what I myself have seen of sad and sudden reverse, of unprotected females precipitated in a moment from comfortable circumstances to abject want; widows accustomed to luxury and abundance, suddenly stripped of all, and surrounded with young children, asking in vain for bread. With the best training, the condition is a melancholy one. It is alleviated and rendered tolerable precisely in proportion to the previous development of business habits and practical industry. With these, no condition is desperate. This is a world of labor, and it is ordained that those shall prosper who are willing to toil. But the willingness may exist without the capacity. The very habit and faculty of keeping accounts, has saved many a woman from want, and been the means of training a rising family to usefulness and respectability. From these reverses no woman is exempt, the most affluent are perhaps most exposed to them. They may take place without their fault, or the fault of any one with whom they are immediately connected. It is fearful to see how soon death may place a solitude about a person, who is now surrounded by troops of relatives and friends. To be convinced what fearful

changes time brings over the world, we have only to look back a few years, and consider who were the rich and distinguished, and who occupied the most conspicuous places in the public view. Where are they now? The following years will produce the same changes, and who are to be affected by them, it is impossible to foresee.

But death and misfortune are not the only causes of the loss of fortune. In cities there is another quite as prolific, the misconduct of husbands. Young ladies of wealth and expectations are ever surrounded by a set of young men, whom it is needless to describe, without character, talent or business, whose whole stock in trade is dandyism, dissipation and impudence, and whose whole adventure in life is to insinuate themselves into the affections of some unsuspecting heiress.

Those who have the misfortune to fall into the hands of such a pirate, are almost sure sooner or later to be stripped of all, and then perhaps treated with the utmost cruelty and neglect. Every young woman, no matter how great her expectations or possessions, may be destined to meet such a fate as this. She will be best prepared for the crisis, who

has the best practical knowledge of affairs, of the various cares and duties, which may, by any possibility, fall to the lot of woman. And I should consider the labor of composing these lectures amply repaid if I were persuaded that they would be the means of inducing one young lady to resolve that she would thoroughly accomplish herself in all household duties. The Jews had a custom, which cannot be too much commended, of adding to the most finished education, the practical knowledge of some trade, so that the great and the noble might have a resource, if deprived of their possessions, which would prevent their becoming utterly helpless and desperate. It was this practice which gave the noble Apostle of the Gentiles, high born and liberally educated as he was, the glory of preaching the Gospel, while with his own hands he ministered to his necessities.

But let it not be supposed from what I have now said, that I am a Utilitarian in the narrow and bigoted sense of that term, that I would exclude the accomplishments, or even that I think them of little worth. I would have woman agreeable as well as useful. Nay, the agreeable is the useful in the highest

sense. Every thing is useful, which innocently ministers to human happiness. Accomplishments do thus minister to the most blameless enjoyment. Let a girl be taught music, and dancing, and drawing, if she have a taste for it, though of the latter I entertain more doubt. Let her have every accomplishment which will enable her to adorn, delight and enjoy society.

I am no enemy to the pleasures of refined society. I only oppose its follies and its abuses. I am opposed to its abuses for the very reason that I esteem and value its uses. I look with sorrow on its extravagant expense and ridiculously late hours, only because I consider such perversions as calculated to destroy the pleasures and the usefulness of that which is in itself good. We are not made only to toil. We are made likewise to enjoy its rewards. There is a generous impulse to impart the avails of our labor to others. We are not made for selfish, solitary enjoyment. We increase our pleasures by sharing them with others. Society is an instinct. When we are happy, we call together our friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with us." That most exquisite parable of the prodigal son, an emanation of celestial power and

beauty, makes, without blame, that joyful event, the return of the lost one, to be celebrated with music and dancing; and even the kingdom of heaven itself is represented under the similitude of a feast. Our Saviour ministered by his first miracle to the festivities of a wedding, and he did not refuse that mark of hospitable respect, a supper, in the family which he most loved. The expression of social and benevolent feeling, by some emphatic action, is the most effectual way to cultivate and strengthen that feeling. The same feeling of mutual respect, and desire to confer pleasure, bids us receive our friends with such decorations of the rites of hospitality as our circumstances can afford. Such a use of wealth, so far from being immoral, I am inclined to consider as among the noblest and the best. If any one is disposed to object, "Why this waste, why were not these things sold, and the money given to the poor," he must remember that this objection is taken from the mouth of Judas Iscariot. We have higher authority for saying, that the expense is not thrown away which expresses generous and noble sentiments. The pleasures of society and hospitality are the just and