_No harm!_ I would rather hear you were dead than that you lived a life
like that!

On the other hand, every day of your life you _can_ make the wings of your
soul grow by an honest bit of self-denial, by an honest bit of work for
others, by an honest bit of mental work.

Every day you can be _more worth having_; there is not one of you here who
has not the power to make herself--and to _pray_ herself--into a noble,
dutiful woman.

_"Get up, M. le Comte! you have great things to do to-day."_

[Footnote 3: Gray's Letters to W. Mann.]




A Friday Lesson.


Our course of lessons for this term brings us to-day to Jephthah's story;
to decide on the amount of blame due to the father is not a matter which
so nearly concerns us as to learn the lesson of true womanhood taught us
by the daughter. Hers was no blind obedience; her reason for sacrificing
herself gives us the true position of a woman as a helpmeet, and as a
helpmeet in the performance of public duty. "If thou hast opened thy mouth
unto the Lord"--her father must do his duty at all costs, and she will
help him to do it, even at the cost of her own life. The place of every
woman is to make duty possible and imperative for those about her--for