.■t <^^W4«I«MWV •»««•*«'"»•# UC-NRLF B 3 im b^D '^wm iCr^^ -mm BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA k ■r THE tiiill Willi Clristmas ixnla |XHu ^tKx's a I F T. Edited by Rev. S. D. BUHCHARD. -•-•-♦- NEW YORK : LEAVITT & ALLEX, 379 BROADWAY. LOAN STACK |llustratiM5. AYii L 3^ GENTLE BEAUTY, frontispiece, ILLUMINATION, before title. THE DESERTED, 34 THE SEA-GULL, Y-O THE GRAVE, - - . . . . . - 124 DOMESTIC CIRCLE, I94 Q f^S5 CONTENTS. Page. Preface, - --,..^,--3 Annuals, ---.,-« -.9 Ideal of a Christian Woman, Mrs. E. D. W. McKee, - 14 On the Death of a young Artist, Mrs. Emma C. Embury, 33 The Deserted, S. D. B. 35 The Maiden's Farewell to her Lover, Mrs. Ann S. Ste- phens, --------53 The Alchymist of Corinth, C. Donald McLeod, - - 56 Sonnet, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, - - - 364 Humanity, Horace Cheeley, ---.-- 71 To a Star, Ernest Helfenstein, ----- 77 The Conspirators, J. P. Brace, ----- 79 Changes on the Deep, H. F. Gould, - - - 97 The Usurper, Mrs. J. Webb, 103 The Maid of Rockland Lake, Rev. Edward Hopper, - 124 DifBculties in the Government of God, Rev. George B. Cheever, D. D. 129 On the Death of Mrs. Harriet Newell, Rev. T. H. Galhu- det, 133 St. Muir, Mrs. Eliza Van Home Ellis, . . . 135 The Mother, Mrs. Anne E. Kendrick, - - - 176 Immortality, Rev. William Whittaker, - - - - 180 Vlir CONTENTS. Tuditli, Rev. Charles Constantine Pise, D. D. - - 189 Domestic Happiness, Rev. S. D. Burchard, - - - 194 Our World is full of Joy, William Oland Bourne, - 202 Letter to Cousin 'Bel,' Fanny "Forrester," • - -204 Grenville Mellen, Mrs. Jane E. Locke, - - - 215 Belshazzar's Feast, - - - - - - -218 The Prosperity of Science, Rev. William McJimsey, - 224 The White Flower, Mrs. D. Ellen Good/nan, - - 226 Sabbath Reminiscences, Mrs. J. L. Gray, - - - 250 The Power of God, Rev. W. B. Sprague D. D. - - 255 My Native Vale, Mrs. J. Webb, - - - - 2G3 THE LAUREL WREATH ANNUALS. An Annual is an offering at the shrine of friend- ship — a token of hallowed reminiscences that live and linger around the heart. And we hail, with gladness, the " Wreaths," the "Amaranths," the " Magnolias," the "Dahlias J "these flowers of thought and senti- ment that remain fresh and fragrant even amid the coldness of winter. They show that there are yet some verdant spots in our world, consecrated to genius, to poetry, to friendship. They take the place, of cus- toms ancient, and honorable, to the better feelings of our nature ; but which are gradually falling into dis- use. Now as we are admirers of antiquity, we love to look back to olden times, when the world had not lost its rude simplicity, was more social and homely and abounded more in the "ancient honesty" of right good fellowship. If the exterior was uncouth, the man wUhin — the soul was full and flowing over with the rich "milk of human kindness." Christmas was then a great Jubilee day — voices of mirth sounded out from hill and valley, while voices of praise filled the vaulted arches of every sanctuaiy A2 10 THE LAUREL WREATH. with their pealing Ilozannas. It was a high festival, in humble cottages and baronial halls. Mutual kind- nesses and gratulations were given and returned. The noble sympathies of our nature broke forth with a freer flow, freshening all the old memories of the heart. The past became the present. Imagination in her "airy flight" brought again the old familiar faces of the lost and the loved — the very dead canie back agam. "Even in the loveliest looks they wore." Hushed now are the carols of merry Christimas — husiicd even in England — merry Old England. The noise and clattering machinery of busy life have drowned all the glorious voices of the piping and sino-- mg tmies. "The curse of gold upon the land The lack of bread enforces — The r?iil-cars snort from strand to strand, Like more of Death's White Horses." So, too, in the land of the Pilgrims: hor "Thanks- giving-Day" is not what it once was. It lacks the deep earnestness of the old Puritan piety. Men there were, that then went up to the city of their King with thanksgiving and songs of praise. What a dinner, too, was the old Thanksgiving din- nor ! You might fancy it a hecatomb — a free-will oir.ring to the genius of Iiospitality. There was the father, venerable in form, and frosted with years, gathering arouml him his long line of descendants, ANNUALS. 11 even to the third and fourth generation. And in those festal hours, he seemed to live life over again, and his dim eye brightened, as he recounted the incidents and exploits of his early years. Hallowed days, the days of yore ! At the opening of the New Year, also, what a sending of compliments and cakes ! New Year's Day was a "Saturnalia" of kindness and good humor. The current of the heart broke forth afresh, and the paltry distinctions between man and man were lost, for a day, in the generous gush of true-hearted friend- ship. The servant, in the general joy, forgot his in- feriority — the master laid aside his lofty mien, and the pervading feeling of the heart was that of univer- sal brotherhood. The custom was a noble one, and founded on a just and elevated view of human nature. It has a very ancient origin, early as the time of Ta- tius, who reigned conjointly with Romulus. The Romans had their Strence, or sprigs of vervain, gath- ered in a wood consecrated to the Goddess of Health, which they presented to their friends on the Kalends of January, accompanied with the " Omnia fausta," or mutual wishes for each other's health and happi- ness. Thus, too, during the Agnalia, or feasts in honor of Janus, they sent presents to each other of figs, dates, honey, etc. The freed-man and the client sent tc their patrons offerings of fruit, and occasionally small pieces of silver. The knights, senate, and citizens, sent to Augustus, during his reign, similar offerings, and in his absence, even deposited them in the Capi- tol. 12 THE LAUREL WREATH. Little more than the memory of these old customs now remains. The march of modern refinement has trodden them into the very dust of a by-gone age. Tlie antiquity of families, and the pride once taken in tlie long line of ancestral virtues, have been broken , absolutely lost in the morbid fashions and manners of our age of paint and inasquerade. The stern wrin- kle-visaged vorld has sadly marred those sacred an- niversaries of the heart. The chain of living affec- tions, which united the remotest members of the same family, has become rusted, broken, unfit to conduct the heart's electric fires beyond two or three of the nearest links. New faces — new customs — new ideas of refinement and social rank, have dislodged the old ones. Father, Mother, Home, grow old, indeed, but not venerable among the cherished memories of the past. The love of gold overlays and smothers the love of kindred, in the great modern steam-races af- ter wealth and fame. We say again, we hail these Annuals as the har- bingers of better days. They help to feed the altar- fires of Friendship and bind the family of Man in lioly brotherhood. If they do not embody the highest forms of literature, they yet speak the language of love, and afibrd the surest tokens of fricndsliip — //(/\v makes them valuable. It was not the sprig of ver- vain, nor the handful of figs, but the friendly feeling, the brotherhood, which they expressed, that delighted the iicart of tlie old Roman. ' So M'ith the whole family of Annuals, while they are designed to be rich ill poetry, tliouglit, f^-eling, and sentiment ; yet they an- \alued chicjly for the kindly emotions and cher- ANNUALS. 13 ished memories which they awaken. And when we find Ihem on the center and parlor tables of our kin- dred and friends, we know that in every such family are the loved and valued — hearts, somewhere, that vibrate responsive to kindred hearts. 14 THE LAITEEL WEEATH. IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. BY MRS. E. D. W. m'KEE. How beautiful are the creations of the poet's fancy ! How divinely beautiful is womanhood in Milton's Eve, "to whom all other things seem mean ; or in her, summed up, contained." We love Shakspeare's Cordelia; and we reverence the Lady Isabella ; and what, in the fictions of romance, charms, and holds us spell-bound by its magic, but the story of woman's love, and wo- man's sorrow — the fortunes of woman's heart ? But why are these beautiful creations confined to the world of poetry and fiction, or the day dreams of young lovers ? Why do not such M-omen dwell in our households, sit at our tables, minister in our sickness, double our joy in prosperity, and sooth us by their an- gel sympathies in our adversity ? Why arc not all lovely, since God and Nature have made them so ? With what wonderful susceptibilities has the Creator endowed woman's nature ; what depth, vitality and freshness in her affections ; how lively and delicate her sensibility ; how noble her capacity for intellectu- al d((volopement. Woman was not only the last ; but tlie best and fairest exhibition of creative love and wisdom. What a bud of promise is a young girl's nature, folded up in its yet undisclosed loveliness. And is there a worm in the bud, which consumes its beauty IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 15 and dewy fragrance, ere it blossoms into perfect and beautiful womanhood ; or comes not the blight from toithout, rather than within ? Instead of the pure sun- shine of Heaven which should warm and expand it into bloom ; have not Society, Art, Education and Fashion thrown around it a vitiated and sickly atmosphere, till it drinks in poison at every pore ? Woman is always beautiful and s;ood as God and Nature have formed her : It is only when she becomes the spoiled creature of Art and Fashion, that she can possibly be an object, of contempt and disgust. She is not only the light of man's life ; but the very poetry of his earthly exis- tence. Eden was not Paradise to the father of man- kind, till waking from deep and solitary sleep, his eye greeted that vision of beauty, fresh and unsullied from the plastic hand of her Creator, and a heaven-implant- ed instinct told him, she was all his own. The world without sunshine would not to him have been so dark, cheerless, as Eden without her smile. — If such then be the constitution of Nature, and such the enviable position which the Creator has given to woman in the social and domestic relations of life ; why is it that history tells us of Xantippe, of Julia, Livia and Ful- via ; and why is it that many men find in their present experience, their pillow as thick set with thorns, as roses, and that too, by female hands ? Why is it that beings formed oftimes in Nature's loveliest mould ; from whose Cestus, Venus herself might borrow charms, can inspire no higher sentiment, than the admiration involuntarily bestowed on a pretty picture, of a painted butterfly ? Nay worse ; why do we find even around our hearthstones, in the sanctu- 16 THE LAUREL WREATH. aries of domestic love; women sustaining the tender and holy relations of sister, wife, and mother, yet destitute of those noble attributes of woman's nature, which make the light and life of a happy home ? We cannot deny ; although we blush to own, that such there are. Neither are they few. Let us then con- sider some of the influences most largely and effec- tively influential in the formation of female character, in the present condhion of society, and inquire if it be not possible, so to modify these influences, that they shall uniformly produce more desirable results. These influences are so multiplied and varied; some- times so uncertain and conflicting, that we may well be anxious as to the result, and inquire is there not some principle, which we may introduce into our prac- tical systems of Education, to regulate and harmonize them all ; a principle which shall be influential over these influences ; which can guide and control them ; giving strength and efliciency to such as are salutary, wliile it represses or exterminates, such as are injuri- ous. Every true friend of the young who has watch- ed with attention and interest the development of youthful character; the gradual awakening of thought, the rapid outgrowth of fancy and fooling in tlie heart, must have felt deeply and painfully, the need of sonie- llung,to give the right moral bias, to those spontaneous activities of our moral and intellectual nature, which will work and develope themselves, under every con- dition of humanity ; be their direction right or wrong. Every vigilant parent has folt this need ; and after anxious inquiry some have shouted Euroka; and forthwith proceeded, in the education of their children. IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 17 to a trial of this new-found philosopher's stone, which has proved, in their estimation, to transmute to gold all the baser passions and tendencies of our nature. One says, "My daughter must be well educated. Mental culture must be the end and aim of all her efforts. Her intellectual training must be scientific, exact and thorough." Another says, "I do not admire learned women. I desire my daughter to cultivate a delicate and refined taste, quick sensibilities, ready wit, and pleasing manners; for these constitute the real at- tractiveness of woman." A third says, "I don't like a woman to be either learned or sentimental. My daughter shall be neither a student of science nor a reader of novels ; but I will have her accomplished in every elegant art. She must be fitted to move with distinction in elegant and polished society. For this purpose she shall study the modern languages, and have the advantages of foreign travel, and consequent opportunities to learn much of society and the world." Another parent has the idea that society is injuri- ous, because it fosters vanity, and an inordinate love of admiration and expensive pleasures ; and such an one says, "I shall keep my daughter carefully seclud- ed, and train her under my own eye, to the perform- ance of household duties, and the cultivation of the domestic virtues ; for this is, after all, woman's true sphere." It need not be said that these viewsof educa- tion are false and distorted ; and when reduced to practice, can produce no other than disastrous results. To select one bright particular star in the firmament, and determine that that one only shall shed its stellar influence on the earth, to the exclusion of sun and B 18 THE LAUREL WREATH. moon and other stars, is not more absurd and imprac- ticable, than to attempt to mould youthful character, by some one favorite influence, which we fancy is pro- ductive, of the single end we aim at. Parental views and wishes, which form certainly one of the principal mfluences, which determine the particular and in- dividual developement of youthful character, are not more conflicting, than those of teachers, to whom the intellectual training of the young, is more especially committed, in our schools, academies, and private seminaries. To these influences, both so potent ic the development of character, we may add as secon- dary, but by no means unimportant, the manners and customs of social and domestic life, family relation- ships, the ties of friendship, natural capacity, idiosyn- crasies of mental and moral constitution; besides an infinity of others, remote and indirect it is true, but which do nevertheless help to produce or modify the result. Millions of moral causes are constantly playing, unseen and unfclt, over the entire field of our intel- lectual and spiritual nature, crossing, thwarting, and modifying each other continually ; and what we want, is some guiding principle, whicli shall bring order out of this disorder, harmony out of those discords, and evolve finally, a character, noble, symmetrical and beautiful. Wc want a just and true z'dca/ of female excellence; because in the formation of our own character and habits, and of those who come within the sphere of our influence wc copy this ideal. What tons, seems the glory and pcrfcotion of our nature; //tai, wo strive for ; to that, wo gradually and insensi- IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. .19 bly assimilate all our habitudes of thought and ac.ion. If our model be a lad one, the copy will be equally defective j and we have asserted, what few will be disposed to deny, that the views on this subject, com- monly imbibed from education, society, parental exam- pie, and academic instruction, are radically defective and wrong. What then is the remedy ? What new element of culture shall we introduce into our systems of female education, to rectify the false views so generally prevalent, to furnish this true ideal, so mccn needed ; yet a need so little felt, so seldom ac- itnowiedgea. — The splendid creations of genius are producea only by imitation of perfect models, by the masters. Nations and generations have listened en- tranced to the song of Homer ; and it was by imitating this great master of song, that Milton gave a touch to the harp of poesy which shall vibrate through the ages. The hand of Phidias is still seen in the marbles of the Parthenon, where it has struggled to express in stone, the human soul's highest conception of divine beauty — the beauty of the immortal Gods. We still gaze upon the Venus de Medici, and wonder that all behold- ers do not become Pygmalions. Raphael has thrown on canvass the Transfiguration of Christ's humanity ; nor does any department of art fail to furnish a model of perfect excellence, to those who desire to practice Its theory, and reproduce its sublime creations. And when we strive to fashion the woman's soul within us ; to bring it in contour and proportion to a beautiful and harmonious developement, must we strike at random, and struggle on in the dark without a guide ? Does the moral world furnish no pattern of human excel- 20 THE LAUKEL WREATH. lence, after which we may shape ourselves, and mould our moral lineaments ? Is it possible, so to conduct the process of a young girl's education, as to keep al- ways before her mind's eye, the pattern of what she ought to be ; of what she must every day strive to be- come ? To what means or element of culture, must we give prominence and importance, to secure this re- sult ? Tlie answer is easy. Christianity furnishes principles of culture, which if judiciously applied in our systems of female education, would make wo- man's nature, what it was before her hand plucked Eden's fatal apple ; "and thus brought death with all our woe." We anticipate the reader's smile at the announce, mont of this fact, which is so trite and commonplace, that it has almost come to be regarded as a truism; but let those who smile, remember, that although our xheories of education, arc in the main, riglit, and do recognize the importance of moral culture ; that our practice, is nevertheless all wrong ; and altliough much has been said and written on the subject of female education ; and well written too, it has left the "ractical bearings and workings of our educational systems, unchanged. Let us then reiterate this truth, and ever keep it before the popular mind, till it re- sponds ; that all systems of education are essentially erroneous and defective, which do not draw their fun- damental elements of culture, from the religion and morality of Christianity; and that there can be no true womanly beauty, except that which is developed tlirough its holy and ennobling influences. Young has Well said, "the Christian, is the highest style of IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN 21 man." It is equally true, that the Christian woman, is the highest style of woman ; more divine, because more holy, than any goddess of Olympus. — We are not sure that the gentlemen-puppets, who figure in the drawing-room, and dance about the re\gning belle, like moths flutterinsj around a candle, till their winjjs are scorched, and they tumble headlong to ruin— we are not sure, that such, will sympathize with the sen- timent we have uttered ; but every man, with a man- ly intellect; and a man's heart; whatever be his speculative views of Christianity ; even though he were an infidel, will acknowledge, that no system of morals extant ; nor all the combined lessons of hu- man wisdom, can form a woman's heart and mind, af- ter so pure and beautiful a model, as that which is offered to us, in the life and teachings of Christ. Nay more, if all human goodness and moral beauty should perish out of the world, and the very memory of them be lost to mankind ; we should still have, in the char- acter of Jesus, and the words which he uttered, the immaculate essence, of all goodness, and all virtue ; both human and divine. — But we are told by the worldly-wise, that the experiment of educating w^omen religiously has often been tried; and the result, has as.often been failure. Nothing on earth, say they, is so intolerable, as the fanatacism and cant of these fe- male pietists, unless it be the literary preteiLsions of a Blue. Said a father recently, "my daughter has become a perfect little Pharisee, through the influence of the H. Seminary. I shall be careful in future where I send my children to be educated. Underthe conviction, that retrenchment, in dress and family ex- 22 THE LAUKEL WREATH. penditure, is an imperative Christian ciity, she has forsworn forever, silks and jewels, and wears only calico. She has abandoned the study of music, be- cause all showy accomplishments, are inconsistent with the humility and lowliness of spirit, which ought to characterize a Christian woman. She has become an active and prominent member of the Missionary, Bible, Temperance, Anti-Slavery and Moral Reform Societies ; and if her power, were in any degree com- mensurate with her will, she would revolutionize so- ciety, and turn the world upside down, with her absurd enthusiasm. I shall send her to Madame D., where I hope she will acquire more rational views of religion in place of these monstrous absurdities." Unfortunate father ; and still more unhappy daughter ; — how ut- terly, had both mistaken, tlie true ideal of a Christian woman ; and the influences which constitute a truly Christian education. No good and modest woman can have any sympathy with those of her seXj who turn bold and noisy public reformers, of the vices and fasli- ionable follies of society ; neither can a true hearted Cliristian woman covet that formal and ostentatious activity, in any department of Christian benevolence, which causes her necessarily to parade her religious sentiments, and spiritual aflections, before the eager and irreverent gaze, of the public eye. Her religion is the cherished and hidden life of her soul. There slie garners up her purest and warmest aifections, and gives them all to God. SIic moves gently and noise- lessly in the daily walks and relations of life ; undis- tinguished from other women, save that her hand is readier for every kind decdj her smile more cheering IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 23 and benign when it falls on the children of misfortune and want; and the music of her voice softer and sweeter; because it is the utterance of a pure, gentle, and tran- quil soul. The applauses of the French people sounded not in the ears of Bonaparte so sweet as the voice of Josephine, and that Empress was charming; although nature had not been to her, prodigal of charms. It was often remarked of her, that without being beautiful, she produced upon beholders the ef- fect of beauty. Thus it is possible, for the Christian women, to make herself admired and loved, and even reverenced by those who know her truly ; by the mor- al and intellectual beauty expressed in her conversa- tion and outer life ; each of which are significant of the latent beauty of the mind within. It is possible for a woman to whom nature has denied every personal grace, to become religiously beautiful, and that too without singularity, hypocrisy or cant. She may min- gle with other women in the great thoroughfares of so- ciety ; partake of the innocent amusements and festivities of social life; cultivate the elegant arts ; gather within her home, or around her person, those adornments and elegancies, which gratify a cultivated taste ; and enjoy them all, while she yet rises superioi and above all, to find her truest and highest enjoyment, the realization of her dearest hopes, and the true per- fection of her nature, in the cultivation of spiritual af fections. — In the gayest circles she may hear andenjo)' the playfulness of wit; the keenness of satire; the encounter of mind with mind, and the flashings of soul meeting soul, in the interchange of feeling and thought; and yet in the midst of all this, and enjoying 24 THE LAUREL WREATH. all this, her spirit may be alone. The human soul can be isolated by the force of high and heavenly thoughts when the body is jostled in a crowd ; for a hermit, dwelling alone in the deep heart of a forest, is not more secluded, than the soul, which hides within it, deep thoughts and spiritual communings with the In- visible. — Above the glare of a thousand lights; the melody of tuned instruments and song, and the foot- falls of the giddy dance ; yes above the heaven itself, her thought rises, and dwells alone with God. Her soul hears God ; and sees the Invisible. Grosser na- tures talk and speculate about religion — she feds it. — She lives habitually on the confines of two worlds, where the material meets the spiritual; and in these moments of interior solitude and stillness, her Imagi- nation is awed by the solemn shadows, cast over it from the spirit land. Then unutterable tlioughts, and awful imaginings visit her; till becoming familiar, she invites their stay. Sometimes by the force of her own thoughtfulncss she rests motionless, with fixed but vacant gaze, till consciousness itself vanishes, and her very inner life and being seem melting away into the Infinite. Then her heart prays — her lips seldom. When her soul is full and heaving witli the impulses of such divine communion, the lips move in wordless sympathy, but no audible sound passes those silent por- tals of imprisoned thought. Such is the experience of a true Christian woman — such the high spirituality of her ideas and contemplations; but with these joys a stranger intermcddleth not; even the cherished com- panion of lier bosom ; the sharer of lier earthly joys anrt sorrows is a stranger in the spiritual arajnaof her IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 25 soul. He only knows that pure and good thoughts, and all gentle and loving affections dwell there, because they are expressed in her acted thoughts. If we could make the young understand tliis ; if we could make parents and instructors of youth understand ; that Christian education does not consist in a formal incul- cation of moral precepts ; nor yet in loading the child- ish memory with Creeds and Catechisms ; but in a careful oversight of the workings of thought, fancy, and feeling in the awaking faculties of the youthful mind ; and a constant vigilance to direct them accord- ing to the principles of eternal rectitude and virtue; what a change it would work in the ordinary routine of family and academic education. — No theoretic in- struction in systems of religion and morals can avail any thing. ' It is the teaching of example which we want. We want a model, to place before the forming, but yet plastic minds of the young ; and say, "Be like thatJ' The Infinite mind — the author of all minds understands intimately the mental and spiritual organi- zation of His earthly children ; and the laws of in- tellectual and moral development, which regulate the wonderful and complexmachinery of the human soul ; and has His divine Omniscience anticipated this pres- sing want of our humanity ? Has He given us such a model, or only taught us in His Revelation, didactic precepts of morality ? Did not the life and misson of Jesus respond to the deepest want of our moral nature — to the cravings of our most imperative spiritual instincts ? What Grecian Statuary is in the world of 'irt, the character and teachings of Christ are, in the moral world. The marbles of the PartJienon are per- B 26 THE LAUREL WREATH. feet models of human beauty, idolized and deified, — the material embodiment of man's highest conceptions of physical beauty; and in the like manner the life of Christ is a sensible exhibition of man's highest idealized conception of moral excellence. Many splendid and dazzling apparitions of virtue ; have, in the ages which are past, flashed out from the dark back-ground of our fallen humanity; but they were evanescent and shapeless meteors, without symmetry or beauty. In the history of the great and good of past ages we have the separate elements of spiritual beauty ; but the individual combinations are sometimes monstrous. For instance, we have the predominance of patriotism in the moral portraitures of Aristedcs, Cincinnatus, and Hannibal — manly daring in that of Leonidas, Alexander, and Caesar ; and the faculty of divine con- templation, in Socrates aqd Plato ; but in Christ every excellence and virtue, both human and divine, are united in perfect concordance and symmetry. Where then shall we look in the training of the young ; and particularlyof young women, for a formative influence, at once so perfect and so powerfully efficient as this. Objections may be made to these views of education, on the ground, that they are too vague and impractica- ble; that while they insist upon the absolute necessity of forming youthful charact('r after a Christian model ; they do notspecify with suflicient minuteness of detail, the manner, in which the desired influence is to be ap- plied in the practical business of education. The writer has not room in the limits assigned to this essay to enter into such details; but if the reader still asks, ill wliat departments of education, it is j)ossible to IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 27 make the power of Christianity more directly influen- tial than at present ; it may be replied ; that it is not only desirable, but possible, both to develope the mind, and mould the manners, in accordance with its spirit and precepts. Parents and Instructors of youth too generally regard the precepts of Christianity, as capa- ble of being brought to bear, only in the formation of correct theoretic views of right and wrong, in the minds of the young ; and its Institutions, as the means of cultivating their religious susceptibilities only. They do not consider thai it is possible to draw from Christianity, such views and motives, as shall urge the young mind forward in the acquisition of scientific truth ; and even render intei-esting the dry details of academic instruction. It is because the motives usual- ly placed before a young girl's mind, to incite her to diligence in the pursuit of literary and scientific ac- quirements, are so sordid and secular, that she pursues her studies in that spirit ; and that even when success- ful as a student, her acquirements are so technical and formal, that they can have no tendency to ennoble and refine her nature. She is told she must study because it is a burning disgrace to be ignorant ; because she cannot appear to advantage in society without at least a moderate degree of intelligence ; but rarely is she pointed to the reflex influence of Science, upon the mind itself; enlarging, invigorating, and ennobling all its powers. Let her. mind once grasp the idea ; and swell with the inspiration of the thought, that the study of natural science is the tracing in our own mind the thought of God when He planned the Universe — that History is but the record of what God has done, and 28 THE LAUREL WREATH. enabled or sufiered man to do upon the great theatre of human action — that the Literature of past ages is a Daguerrcotyped view of the mind of dead nations;