which was terminated by the deluge. And when men had again corrupted their way upon the earth, God, after . establishing his covenant with the seed of Abraham, prohibited their intermarriage with the heathen round about them. For this reason, He forbade them to make a covenant with the idolatrous nations, by whom they were surrounded, "Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods; and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a-whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a-whoring after their gods." -Ex. 34: 15, 16."Neither shalt thou make marriage with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son; for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”—Deut. 7:3,4. When In these quotations may be seen the command not to intermarry with these nations; and the history of the nation of Israel proves conclusively its wisdom. they had intermarried with the heathen, and had departed from the living way, they were compelled to forego the idolatrous connections. "And Ezra, the priest, stood up and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now, therefore, make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure; and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do. But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is the work of one day, or two; for we are many that have transgressed in this thing. Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities, come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us."-Ezra 10: 10-14. In Nehemiah, we have another similar account, together with the zeal of the prophet in causing the abomination to be put away. "And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless, even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to trespass against our God, in marrying strange wives ?"-Neh. 13: 24–27. God recognizes the influence of women over nations as well as individuals. We might trace the history of many nations, and we should find the same general results, all based on the natural relations which woman bears to the race. Not only among the ancients was this true, it is equally true of the nations that exist at the present time. The loose, unrestrained character of the French and Italian women could not possibly give a higher tone to the virtues of these nations than they now posSwitzerland, once the home of the noble-hearted wives of the heroes who formed the league of the Alps, still lives free among the eternal hills, whose glittering spires pierce the clouds and hold communion with the tempest and the lightning in their airy homes. The same spirit that led them to give up their husbands and their sess. sons as the martyrs of freedom, rather than see them stoop to the vassalage of the tyrant, has long glowed in the hearts of their descendants. The women of Scotland were ever ready to flee into the fastnesses of the mountains with their free husbands, and to court danger and death in their most appalling forms, rather than submit to the power of the usurper. To this spirit of unyielding fortitude may be traced the independence of Scotland, even though united with England. She has never stooped to the ecclesiastical dictation of England, but has maintained her own independent course, in spite of persecutions, which have stained her soil with the blood of some of the fairest of earth's daugh ters. And England, proud and prosperous England, boasting, and that justly, of some of the most upright and philanIthropic hearts that bless the earth with their labors and prayers, has had, and still has, some of the noblest of women. To the efforts of one woman* may be traced the first inquiry into the system of human slavery; and nobly did the women of England come up to the great work of revolutionizing that public sentiment that had so long sanctioned the bondage of the African. They were in this matter truly helps; and from this fact alone we might argue a general amelioration of the condition of the suffering throughout their realm. This out-speaking of their humanity promises a race of men who will perform what their mothers have prayed for so earnestly. The character of the women who sustained the hardships of the early settlement of New England is too well known to need a word of eulogy; and the women of the Northern States have long sustained a reputation deservedly high for their intelligence, industry, and elevated moral and religious attainments. Would that from among * Elizabeth Heyrick. us none of this true glory had departed; that none had coveted ease and false elegance, the offspring of extravagance. Though the country women still sustain, in a good degree, the virtues of their mothers, yet in our cities we are pained to meet those who are, in every respect, degenerated, and utterly unfit to be the matrons of the new race. Weak, indolent, and extravagant, they have little appreciation of their responsibility; and without being conscious of it, are laying a foundation that will, unless overturned by a counteracting influence, lead to the overthrow of our institutions and national virtue. As the extravagant demands of fashion exceed the means of a vast multitude, they will prevent marriage, and lead to a state of society not unlike that which, at the present, prevails in Paris. Men of this age will be led to hold females in contempt, and seek their society only from unworthy motives, as they did in the days of Socrates (468 years before Christ), as we are informed by Plato, who makes that most renowned sage of Athens say, "these things are now agreed upon, that in this city, which is to be constituted in a perfect manner, the women are to be common-the children common-and the education common." From this it would appear that the men of that generation looked upon women as little more than necessary evils. And while women are thus regarded and degraded, vice will be the inevitable result; and, by the flood of licentiousness, true liberty and virtue swept away. Even now are many treading in the broad road to death, who have been seduced thither by a desire to follow in the gaudy train of those worshipping at the shrine of female vanity. CHAPTER IV. DUTIES OF WOMEN. Art thou a woman? and dost thou remember Let all the race the full salvation know. WE have, in a former part of our work, endeavored to show, that as woman was first in the transgression, so she must be first to return, in order that the world may be brought back to its allegiance to the King of kings; on her, under God, hangs the future hope of the world. Beloved sisters, if God has committed so great a work to your hands, should you not gird yourselves with strength, and in his name come to the rescue of the world from sin and suffering. It lies before you ripe for your labors; the fields are already white for the harvest.-Will you be the reapers? The clangor of battle has almost died away among civilized nations, and the triumph of the arts has placed the means of comfort within the reach of all who are industrious. The wilderness has so far been subdued by the hand of man, that where, a few years since, it cost the struggle of strong hearts and willing hands to procure a bare subsistence, plenty and comfort now abound. The discoveries of science, and the facilities for acquiring knowledge, multiply around us, and only courage and faith are required to go in and possess the land. |