one--is that which has been alluded to in the preceding paragraphs; in
making all persons and things around us better--in transmuting, as it
were, under the influence of the gospel, all coarser things around us
to "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

I long exceedingly to see our young women filled with the desire of
improvement--physical, social, intellectual and moral. I long to see
their souls glowing with the desire to go about doing good, like their
Lord and Master. Not, indeed, _literally_, as I shall have
occasion to say in another place. But I long to have their hearts
expand to overflowing with love to the world for whom Christ died; and
I wish to have some of the tears of their compassion fall on those over
whom God has given them an amazing, and often an unlimited influence.

Could I hope to reach a dozen minds, and warm a dozen hearts, which had
otherwise remained congealed, or at most received passively the little
stream of happiness which a naked, external world affords them, without
any corresponding efforts to form a world of their own--could I be the
means of enkindling in them that love for everlasting progress towards
perfection, which is so essential to the world's true happiness and
their own--could I thus aid in setting in motion an under-current which
should, in due time, restore to us Eden, in all its primitive, unfallen
beauty and excellence,--how should I be repaid for these labors!

I will dare to hope for the best. If I have the sacred fire burning in
my own bosom, I will hope to be the means of enkindling it in the bosom
of a few readers. If my own soul glows with love to a fallen world, I
will dare to hope that a few, at least, of those whose souls are more
particularly made for love and sympathy, will be led to the same source
of blessedness.