and gratefully acknowledged.  It was proposed to give Miss Nightingale a public reception; but, with true modesty, she shrunk from appearing in any other than her own character of nurse and soother, and at once passed into retirement.  But that retirement was not allowed to be unproductive.  So soon as her health, which was at all times delicate, and had suffered considerably in the Crimea, had been somewhat restored, she set to work to render the fruits of her experience useful to the world.  In 1859 she produced her “Hints on Nursing,” one of the most useful and practical little books ever published.  In it she showed how much might be done, even with small means, and in the midst of manifold difficulties and discouragements; and it is no small triumph to the advocates of female labor, in proper spheres, that Florence Nightingale and her friends have shown that, as a nurse and comforter on the field of battle, woman may work out her mission quietly and unostentatiously, without, at the same time, interfering with the occupations of the other sex.  In Florence Nightingale we have an example of a lady bred in the lap of luxury, and educated in the school of wealth and exclusiveness, breaking down the barriers of custom, and proving to the world that true usefulness belongs to no particular rank, age, or station, but is the privilege of all Eve’s daughters, and that any employment sanctified by devotion and fervor and earnest desire to do good is essentially womanly and graceful, and fitting alike to the inheritors of wealth or poverty.

That the absence of feminine influence must tend to materialize, to sensualize, and to harden, must, we think, be admitted by all the thoughtful.  Woman is instituted by God the guardian of the heart as man is of the mind.  How many husbands, sons, and brothers, driven and driving, through life in the absorbing excitement of a professional or mercantile career, can testify to the arresting, reposeful, humanizing atmosphere of a home where the wife, mother, or sister exerts her kindly sway; and it is as necessary to the immaterial interests of a nation, to the prevention of the legislative mind and executive hands being completely swallowed up in the actual, the present, the mechanical, the sensible, that some counteracting influence should be allowed and encouraged similar to that of woman in her home.

To show the influence for good of associations of women for charitable ends, Mrs. Jameson, in “Sisters of Charity at Home and Abroad,” has collected accounts from history and biography of many Romanist orders of sisters, besides vindicating and putting forward Miss Nightingale and her companions as examples.  She would not for the world that the woman should aspire to be the man, and aim at a masculine independence for which she was never meant; and we thank the noble champion of Protestant sisterhoods for disclaiming connection with any who want her to take part in the public and prominent life of society, so to speak.  It is co-operation that is insisted upon—­the ministering influence of the woman with the business tact of the man.  In prisons, hospitals, work-houses, and lunatic asylums the influence of well-trained women, to soften rigor, charm routine, beguile poverty, and tranquilize distraction is often wanted; not so much to talk as to think, feel, and do.