while those days lasted. Not only in our own coun

try, but throughout the world, from the earliest period recorded in history, women have never been found deficient in that species of courage which knows how to brave death in an honourable cause. Now, however, as I have just observed, with very few exceptions, the utmost that is required of them is to endure the ills of every-day life with Christian resignation; and truly may we say that those ills, un-heroic though they be, are often sufficiently hard to bear.

It is in trifles that women fail most: they suffer themselves to be betrayed into impatience and unhappiness by trifles, certainly more than it is wisdom so to do. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the importance of trifles has seldom been adequately acknowledged. In vexations, as well as enjoyments, trifles make up in the aggregate a sum of sufficient magnitude to constitute the misery or the happiness of life. It is in permitting them to accumulate upon us until we are overwhelmed by them, that we err: singly, they might be shaken off by means of the exercise of reason and religion; but when piled upon each other, it is a very difficult thing to cast off the burden. A mole-hill is not a mountain, but many mole-hills heaped together may form a mountain.

It is among the middle classes that petty annoyances most assail women. The rich and great, being raised above all household cares, are consequently ignorant of the multitude of vexations thence arising, though they have others, doubtless,

pertaining to their own grade. The poor, in some measure, are exempt through their very poverty; having either no cares at all, or cares of such magnitude as to be ranked among the mountains, rather than the mole-hills. I have known many women, wholly overcome by petty vexations, who would never have suffered themselves to sink beneath real misfortunes, to meet which the sex has ever been found endued with wonderful courage.

There is, I conceive, in woman's nature more than in man's nature a readiness to conform to circumstances; hence they bear reverses of fortune better than the sterner sex. They are also less rebellious, less repining, under the infliction of sickness patience under bodily suffering is undeniably a feminine virtue. It is an established fact, that women submit to surgical operations with more fortitude than men generally do; but, strange to say, she who would act the heroine under the knife of the operator, uttering neither cry nor groan, would probably fret and fume, and make herself miserable, because Mrs. Such-a-one did not invite her to her party, or because her mantuamaker failed to send home a new dress in time to wear upon the occasion, or that the said. dress was not fashioned to her liking. Pride and vanity are fruitful sources of unhappiness to women. In order, therefore, to put an end to these minor troubles, we must strike at the root of them, viz., at pride and vanity.

Mrs. Barbauld, in one of her admirable essays,

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