quite another thing from the simple melodies with which Browning so beautifully represents David as soothing the troubled spirit of Saul. And when to these are added the passionate fervor of the opera, the tax upon the nervous system is very great. Properly to hear and appreciate the opera of Fidelio or Don Giovanni or the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven requires as much exercise of brain as to listen to a scientific lecture. I do not deny its value as an influence, but it is a positive value, not a negative one. It is re-creation rather than relaxation, and is no more fit to succeed a long, exhausting day of study than a sermon, or a disputation, or any other change of intellectual exercise. Still more is the study of music, and the practice necessary to acquire command over so difficult an instrument as the piano, a very great tax upon the nervous strength of our young people. Many mothers consider the music lesson only as the using up of so many minutes of time, and think it may rightfully be put into any hour of holiday or rest. I have heard music teachers say that their pupils came to them weary and listless, and their parents seemed to have no idea of the amount of intellectual and even physical exertion which the music lesson required. We cannot all become fine musical performers, but if the mind is well developed, with a healthy sensibility of feeling and culture of imagination, we can get all the influence and enjoyment of art from the works of thoroughly educated and creative artists, and we shall do so with more relish, without the weary remembrance of mechanical practicing uninspired by active interest.

Music leads the way to a world of the greater danger from over-stimulus of feeling and sentiment, than of intellectual work. Few physicians allow enough for the im

mediate effect of spiritual causes upon the physical health. Cheerful influences, sunny surroundings, happy relations, will save one through heavy tasks of work or privation; but any blight of the affections, any misunderstanding, or treachery of friends, the lowering of one's ideal of life and humanity, will depress the nervous system and ruin the health far more surely than even overwork of the purely intellectual faculties. Often intellectual labor is the true antidote and corrective of this state of feeling.

Theodore Parker once recommended a course of metaphysical study to a young lady, who, from physical weakness and other causes, had become morbidly nervous and introspective.

I have spoken of the importance of thorough healthful training of body and mind in view of the natural conditions of marriage and maternity, which may be the lot of every woman. It is not possible to overstate the importance or the sanctity of these relations, but it is possible to look so much at the mere outside facts of marriage as to ignore its real meaning.

The woman, falsely or carelessly mated, is far less married than she who keeps her ideal high and true and remains single; not because she values marriage too little, but because she has too great reverence to enter into it lightly or falsely. And the mother has far more need to fit her daughter to meet nobly the possibilities of unwedded life, than even the duties of marriage. Marriage is so perfectly natural a state, that it reveals its own laws; and a simple, healthful, happy, trusting love, will guide woman more wisely than much precept.

But in our present social state, the probability for any girl is by no means small that she may be called on to

live out her life without entering upon this blessed relation. If she has been taught that woman's sphere is marriage and marriage alone, that only by that means can she hope for a life of happiness, usefulness, and respect, she will probably become a miserable, helpless, lonely, irritable woman-perhaps seeking marriage at any price to escape from the condition she dreads; or failing that, finding life without purpose, occupation, or delight.

But if she has learned that Providence is boundless in its resources, and that when one way is closed, another is opened, so that "all things work together for good;" if she knows that her nature will be far nobler without the form of marriage unless the spirit and truth can be present also, she will find that there is a life open to her-a life of devotion to truth, right, and beauty, of service to humanity, and of love just as noble and true as she could attain in marriage. She is not fit to marry until she is fit to stand alone. Unless life has a purpose and meaning of its own to her as well as to her husband, she cannot bring him an equal dower, and she has no test of the new feeling which should take its value from the richness of the life that she is ready to blend with another's.

Nothing marks the progress in the elevation of woman, during the last half century, more than the passing away of the opprobrious use of the term "old maid," which is now rarely heard.

It is possible to remain unmarried from low motives, shrinking from the duties and responsibilities of the relation, or from a worldly ambition for higher station than love can offer. Such sin brings its own terrible punishment with it. But far more often it is from a high ideal of marriage, from true nobility of character, or from de

votion to some other relation which seemed paramount, that a woman remains single. How many woman, hiding in her secret heart the romance that gave a charın to her youth, but did not find its reality in life, has devoted herself to the service of humanity with all the passionate devotion of a lover to his mistress! Of such an one, to whom hundreds of helpless babes looked up as to a guardian and protector, an artist said, "She has the mother in her face." We owe too much to this noble class of women, in art, literature, and philanthropy, and in the service of the country in its most trying hour, ever to forget their claims, and he will be forever stigmatized as unworthy of the name of pure and noble manhood who sneers at the virtue which he cannot understand, or vilifies with opprobrious epithets the noble women whom Theodore Parker-God bless him for the word-called his "glorious phalanx of old maids.” *

Another wrong is often done to the young girl, under the name of prudence or worldly wisdom, by breaking down her ideal of life, and especially her ideal of the possible partner of her future life. Tennyson speaks of one

* There lately died near Boston, a woman of eighty years, whose life exemplified the very truth I have been seeking to enforce. Full of courage and zeal, she withstood all the prejudices of her birth and surroundings, freed her own slaves, and then devoted herself with voice and pen to the Anti-Slavery cause, to the enfranchisement of woman, and to every good word and work that she could aid. Her high literary attainments, as well as her earnest purpose, gave her great power of thought and expression, and she was the wise counsellor of many of the foremost men and women among the reformers of the day. As her brother-in-law, himself a noble man of high culture, stood by her coffin, with eyes filled with tears, these were the words of his eulogium upon this woman of dauntless courage, firm purpose, and tender heart: "For this dear saint and moral heroine, there is only one word that expresses what she was,

form of this, in addressing the vain coquette as the possible future mother:

"

Oh, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,

With a little hoard of maxims, preaching down a daughter's heart." Men often speak of the pain it is to them to see the debasement of woman, because she represents to them an ideal of good, the other nobler self, for which they must strive. Man should represent the same thing to woman. Love should see in its object the very crown and glory of creation.

"The person love to us doth fit,

Like manna, hath the taste of all in it."

But the low social standard of morals and manners for man has so degraded him, that the very ideal of manhood is belittled, and the mother warns her daughter not to expect much from her future husband; she has no right to hope for the loyalty of Sir Philip Sydney or the pure ideality of Michael Angelo.

It is a great wrong to man to demand so little from him. All human beings from childhood upwards are stimulated by the opinion entertained of them, and the claims upon them for noble and high behavior. Whatever your own experience, do not thrust the poison of doubt and unbelief in goodness into a daughter's mind. Let her keep her faith and her romance, and look for a hero to win her young heart. True, it is hard to see a Thad

and that is LOVE. He that dwelleth in God dwelleth in love. She dwelt in love which went out to win the warmest friends among all sects and conditions of life, and so she dwelt in God. Her love never failed." All who heard, felt how beautiful must have been the private life which could receive such a tribute from such a man. Has such a woman missed the crown and glory of womanhood?