Year: 1868




despair


Exchange.
We pity the man who wrote the couplet
closing the above article, provided he be-
ieved that he was writing 1.-THE truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the TRUTH" it
is base slander without the shadow of a
foundation when aimed, as it is, at the en-
tire female race, at


The fairest creation of the Eternal Mind,


At the crowning glory of all humankind.


Exceptions to the general rule are as ca
silly found here as in other matters, and it
can only be taken for granted by debased
and unprincipled mind that the exception
familiar to his experience is the only true
standard by which to measure the entire
race.


A man who can conscientiously write
thus, proves himself recreant to all the finer
sensibilities of the heart, and dead to all
the amenities Of social interco curse; he taints
the memory of his mother, submits the in
tegrity and honesty of his sister to the cor
roding influence of doubt. and attempts to
SOW the seeds of discord and distrust in
the most sacred precinct of the home vir-
tues. We have had enough of such silly
twaddle, though it be dressed up in tawdy
fnery, and tickle the ear with the music of
rhyme and rythm, it is none the lees false
and specious. and can only serve the pur-
poses Of the misanlhropic. the shallow
minded, the base and the sensual.


A undetermined man, a sensible, refined
and virtue loving man will never so far de-
grade himself as to disparage the sacred
claims of woman as a class, to virtue, re-
fnement of intellect, and honesty of pur-
pose it is only those who are painfully
aware of their own DEFICIENCIES in this re
spect, and who, despairing Of ever reaching
nobler standpoint, seek to drag down to
their own level those they canrOt aspire to,
and who take a malicious pleasure in point
/ ing out to the world the specks that may
appear on the disc of the sun, but totally
blind to it's general brilliarce, and to the
glory and blessing that emenates from it.


That faults, and serious faults do exist in
the social relations now governing man and
woman is true; and it is painfully true that
specious appearances, and the eloquent
chink of the yellow fends as they caper a.
bout in the money bags of the deceiver, be-
tray many maiden into path whose flow
ers are baunts of vipers, and whose end is
disappointment, ruin and the grave; bat
where lies the source of these evils? In the
bosom of society, in the heart of the very
men whose estimate of female virtue is made
apparent by the lines quoted from our ex-
change, and who, like the iconoclast Of old,
find iendish delight in destroying the fair
est models of beauty, and in besmearing
with the inherent filth Of their vile natures
the finest pctaree in the gallery Of human
I life.


All the refinement, the appreciation of
beauty, the fostering in the human soul
of every aspiration for the spiritual, the holy
and the true, e1 erything IN fact that marks
the eras of civilization throughout the
worlds history, we owe directly or indirect
", to the ennobling influence Of woman
and we consider a true woman to be the best
model of attainable human perfection, and
the best living example Of what man should
be to merit the applause aud the blessing
of Heaven.


We have been lead to indulge in these
remarks by noticing in current journalism
a growing desire on the part Of witlings to
let fy their toy arrows at the fair fame oi
woman in general, and the infrequenoy oi
rebukes from those whose duty it should be
to break the pury shafts Of these would-be
satyrists; not that true womanhood has
much to fear from these liliputian attacks.
but hageIlation administered to these crea-
lures al the right time and in the right
J place. would prove, doubtless, Of great