are the most numerous or the most clamorous. The great majority of
the leaders in this movement appear to be married women.

A word more on the subject of home life, as one in which the
interests of the whole sex are most closely involved. It is clear that
those interests are manifold, highly important to the welfare of the
race, unceasing in their recurrence, urgent and imperative in their
nature, requiring for their successful development such devotion of
time, labor, strength, thought, feeling, that they must necessarily
leave but little leisure to the person who faithfully discharges them.
The comfort, health, peace, temper, recreation, general welfare,
intellectual, moral, and religious training of a family make up,
indeed, a charge of the very highest dignity, and one which must tax
to the utmost every faculty of the individual to whom it is intrusted.
The commander of a regiment at the head of his men, the member of
Congress in his seat, the judge on his bench, scarcely holds a
position so important, so truly honorable, as that of the intelligent,
devoted, faithful American wife and mother, wisely governing her
household. And what are the interests of the merchant, the
manufacturer, the banker, the broker, the speculator, the selfish
politician, when compared with those confided to the Christian wife
and mother? They are too often simply contemptible--a wretched,
feverish, maddening struggle to pile up lucre, which is any thing but
clean. Where is the superior merit of such a life, that we should
hanker after it, when placed beside that of the loving, unselfish,
Christian wife and mother--the wife, standing at her husband's side,
to cheer, to aid, to strengthen, to console, to counsel, amidst the
trials of life; the mother, patiently, painfully, and prayerfully
cultivating every higher faculty of her children for worthy action
through time and eternity? Which of these positions has the most of