But still heavier trials befall this sex in their homes. Sickness visits the loved. By the midnight lamp, the wife bathes an husband's burning brow; or the mother administers draughts to the parched lips of a daughter. To what fears is she then and there subject? Tediously roll the long hours. Not the body alone sinks, but the spirit at length faints. For the conviction is forced on her mind that life is endangered. Suspicion yields to apprehension; that again grows into argument. The physician shows signs of doubt; friends whisper anxieties. Swayed for a season between hope and fear, at length, the dread certainty comes over her. She must part with this being, dear as her own life. The fatal stroke is near; the hour arrives. Gone forever from mortal eyes is she, in whom blent
"All images of comforter and friend, The fireside charmer, and the nurse of pain, Eyes to the blind, and, to the weary, wings. What shall console"
The survivor? To whom can we commend her who thus mourns the riven tie of a mother's love? Where is the solace for the dependent, affectionate female, who weeps over the ashes of a departed parent? A sister is at her brother's grave. Pleasant was their love, and who can assuage these bitter tears? The husband,--deepest of all life's bereavements,--perhaps it is he, for whom the funeral wail is now heard. What can time, and dust, and this tomb of earth, minister to her, who sits in the freshness of widowhood?
The catalogue of your trials, my friends, may seem to some already prolonged. But have I not left much unsaid? Did _you_ guide the pen, secrets of grief could be revealed, all unknown but to your sex. But enough has been written to persuade the thoughtful, that suffering must be to woman a thing of fearful account. Our afflictions, it has been well said, never leave us as they found us. We are always either hardened, or improved, by the discipline of Providence. The question then with woman, what use she is making of her trials, is one of the deepest concern. She has peculiar griefs; whence can she gain strength to endure them?
Woman needs every support that God has placed within her reach. She requires, first, Mental Culture. This will give her strength of mind, power to discern the true relations of our nature. A narrow mind cannot comprehend the great scheme of Providence. If it submit to his will, there is still much blindness in the act. A fuller trust would come from enlarged conceptions of duty and life. She, who enjoys reading, can beguile many a sad hour, by a useful volume. How many are prostrated by domestic afflictions, for the want of that mental discipline, by which they might fix the eye of faith steadily on Heaven. The grave absorbs their thoughts; they want energy to turn from the body, and contemplate the sainted spirit.