In such words did King Lemuel praise this excellency of woman.  Blessed memory!  Who does not remember that one form of the old-fashioned mother,—­the law of whose life was love; one who was the divinity of our infancy, and the sacred presence in the shrine of our first earthly idolatry; one whose heart was ever green, though the snows of time had gathered in the boughs of her life-tree; one to whom we never grow old, but in the plumed troop or the grave council are children still; one who welcomed us coming, blessed us going, and forgets us never; one who waits for the echo of our returning footstep, or who, perhaps, has gone on to the better land, and keeps a light in the window for those left behind.

Such women have power now as did the Hannahs and the Ruths of the olden time.  When thinking of them, you are convinced that, young or old, they remain among the best of God’s gifts to man.  This leads us to remark further, that woman’s right to be a woman implies her right to help woman.  Woman must be true to her sex, or society will neglect its duty.  That old story of Ruth and Naomi has ploughed through the world, because it reveals woman’s power as a helper.  Ruth clung to Naomi, and Naomi helped her daughter to find Boaz, that noble prince in Israel; and so she became identified with the succession of promise.  The life of Mrs. Sigourney illustrates the same truth.  See her among the young, calling forth their powers, and starting them in a career of usefulness.  Impressed with the importance of an education, she aided by her pen, as by her example, to induce the ladies of her acquaintance to obtain a thorough knowledge of the primary branches that enter into daily use.

We want a woman to be intellectual without being puny.  We ask that she remain a pliant vine, and that she be not made into the rugged oak.

Woman owes it to herself that she be fitted to occupy any position in society.  In this land, as in no other, the barriers of caste are removed, and every line of separation obliterated.  The rich and the poor meet together.

The cultured sewing-girl is quite likely to become the wife of the future millionnaire; and the lady reared in the midst of every luxury, and endowed with a fortune, amid the reverses of fortune may be compelled to draw upon her own resources of labor, and of love, and culture, to stay up the hands and encourage the heart of the man more than ever dependent upon her for happiness and hope.

Such a woman Irving must have painted when he wrote, “I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune.  Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and devotion to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity.”

Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness, and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness, while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortunes, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blasts of adversity.