THE FEMALE'S ADVOCATE.

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN.

It is vain to speculate on what would have been the influence of woman, and her station in the universe, if she had never fallen from God, and thus brought down upon herself the curse denounced against her by her offended Maker in the garden of Eden-" I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" and equally vain will it be for us to imagine that any system of natural religion or mere philosophy, any progress of civilization, any advancement to which humanizing arts may raise the social state, will avail to restore her to the condition forfeited by becoming a sinner. Christianity alone can qualify her to rise to the honourable and distinguished rank assigned to her as a rational and accountable being, or secure the development of those beneficent energies and beautiful virtues which would render her at once the charm and the glory of her species. Of this fact the history of nearly six thousand years yields the most fearful and appalling evidence. The ancient

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and the modern world, nations civilized and barbarous, where pure Christianity was unknown and where it does not now exert its renovating power, exhibit women as among the most debased, as well as the most wretched, creatures in the universe. The exceptions are few, and, when closely examined, they scarcely ought to be considered as exceptions. In reference to these, an eloquent writer observes, I have no wish to struggle against the invincible prejudice about classical characters—the prejudice about Roman matrons and Grecian heroines. They appear to me only sublime savages, persons who, by the energy of their minds, rose above their miserable fate, but were not the less miserable ultimately.” They were examples of monstrous and exaggerated greatness, fierce and unfeminine-unsexed and unnatural. "It is horrible to look back on the page of history; on the page of life it is horrible to see how women have been treated. Look where you will, from the poles to the tropics, women are illiterate, despised, half unsexed or half unsouled. Among savages she is a slave. The miserable mother there is often known to strangle her female infant, and to call the deed merciful-and perhaps it is so. Among such beings, woman is a beast of burden, and less honoured in proportion as her strength is less than that of ordinary animals. And is this the lot of woman-of that elegant and feeble being whose infirmities are her graces, whose dependence on man appears her most attractive virtue? It is. Such is

the destiny of woman where human necessity organizes it. Where human passion merely organizes it, it is worse, if possible—yes, worse. Better be the manure scattered over the soil, and trodden down to fertilize it, than the rose that is torn and wasted in wantonness, and given to the winds, to waft its perished leaves over the burning desert of desire and annihilation. Yes! such is the fate of woman in countries where all the attention of men is given to their own indulgence-where woman, a dazzling victim, is arrayed and instructed in all that can dazzle the senses, and then led, a lovely intoxicated victim, to the altar of sensuality, and sacrificed for ever. On the history of such nations, a mind that reflects will pause, and say to itself, Where woman is thus degraded man is a brute; and it is true, awfully true. Women avenge themselves on men; if we make them slaves, we are slaves ourselves; we may bind them with chains, but the iron enters into our own souls;' if we bruise their heads, they bruise us, and mortally too. Thus we see women in some countries the slave of necessity, in others the slave of appetite. Where alone do we find her free, honoured, and beloved? Only where the religion of Christ is known. Aye, and in such direct proportion to each other are the religion of the gospel and the emancipation of the female sex that their liberty is precisely varied according as the light of that religion is more or less. obscure in the various countries of Europe. The