developed, her capacities cannot be known, even to herself, until she
has learned to mingle with man in the free interchange of those
sentiments which keep the soul alive, and which stimulate the noblest
powers. Then only does she realize her aesthetic mission. Then only can
she rise in the dignity of a guardian angel, an educator of the heart, a
dispenser of the blessings by which she would atone for the evil
originally brought upon mankind. Now, to administer this antidote to
evil, by which labor is made sweet, and pain assuaged, and courage
fortified, and truth made beautiful, and duty sacred,--this is the true
mission and destiny of woman. She made a great advance from the
pollutions and slaveries of the ancient world when she proved herself,
like Paula, capable of a pure and lofty friendship, without becoming
entangled in the snares and labyrinths of an earthly love; but she will
make a still greater advance when our cynical world shall comprehend
that it is not for the gratification of passing vanity, or foolish
pleasure, or matrimonial ends that she extends her hand of generous
courtesy to man, but that he may be aided by the strength she gives in
weakness, encouraged by the smiles she bestows in sympathy, and
enlightened by the wisdom she has gained by inspiration.

AUTHORITIES.

Butler's Lives of the Saints; Epistles of Saint Jerome; Cave's Lives of
the Fathers; Dolci's De Rebus Gestis Hieronymi; Tillemont's
Ecclesiastical History; Gibbon's Decline and Fall; Neander's Church
History. See also Henry and Dupin. One must go to the Catholic
historians, especially the French, to know the details of the lives of
those saints whom the Catholic Church has canonized. Of nothing is
Protestant ecclesiastical history more barren than the heroism,
sufferings, and struggles of those great characters who adorned the