purse to open at the call of benevolence; it is in vain, even, that there is a painful and laborious effort in the discharge of some duties, or an apparent zeal in the one good cause; unless there is a tone of excellence pervading the character, and evincing its daily fruits in domestic and social life, we are struck by the deficiency, and are more inclined to find fault with it, than to admire the incidental virtue.

The proficiency, however, of which we have been speaking, is not of sudden or of easy attainment. Amid the trials and temptations which assail us here, how highly blessed are they, who are enabled, through Divine grace, to persevere in the right path without retrogression! But, in the appointed means of spiritual improvement, the female Christian will seek renewal of her strength, and, setting before her her high exemplar, will not be satisfied without an approach to it. It is this which will stimulate her to duty, purify her wishes, and exalt her hopes; and whilst it is to her a motive for daily progress, it will also act as a remembrancer that her recompense is above, and consists in a full and entire assimilation to that

perfect model, to which she is now faintly and feebly approximating. She will pursue her course, it may be, through discouragement and difficulty; but she will be cheered by the prospect that is before her ;—and her latest thought will be, an anticipation of that entire union to Divine excellence, for which she is educating here.

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CHAP. VI.

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIVE OF FEMALE

CHARACTER.

We

BESIDES the blessing which Christianity is to us as a motive for our moral improvement, it is also most valuable as a rule of conduct. are not left, merely to the influence of its principles on the heart; the effect which they ought to have is specified, and we are thus furnished. with a test, by which we may judge how far we are really affected by them, and also with directions to assist us in their practical result.

These directions, no less than the doctrines with which they are so nearly allied, have the Divine sanction; and attest, like them, the wisdom and goodness of their Author. They are given in a way the best calculated to interest and influence, and are of as universal an application, as the principles from which they spring.

The manner in which woman is noticed in the practical parts of Scripture accords with the place she is allowed to hold in the Christian economy. The precepts which are to regulate female conduct are equally precise with those which apply to the other sex, and the examples equally instructive.

We cannot, indeed, but be peculiarly struck with the natural and appropriate, as well as beautiful, delineation of female character in Scripture. No point is overcharged, — no virtue exaggerated. The portrait is the more affecting because it is so like. It is the gentle, tender, and feeling woman whom we meet with in real life; and though the sublime situations in which she is placed, as well as the language and imagery of Scripture, invest the heroine of the Bible with a peculiar charm, she is not so highly raised above ordinary circumstances, as not to provoke our sympathy, and invite our imitation.

On this account the illustrations of the sacred volume are of the highest value. The female Christian, who is familiar with them, needs few other models. Besides the chasteness and sim

plicity which characterise these examples, there is a detail about them which is not only graphically true, but practically instructive. It is not merely by their prophetic visions, or inspired songs, that we are made acquainted with the female worthies of the ancient church; we converse with them in their homes; we see them in the discharge of family and social functions; and we find, in general, that those who were the most highly honoured by Divine favour, were the most blameless and amiable, according to our ideas of female excellence.

The Bible might, therefore, be recommended were it only for its moral illustrations; and those who think lightly of its mysteries are often not without appreciation of its value in this point of view. But mutilation, whilst it robs the Christian system of its beauty, spoils its effect. There is no part independent of another: take it in its perfect gradation, the harmony is complete; but the abstraction of a single principle cannot be, without prejudice to the whole.

On the contrary, those who receive the truths of Scripture on the sanction of their Author, and, therefore, give due weight to every part,