Year: 1870

What can a woman do for her
husband ? Much, everything, lit
tie, or nothing, and too often
worse than nothing, according to
her womanly value! The solemn
and frequently ill-considered, ,heed-
lessly spoken marriage VOWS. en-
tail mutual responsibility on man
and woman, which may more easily
mar than perfect their future life.
And yet in the case of woman,
how often it happens that an ex-
aggerated feeling Of independence
neutralizes, If it does not entir ely
destroy the sense of responsibility;
or, that what should be the union
of souls, is sunk and lost sight OF
in selfishness, in want Of energy,
or the drudgery Of domestic life !!
This is disastrous to the present,
it is fatal to the future. The mar
riage tie is not simply social un>
ion. Such a theory is the asser-
ton that the Divine portraiture,
though created, human, and disfig-
ured by sin, is not co-equal in its
internal and its external develope-
ments. The intellect Of man and
Immortality are his only superiori-
ity oyer the brute creation the in
tellects, then, OF man and wife
should be so exercised as to be in
fluenced for good, as far as posi-
BILE, present tnat may be partially
controlled-a future that involves
the welfare of two immoIta souls.
Has woman no influence over man,
no power to help him in his dsily
life ? So long as civilization is
faulty. so long as human nature is
imperfect, so long as man is under
the ban of imperfect education. SO
long can the woman raise, refine,
enoble, and purify her husband il
she has the will and the power -
SO long can she help him to attain
higher things. It is more than
probable. it is certain, that his
work, his life, his hereafter, may
be hindered or advanced accord
ing as his wife is capable of shar-
ing his thoughts, his ambition, his
joys, his sorrows-of encouraging
his aspirations. of making his tri-
umphs her own, of claiming and
doing her share in creating a unity
of existence. Could Henry Clay
have served his country at Wash
ington, if powerful, sympathetic
mind had not, while directing sue
cessfully his household encourage
ed and sustained him, and, though
at times separated from him, lived
in his work What was Daniel
Webster's life and personal iniu-
ence when the loss of great and
good woman had bereft him of
strong pillar against which to lea-?
Jessie Fremont. does that name
awaken no deeper feeling than
mere ephemeral enthusiasm Does
her example afford no model for
woman's self reconstruction Oh,
th at woman would think how great
men may become under their good,
how little they almost must be-
come under their bad influence!


Voltaire, Goethe, two of the
most conspicuous men of modern
times, how were their lives vitiated,
what mental sufferings might they
not have been spared, what might
they not have been, had they but
married women who could have
scared to the high level of their
aspirations how much may the
world have lost from their unforta.
nate marriages! When women
work all, strive all, dare all, and
are all in all with their husbands,
when they resolve that their twain
lives shall have but one eddy, one
stream, one outlet for their
sources when they determine that
their union shall emulate Millions
pithy but marvellously poetical de-
scription of the oneness Of the
lives of Adam and Eve in Paradise
before their fall:


and slow,


Through Eden took their solitary way;"


then will woman occupy the posi-
ton in married life which is hers,
the position, equal yet dissimilar.
which God has given her; then
will man have a chance Of being
really great, bat not till thea. In
individual exceptions, like some
rare gem, flash and glisten before
US, only to make US grieve the
more over the inertness in this re-
spect of the mass of womankind.
and to impress US still more strong
ly with the conviction that woman
must be good. great. sustaining,
very help meet, in order that she
and man may fulfil their destiny.


The Wyandotte Gazette says: A
few days ago recently married