WOMAN'S BEST FRIEND. God, his mercy and goodness in providing a sacrifice for sin, so clearly and beautifully typified by the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb! And with what interest may we suppose this ordinance to have been cherished by the truly pious in succeeding generations! When the promise to Abraham was fulfilled, and his descendants had become as the stars of heaven, inhabiting a land flowing with milk and honey; when they were permitted to worship in a gorgeous temple, in that favored city, Jerusalem; when prophets, priests, and kings assembled at the festival, how must the heart have exulted at the invocation, “Come, let us go up to the house of the Lord; let us offer sacrifice, and seek the Most High!" Our Savior, diligently fulfilling the law, was ever found at the feast of the Passover. When but twelve years of age, he went up to Jerusalem with those whose delight was in the ordinances of religion. Just before he was offered up on the cross, he partook of this sacrament with his sorrowing disciples. But the Passover was to be kept throughout all generations; and though the types are now no longer necessary, yet we, who live under the better dispensation, have the same interest in the things typified as had those who lived before the crucifixion. Original. WOMAN'S BEST FRIEND. BY PROFESSOR M'COWN. 119 THE Bible should be the first, the most endeared, and the most repeatedly read book of every lady's library. The Bible alone has asserted and established woman's high claims to dignity, importance, and influence. As flowers are bereft of their hues without the light of the sun, but are adorned and penciled with their varied charms when blest with his genial rays, so has woman languished in obscurity, neglect and oppression, where the Bible has not blessed society; whilst her virtues have acquired a charm, and her character an influence most extensively exerted and admired, wherever the Bible has illustrated her worth. It alone is the palladium of her virtue, dignity, and liberty. What woman can fear the oppression of vice, superstition, and tyranny, when guarded by the blessing bequeathed our world in the promise of her sufferings, that her seed should bruise What wife can fear rudeness, the serpent's head? insult, or ill-treatment from a husband, who acknowledges and reveres the divine injunction, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it?" And surely that wife is preparing for herself a bed of thorns, upon which, at last, to lay a heart pierced with many sorrows, who delights rather to see her husband in the hants of fashionable pleasure, than an humble penitent at the altar of prayer. What mother can fear neglect and ingratitude from a child, who is a sincere disciple of that blessed Savior, who, amidst the intense agonies of the cross, and the more exquisite pain he endured as the victim of our world's guilt, still felt the indescribably tender emotions of filial love for a parent's sufferings and wants, and with a voice full of gentle tenderness, committed his mother to the care of his beloved disciple? What mother can neglect that book, whose precious words assure her that her little one, gone down to the grave in infancy, has become an angel in heaven? That the flower, which for a few bright but flitting days, adorned and perfumed her bosom with its sweetness, though un The sinner is in a more deplorable condition than was the Israelite when a bond-slave in Egypt. He sees the Avenger in pursuit. Justice cries, "Cut him down; why cumbereth he the ground?" But the immaculate Lamb was sacrificed for him. By an application of the blood of sprinkling, wrath may be averted, "for even Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us." We need a sacrifice for sin—we need the all-cleansing blood to wash away our pollutions-we need something to remind us of our obligations, which, while it cherishes the memory of past deliverances, shall also point to the momentous realities of the future. Such an ordinance our Savior instituted in the holy eucharist. This shall commemorate the death of the true Paschal Lamb, till time shall be no more. Christians, adore the love of God; and as oft as ye are permitted, surround his table. Remember it was the Savior who said, "Do this in remembrance of me." Feed on him by faith, realizing that the time of your departure is at hand. Renew your covenant to be more holy-and as it is your privi-expectedly snatched away, has been transplanted to a lege to live under a more glorious dispensation than was granted to the Jews, let your faith be more vigorous, and your zeal more ardent in the cause of your divine Master. Jesus was your Sacrifice-he is your Intercessor-remember, he will be your Judge. LOUISA E. A. པ་་་ "THERE are a thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide; questions that elude investigation, and make logic ridiculous; cases where something must be done, and where little can be said. How few can be supposed to act upon all occasions, whether small or great, with all the reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the details of a domestic day." heavenly clime, to bloom and shed its fragrance in the garden of paradise. May this precious book be the solace, the guide, and defense of our mothers, sisters, and daughters! A woman's tears bathed those blessed feet that unweariedly traveled the mountains of Judea, in pursuit of the lost sheep of the house of Israel! A woman's love embalmed with rich ointment that precious head, in whose thoughts the bitterness of the last cup was then mingling! And woman's heroism, like the rainbow arching the storm, rose in its grandeur, constant and true, on the dark cloud of the Savior's tragedy, reflecting an honor on the female character unequaled in the world's history, and proving that no danger can appal her heart, when summoned to defend the cross by endurance, patience, and fortitude! Woman! art thou seeking thy Savior? Thy Bible says, "Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified." 120 Original. FACTS, NOT FICTION. FACTS, NOT FICTION. THE following incidents occurred in the order here related-possibly they may be of sufficient interest to occupy a place in the Repository. On a clear morning in the month of I left the bustle of a commercial city in the southwest, to visit a worthy and interesting family in M. Its head was a venerable minister of Christ-a faithful pioneer in the work of his Master, who had, in early life, for saken the nameless charms of home in the north, to scatter the light and fire of truth in this benighted valley. Then it required sacrifices to cultivate the vineyard; for the itinerant, like his suffering Lord, was often a homeless pilgrim, without a place to lay his head. But this indefatigable man went forth, and from the summit of the mountain to the deepest glen, in the city and in the desert, in the wigwam and in the temple, to all ranks and all complexions, for about thirty years, preached the unsearchable riches of Christ. At length, domestic cares induced him to retire to a more limited sphere. He left his former field of labor, followed by the benedictions of thousands, and selected a home where dwelt the sons of the forest-where moral gloom then prevailed, but has since been dispersed by the beams of the Sun of righteousness, till the whoop of the savage has been superseded by the notes of prayer and praise. I was, at the time referred to, directing my course to the hospitable dwelling of this good man, whom I loved to visit, and to whose recitals of the triumphs of the Gospel among the untutored Indians, now gone to seek their new home in the farther west, I had often listened with delight. were waiting to receive them, and welcome the bride to "Marriage in prospect may appear would prove untrue. And, indeed, so far as it depended God hath a providence over mankind. And he sees it best for us, that our cup should be mixed. He permits us to gather the sweet, but often freely intermixes with it the bitter. How else should we learn not to love the world and the things that are in the world? O, the mercy of afflictions, sent to wean us from these low grounds and mortal joys, and compel our souls to spread their wings, and soar to higher regions! Sweet, and only sweet, were the draughts of innocent pleasure which my young friends had so carefully laid in store for themselves; but probably Infinite Wisdom saw it would be necessary to take from them the intoxicating cup. Their souls were more precious than their pleas When I parted with the bridegroom, he was in the full vigor of mature youth. Not a symptom of disease, of debility, or of the least predisposition to any malady, could be detected in his manly countenance or form. The bloom of youth, and the ripeness of manhood seemed to blend in his person and features. While his young bride hung confidingly on his arm, The occasion of my present visit was one of peculiar with her eye dancing and sparkling in the brilliancy of interest. The amiable, intelligent daughter of my wor-conjugal rapture, little did we think how soon her love's thy friend, who had just entered her sixteenth year-young dream should be disturbed; and this beautiful who was a treasured jewel of the father and the mother, creature become awakened to the experience of unminand the pride of affectionate relatives and associates, had yielded her young affections, in all the ardor of their pure youthful glow, to one who, well worthy of her, was now to receive her hand, and interchange with her the vows of fidelity at Hymen's altar. The company was assembled. The ceremony proceeded, and was consummated. We looked with fond delight on the youthful pair, starting hand in hand on the journey of wedded life. Friends gazed with undisguised satisfaction on the worthy couple, and every eye and every lip confessed, that congeniality of temper, of sentiment, of habit, and of taste, and mutual affection so ardent that it required restraint rather than provocation, opened to them a prospect of long continued and unmolested happiness. Friends saluted them with congratulations, kindred lavished upon them the caresses of pure affection, the ministers of Jesus devoutly implored the covenanted grace of heaven upon them; and having received the benediction of the father and the blessing of a weeping mother, they uttered their tremulous farewell, and, escorted by a large company of their youthful friends, pursued their way towards H., where others gled and of almost incurable agony. Alas! in one short month I saw her again. She wept. Her husband was not beside her. He was not on a journeynor was he meditating in the fields-nor was he pursuing the wild deer on the plains, or on the mountainshe lay pale and speechless in the grave— Where superstition's fears Where evening weeps her pearly tears His widowed bride, in robes darker than the midnight "Invidious grave! how dost thou rend asunder Original. WOMAN. - BY REV. J. ADAMS. WOMAN. How great is the absurdity, and how pernicious the tendency of a belief in the intellectual inferiority of females. That there are characteristic mental differences between man and woman, corresponding to the clearly defined spheres of each, is apparent. This might be inferred from their physical conformation. The muscles of the female are of a finer mold; in her there is much more delicacy of structure and sensibility of nerve, and she requires comparatively little exercise to preserve health. Her duties and vocations are of course peculiar, and should not be confounded with those of man. Though mind is entirely undistinguish ed by sex, it develops itself and operates through the physical organs. In the sublime account of the creation by Moses, the identity of mind in man and woman is plainly indicated. On the sixth day, as the last and crowning production of his hand, “God created man in his own image; male and female created he them." Speaking in the plural number, he joins them in their supremacy over all that he had made, saying, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth." Mind knows no sex. It is the distinguishing excellence of the human species. Though it now lies in ruins, it retains traces of its original magnificence. My feelings, in contemplating the ruins of mind, are, I judge, like the emotions of the oriental traveler as he approaches Palmyra, called by the ancients, "Tadmor in the desert," through a narrow plain, spread with the wrecked remains of antiquity. There lies the temple of the sun in ruins, and it is approached through fields of beautiful, but dilapidated columns of white marble. What rapture would succeed the melancholy of that traveler's heart, were a minister of Jehovah, clothed in the radiance of his native heaven, to descend and rebuild those ruins as by enchantment, until "Tadmor in the desert" should rise up before him, as when the ancients, in their glory, dwelt there! What that bright seraph would be to Palmyra, Christianity is to man's wretched and blasted immortality. 121 Judea, at the rising of the sun the two Marys sought the sepulcher of their Lord. Who of the sorrowful disciples first saw the risen Lord? "Now when Jesus was risen, early the first lene, and she went and told the disciples, as they day of the week, he appeared first unto Mary Magdamourned and wept." Woman was last at the cross, and first at the sepulcher on the resurrection morn; she was last at the burial, and first to look upon the risen Jesus. None should glory save in the cross of Christ. It is lifted up in the sight of the nations, and all are invited to look upon it and live. But to woman would I say particularly, clasp it to thy bosom, and hold it as with a death grasp imitate thy sisters who lived in darker ages of blood be spilt, than let loose thy hold. For was not the world; and rather let the last drop of thy heart's the promulgation of Christianity the triumph of woman? Christianity came to bring into notice a class of virtues, that man, in the pride of his heart, despised as womanly. It proclaims God's approbation of those virtues, and teaches that they do not grow spontathat the fruits of the Spirit, in the new born soul, are neously, or spring up in the unregenerated heart; but love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, temperance, fidelity. Reasons may be drawn from the sphere in which woman moves, why she should treasure religion in her heart, as "the pearl of great price." She is destined to look upon the same objects, until, by their familiarity, they lose their charm, unless gilded by the unfading halo which religion throws over them. She, too, as a mother, a sister, and a wife, feels the tenderest sympathies of our nature, which renders her peculiarly susceptible to the high and ennobling feelings of religion. Virtue, as intimated, is not a native of the human heart, since man's defection from his Maker. Yet, though an exotic, it may spring up and diffuse its fragrance in every heart, by "repentance toward God, and But where, let me by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." ask, does it bloom with more grace than in the female heart? Much has been said in regard to the proper sphere of woman. I need not pause to define the sphere of American females. Our own customs I prefer, in this respect, to those of any other country. They assign to woman duties nearly in harmony with her moral, physical, and intellectual nature. And here she is destined to exercise an influence, wider and nobler and more salutary than the world has ever witnessed. Christianity has found its warmest devotee in woman. One has well said, that was "the Christian religion to be banished from the earth, its last altar would be the female heart." In that solemn hour, when Jesus cried The following view of woman in Europe, is from with a loud voice and gave up the ghost-when the Jewett's Passages in Foreign Travels: "In every counvail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the try from Turkey upwards, woman has her certain place. bottom-when the centurian said, "Truly, this man In Italy, in Switzerland, in Germany, in England, in was the Son of God," there was woman looking on afar Scotland, and more than all, in woman-adoring France, off. When Joseph of Arimathea took him down from I have seen her in instances without number, performthe cross, wrapped him in fine linen, and laid him in ing offices of hardship and notoriety, with which her the sepulcher, woman was there, and watching, beheld || heaven-given, womanly nature, seemed to me wholly where he was laid. When the Sabbath was past, and incompatible." That the age of chivalry has passed the morning of the first day of the week dawned on from Europe, Mr. Jewett remarks, "No thousand 16 Original. CHRISTIAN HOPE. BY REV. M. P. GADDIS. swords leaped from their scabbards, to save the beautiful Marie Antoinette. In Munich, a woman does the work of a printer's devil. In Vienna, I have seen her making mortar, carrying hods, digging cellars and wheeling forth the clay; and there have I also seen females harTHE sun was setting as Louisa and her young friend nassed with a man, nay, with a dog, and once even went out to gather flowers. They wandered to the with a jack-ass, to a cart, dragging the same through grave-yard, and resting in its cypress shades, gazed with the most public streets of the metropolis. In Dresden, emotion on the monuments of the dead. All around she saws and splits wood, drags coal about the city in a was calculated to stir the deep fountains of affection little wagon, and wheels eatables for miles through the in their bosoms. Their hearts grew faint while memhighways to the market, in a large barrow. In Eng-ory dwelt on scenes of death which each had already land, it is well known, that her position is, generally witnessed, and on the relics of friends treasured in the speaking, less degrading than on the Continent. And yet in England her duties and vocations are confounded graves around them. They felt as they gazed, that and mingled up with those of the stronger sex." Mr. 66 "Tears might sooner cease to flow, Jewett has not here described the few thousands in the Louisa broke the silence, and exclaimed, "Our friends higher walks of life, but the many millions. My shall live again." The expression fell upon her young eye," says he, "is not on the little summit of a pyra- companion's heart like dew on fainting flowers. In an mid, but upon its broad base and large center." instant, enrapturing faith supplanted the chill despair with which, in a moment of forgetfulness, they had contemplated the tokens of the conquests of death. Our missionaries, who have explored pagan lands, "Where the heathen, in his blindness, Bows down to wood and stone," portray, in melancholy colors, the condition of woman Oppression and servitude are her inheritance. In southeastern Asia, a land smiling in the ceaseless verdure of the tropics, she is doomed to toil unprotected from the rays of a vertical sun, regarded as without a soul by her master. I will not enlarge. The sad story of woman's wrongs, where the true God is not worshiped, is, or should be, familiar to my fair readers; and heavenly aspirations to God should arise from every devout heart, that the sacrifice of a Jones, Newell, and a Judson, may be sanctified to the redemption of their sisters from the servility and degradation of paganism. Daughters of Columbia, your lines have fallen to you in pleasant places-you have a goodly heritage. The subject of female education-liberal and thorough female education-is being agitated, and the best discrimination in the land abhors the charge of woman's mental inferiority. Seminaries are multiplying, opening their portals, and offering every facility for thorough intellectual and religious culture. Finally, the Ladies' Repository is successfully contending for that kind of reading which will prove a healthful succedaneum to those frothy issues of the press, ycleped "light literature." But let our female friends remember, that increased privileges heighten our responsibilities. Living in a land favorable to the right formation of character, and the exercise of a broad and benign influence, let them act in view of the assize, where all shall be judged "according to the deeds done in the body." ཁར་་་ "SWEET are the sounds that mingle from afar, "True," continued Louisa, "by the resurrection of Christ we are assured that this dust shall be reanimated, and these wrecked and moldering forms shall live and glow in strength and beauty." "Yes," said her friend, "the roses which blush on these hillocks, and the wild flowers in the spaces between, are faint emblems of the graces which shall spring up from these sepulchers of the dead." They proceeded in a strain of chastened joy to speak of the glory which shall be revealed in the saints, "At the great rising day." The resurrection of the body is a thing revealed. Heathenism did not conjecture it. When Socrates was about to drink the poisoned cup, his friends asked him what disposition they should make of his body? He was offended to think they should be at all concerned about it. "O!" said he, "the body! poor body! I care nothing about it!" Socrates was not cheered in his last moments by the hope of the resurrection from the dead. There was in Christ's day a diversity of opinions in regard to the resurrection. Some affirmed that "it was past already;" others mocked, and not a few "thought it a thing incredible that God should raise the dead." But this doctrine is now generally believed. The Scriptures clearly inculcate it. It was made known to Job, to the prophet Isaiah, and to many others under the Old Testament dispensation. But it is more distinctly revealed in the New Testament; which affirms that there will be a re- THE TOMB OF BIGELOW. will be changed and fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. To the wicked the resurrection will be a curse. Those who have done evil, "shall come forth to the resurrection of damnation." To the righteous, the resurrection will be an indescribable blessing. His happiness will then be fully consummated. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." How consoling this truth to those who "mourn departed friends." And who among us has not been bereaved? Our fathers, where are they? Many of us can exclaim, with David, “Lover and friend thou hast put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." Our parents, who watched over us in infancy, and guided our errant youth-brothers and sisters, who once shared our joys and griefs, have gone to the spirit land. But Jesus died and rose again; and them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. Death shall not always have dominion over them. The voice of the Son of God shall call them forth. We shall meet them again "Beyond the flight of time, Beyond the reign of death." TO MY INFANT. FROM WORDSWORTH. THE days are cold, the nights are long, The kitten sleeps upon the hearth, Nay! start not at that sparkling light; And wake when it is day. ་ ྂ 9 ཀྱངང་་ཁས PATIENCE. Down, stormy passions, down; no more Whose soft spells charm a troubled breast; Original. THE TOMB OF BIGELOW. "The storm that wrecks the winter's sky, 123 THE grave of the Rev. Russell Bigelow is situated in a retired, but beautiful spot, in the Columbus City Burying Ground-a spot where my youthful footsteps have often roved, to gather the lily and the buttercup. hallowed resting-place of a "disciple whom Jesus In that field of the slumbering dead, may be found the loved." No mourning cypress, or drooping willow, or fragrant rose-tree, designates the spot; but a neat marble slab shelters the resting-place of his remains. His tomb may be thus described: On the surface of his grave lies a slab of dark-colored, chiseled stone, which supports six pillars of colored marble, beautifully but simply wrought. On these pillars rests a slab of marble of snowy whiteness, six feet in length, and three in breadth, the edges of which are elegantly molded, the surface finely polished; the whole presenting a plain, but tasteful aspect. It cost about one hundred dollars, and owes its crection to the kind regards of a few special friends, who held in high estimation his moral worth and rare endowments. It bears the following inscription, designed to perpetuate the memory of departed greatness, the relics of which it has the honor to enshrine. "SACRED TO THE MEMORY of the REV. RUSSELL BIGELOW, Who for more than thirty years was a follower of Christ, And more than twenty, A faithful minister of his Word. He was born in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, 1793, And died in Columbus, July 1st, 1835. 'He shall shine as the stars, For ever and ever."" What recollections, mournfully pleasing, rush upon the minds of thousands at the name of Bigelow. Though his voice is hushed in death, yet in fancy we still seem to hear those thrilling peals of eloquence from lips on which hung in breathless admiration and awe enraptured throngs. O how many have listened, trembled. and wept, while he urged upon their consciences the claims of religion, throwing around it the interests of an endless duration. How impressive was the doctrine of eternal life, dropping like dew from his persuasive lips. "It was the harp of David, which, struck by his skillful hand, sent forth more than mortal sounds." He descended to the tomb honored and beloved by a whole generation. "High in the temple of the living God |