We introduce him to our wives and daughters; if his crimes are spoken of we significantly hint at "wild oats," or speak in studied phrase of "youthful indiscretions." Mamma suggests that all young men are a little wild, but marriage cures them of that; and our young ladies think him only the more interesting because he is esteemed a "fast young man." You knowingly permit the roué to embrace your daughter in the dance; you entrust her to his care in long walks and rides; you permit the seducer to lead your daughter to the altar, and give him your paternal blessing; and at the same time soothe yourself into complacency at being one of a "most respectable people," and a "most Christian society." The fair image of God is despoiled and shattered, and the icon oclast is accepted as respectable and worthy.

Oh, the weary foot-falls and despairing hearts among the graves of the five-and-twenty thousand lost women of the city of New-York! Their mournful dirge has been sung by the same great-hearted poet who awoke the strains of the Song of the Shirt. Let him tell the fate of one of them, for it is the story of the class:

"Alas for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

Oh, it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.

"Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly,

Feelings had changed;

Love, by harsh evidence

Thrown from its eminence;

Ever God's providence

Seeming estranged.

"Where the lamps quiver So far in the river,

With many a light

From window and casement,
From garret to basement,

She stood with amazement,
Houseless by night.

"The bleak wind of March

Made her tremble and shiver ;

But not the dark arch,

O the black flowing river:

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery

Swift to be hurled

Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!

"In she plunged boldly
No matter how coldly

The dark river ran,-
Over the brink of it,
Picture it, think of it

Dissolute man!
Lave in it, drink of it

Then, if you can!

When tragedies more terrible than any performed in the mimic representations of the stage, atrocious

in their inception, harrowing and ruinous in their close, wherein a human soul is lost beyond remedy, are taking place all around us, can we felicitate ourselves upon the happy and prosperous state of our social structure, or deny that there are grave evils, demanding our prompt recognition, and such earnest and thorough remedial action as we may be able to adopt?

Let me invite you to the consideration of the following proposition, with the practical application to be made of it. In proportion as we recognize more fully the truest work and culture of human life, we shall appreciate the sphere and influence of woman. The wiser man becomes, the more clearly does he see that his true strength lies not in the physical or intellectual side of his nature, but in his moral and emotional powers. We boast, and the vaunt seems just, of the achievements of mind, of its conquests over the material creation. The iron horse, with his breath of fire, his sinews of steel, his voice of thunder, and tread as of armies, has been harnessed into our service. His pace narrows the continents almost into hand-breadths. His speed upon the deep renders "the wings of the wind "an antiquated figure. The lightning is arrested in its wild flash, and tamely submits to carry our messages. The subtlest and mightiest forces of the universe are made purveyors to our necessities and to our luxuries. Commerce has belted the world with a

TRUE POWER LIES NOT IN THE PHYSICAL. 147

He

fairer and richer zone than ever clasped the waist of Cytherea. Light, heat, electricity, galvanism, are chained captives to the wheels of the conqueror, as he sweeps along in his triumphal procession. As we watch this royal pageant, with swelling hearts and praiseful voices, we exclaim, How noble, how divine a thing is man! But he is still a victim of infirmity, disease, and death. A grain of sand may blind him; the meanest insect may inflict a fatal wound. may bridge the ocean, but he cannot purchase immunity from pain. He may count the stars, and weigh them; but ague shrivels and tortures him, and fever scathes him with its fiery breath. In the midst of his triumphs he is oppressed by the consciousness that infinity stretches far away beyond him, untouched and unattainable. Even could he raise himself immeasurably above his present pinnacle-could he master the forces that now evade him-could he mar shall the stars into his service-he must still call destruction his mother, and the worm his sister. The grandest exploits of the intellect more display its weakness than its strength. Its richest stores of knowledge only prove to it its poverty. The saddening consciousness of ignorance has ever been esteemed the first step to understanding; and those men that have travelled the widest circuits in the pursuit of truth, have ended their journey with the conviction of how little they knew. "He that increaseth know