Mineral Point Weekly Tribune

Duties and Pleasures of Women.—

Great indeed is the task assigned to women. Who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, armies led, and empires are governed, to guard from the slightest taint of possible infirmity, the frail and yet spotless creature, whose moral, no less than physical being, must be derived from her: to inspire those principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments which generations yet unborn. and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honor into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the anguish of the mind; by her tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to cheer the scholar laboring under his toil; to console the statesman for the ingratitude of a mistaken people; to compensate for hopes that are blighted, for the friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has passed away. Such is her vocation-the couch of the tortured sufferer, the cross of the neglected Saviour-these are the scenes of woman's excellencies; these are theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved. Such is her destiny-to visit the forsaken, amid the forgetfulness of myriads, to remember; amid the execrations of multitudes, to bless; when monarchs abandon. when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken and unchanged; and to exhibit in this lower world a type of that love— pure, constant and ineffable-which in another world, as we are taught to believe. is the best reward of virtue