own family, that outsiders feel de trop, which of course is a fault on the other side.  If we have happy homes, it is a trust for the use of others; we can give a home feeling to those who are less fortunate as they pass by us, like the swallow flying through the lighted hall.  Lonely people may gain a sense of home from this large-heartedness in the happy, a feeling of rest and repose, which is the very essence of the atmosphere I should like my Virtuous Woman to shed around her; she must “do good by effluvia;” in her home, “roof and fire are types only of a nobler light and shade—­shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea.  And wherever a true wife comes this home is always round her.  The stars only may be over her head, the glowworm in the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot:  yet home is wherever she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far around her, better than ceiled with cedar or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far for those who else were homeless.”

Let us now consider the Virtuous Woman verse by verse.  Solomon is describing a rich woman with an “establishment,” a sphere and husband and children, as if a woman’s life was not complete without this.  And no more it is; it may be very useful and very beautiful, but it is not complete.  Girls are often blamed for thinking too much about marriage:  I think they do not do it enough,—­at least in the right way; you are not fit to be wives now, and you should aim at becoming so, and to do that, you must be fit to manage your house and to teach your children; if you fit yourselves to be perfect wives, you will at least be very perfect old maids, and find plenty to do for other people’s children!  But your life would then be incomplete.  St. Paul is misquoted when his words in Cor. vii. 34 are used to condemn marriage; our Lord puts it before all other earthly ties, and it is used as a type of His love for His Church, which should guard us from two errors in connection with it.  If married love is to be a type, however faint, of Christ’s love for His Church, there must be no unworthiness connected with it; “no inner baseness we would hide;” no marrying for the sake of being married, for the dignity and position, or the worldly advantages it may bring; and there must be no matchmaking or flirtation that a woman need be ashamed of afterwards.  “Let the wife see that she reverence her husband,” says St. Paul, and the husband must be able to reverence her.  And there must be no selfishness, no getting entangled in engagements that must bring trouble on others; to marry for money is degrading, but a woman may redeem it by being a good wife; to marry without money means debt, which is irretrievably degrading, and is altogether selfish instead of romantic.

But, married or single, rich or poor, Solomon’s Virtuous Woman gives us principles to go on.

“The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.”  Is not trustworthiness a main point in those we respect?  Do we not require our Virtuous Woman to be reliable, not to repeat what we say to her, not to forget her promises, in short, that we know “where to have her”?