The end and aim of female education is precisely the same among all classes of society, only under different relations and modified circumstances.

As to her heart and spirit the Bride must remain bride after she has assumed her marriage vows. This is a point of vast importance. If the young lady has been educated a Bride, she will retain her bridal ornaments, chastity, purity, and a spotless innocence, to the close of her life. A wife of the proper character, must remain a virgin during life, a pure unblemished bride in the spiritual sense. But how can she possibly become such a bride, adorned with the garlands of perpetual virginity, if she is educated simply for a wife and a mother and nothing more? Is not this placing sense above spirit, and time above eternity? Can that which is the mature fruit of a life-time be given as a moral dowry to the newly married couple in the form of rules and directions? Never. The conclusion of the whole matter is simply this. The young lady must be educated for a choice of position and activity, a choice which requires her to fill every temporal and spiritual relation. Chiefly, first of all, she is to become a heavenly Bride, a spouse of Jesus Christ.

Let us carry out a little farther this comparison between the earthly and the heavenly bride. My dear friend, after what do your pious longings unceasingly aspire? Is it not that your heart and spirit should continuously be buried in the abyss of of a Saviour's love, in order that you might become spiritually one with Him? Is it not your ardent desire that you might find the principle and fountain of your mysterious spiritual life in His love, which fondly blends your spirits into one? Would you not guard with sleepless vigilance the unspotted ties with which you are wedded to the blessed Redeemer? Ah yes, neither time nor space can weaken the bonds of this hallowed union. The longer you remain a spiritual bride upon the earth; the longer you continue with melancholy impatience to press and aspire after this higher marriage with the Saviour, the more your enjoyments will partake of the unspeakable sweetness of heavenly bliss. Would you not cling to the incarnate person of the divine Redeemer as your adorable heavenly Bridegroom, with all the intensity of your affections, and repose in Him with the submissive confidence and reverence of a heavenly bride? Do you not continuously shrink from a compliance with the codes and customs of the world, and have you not a disposition to love and obey the Saviour? What else is this but the happy relation of a Spouse of Christ? Do you not hope with the heavenly yearning of a true bride that sooner or later

He will take you home into His Kingdom above? Happy marriage! Happy home! In whose midst the sun and centre of love will shine with unclouded effulgence long after the hopes and homes of earth will have perished. Happy, thrice happy the young lady or the wife, who retains her bridal purity uninjured and untarnished to the end of life. "Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him." "As many as are ready can go in with Him to the marriage;" all that are "sick of love," the true heavenly brides still lingering on the shores of time, these can enter in to the Marriage supper of the Lamb. In my opinion the highest aim of the child, virgin, wife and venerable matron, during every part and period of their life, is the unceasing aspiration after this heavenly marriage in our "Father's house." Especially since this relation can never be fully consummated in our present state.

Now, my dear friend, consider for a moment this view of the subject in its bearings upon the several examples to which we have already alluded. The daughter of the poor man could and should be educated a spiritual bride, and thus be qualified for a marriage with the heavenly Bridegroom. I spoke of the general virtues which would commend her as a suitable and pleasant companion to her future husband. But what are these virtues, faith, love, obedience, humility, moral purity, innocence, renunciation of the world, and a self-sacrificing spirit, what are all these but the bridal ornaments found and furnished only in Jesus Christ? If these graces of the spirit, even in the humblest walks of life, combining to commend a young lady to the love and choice of a worthy young man, and still should not be chosen by any and thus remain unmarried, these same graces will at the same time give her an undoubted claim to some worthy and respectable situation, in which she can fulfil a noble calling and secure a temporal subsistence.

The daughter of the wealthy mechanic shall become a bride. of heaven, whether she enter the domestic relations of a wife, or remain unmarried and devote herself to some other useful calling. I need not further remind you that the more you elevate the spiritual culture among the different classes of society, the more you elevate and hallow their spiritual relation to Christ. Your amiable Augustina would perhaps be far happier if she never would be wedded to a harsh and unpolished husband. This thought has often filled me with painful apprehensions. Every tract and lineament of her person and character show that she possesses the elements of a heavenly Bride. But alas! What mothers we meet with in our times! They

have but one idea, with reference to the education of their daughters; it the central thought of all their maternal instructions and warnings, around which all their hopes and fears revolve, and that is a splendid, prosperous marriage. Whether they rock the innocent babe in the cradle, or prepare the young lady for boarding school, whether they see her skipping on the village green or shining in the social party, they think of a beau, a bride and bliss. In all their cares and prayers, the future marriage of their daughters is the burden of their anxieties. Their highest conception of duty is the securing of matrimonial honors and happiness to their daughters. This they think is the Eden of women, in which the heavenly flowers of her tender, loving heart, will unfold and bloom beneath an unclouded sky with undying freshness. The daughter is taught to value this as the very pinnacle of happiness, the quintessence. of heavenly bliss. After this her soul must unceasingly aspire. For the attainment of the nuptial crown secures a perennial fountain of unmingled joys; but let her once cross the Rubicon of hope, and she must droop, waste and wither under the insupportable anguish of viewing the present and the future through the "blue" spectacles of an old maid. Such a doom they must dread with as much honor as they would dread death.

Thus their maternal fancy will conjure up hordes of hideous harpies whose frightful mien continually fills their unsuspecting hearts with terrific alarm. Their future looks threatening, and the only question with them is how to evade the monstrous fangs. The mother of course must furnish the weapons with which to fight this man of straw, the creature of her unblushing folly. She instructs these blooming, innocent virgins, in the art of wooing. Equips them with rules and regulations in the tactics of courtship, furnishes them with false allurements and unreal charms, with which to carry on a successful warfare in the empire of Love. With these they are to win youthful hearts, as the fond trophies of their skill, and the infallible remedy for all the horrible heart-burnings and reproaches of unmarried life! What a training for an immortal being to be fitted for the skies!!

I once knew a widow lady who daily wept tears of bitter anguish in the very presence of her daughter and a stranger; who sobbed and sighed because her daughter had no prospects of getting a husband. She cruelly charged her with stupid ignorance, and thus with her shameless folly embittered the life of a beautiful, amiable young lady, already fading with declining health. Soon, alas! far too soon, she mourned over the loss

of her once lovely daughter, but never regretted for a moment
that she had failed to educate her for an unfading Bride of
Heaven. Just think, this widow yet became the mother-in-law
This is literally
of a distinguished, or at least a wealthy son.
And this woman was a diligent reader and admirer of

true.
Jean Paul!

O that in these material, turbulent times, when sight and sense have taken the place of faith and spirit; when carnal impulses are made the principle of love, instead of believing that "God is Love," would that in these times we could inscribe upon the tablet of every mother's heart in letters of living light the glorious heaven-born truth, "Marriages are formed and finished in Heaven. Neither father or mother can do anything better to secure the happy marriage of a daughter, than to educate her for heaven, and thus derive the preparation and principle for her marriage-love from above and not from beneath."

Ah yes, but also in Marriages are formed in Heaven? Hell! Formed in hell for the endless punishment and pain of hearts united with unsanctified marriage ties! They that have not been reared and educated for Heaven, but for the groveling, gloomy, sensual pleasures of the present life, such can only be attractive to young men of similar inclinations, the servants of sense and sin. Alas! how can the blessed light of Heaven shed its cheering, life-giving influence upon a marriage connection, composed of the sinful sensual elements of graceless unsanctified hearts! But every virgin reared for a heavenly bride, is amply prepared to be chosen as the wife of a virtuous young man, of congenial affections and disposition of heart. Or should a young man not be satisfied with that which merits the apShould he not be attracted by a bride proval of Heaven? whose charms are sufficient to attract "the Lord of glory?" Every wife, that possesses and preserves untarnished the purity of heavenly virginity, must and will become a faithful and affectionate mother in the true sense, if God should favor her with a family. Can there be a worthier object for the loftiest aspirations of christian parents, a higher aim and end of maternal education, than to rear and educate their beloved offspring as children of heaven and not of earth? Can a mother, whose confiding heart clings to Jesus with unyielding devotion, can she permit her children to become the subjects and slaves of sin and Satan? Never will she feel at ease until she beholds them safely moored in the heaven of the Saviour's loving heart. What an enchanting loveliness plays upon the face and features of a

virgin led to the altar? Her person is invested with the charms of a mysterious loveliness which beggars description. She leans upon the arm of her beloved, while the unbidden blush of modesty steals playfully over her cheeks. She looks confidingly, and sees his countenance beaming with love and fond attachment, feels consciously that he is the stay and support of her weakness and wants, the joyful companion and partner of her life. She still lives in a world of enigmas. She sails over a sea of mysterious uncertainties. Now her heart beats calmly with undisturbed peace; then again she looks tremblingly into the future. Love prompts her actions, beams from her countenance, and animates her heart. But it is a love which reveals itself in spiritual power, and even there blushingly seeks to conceal itself; a love which prompts her to offer herself and all that she has at the shrine of her beloved, which neither values nor desires the interests of sense and sin. This, O friend, is the happy bride of a man, a perishing mortal man, and the prospect of such a communion of loving genial spirits, sheds peace and comfort over many an unhappy heart. The mere sight of such a happy couple is itself a source of happiness. And yet the love of the bride to the bridegroom is limited and clogged by temporal relations. It is by no means free from trembling misgivings, the uneasy forebodings of being blemished by the conditions of time and sense.

But behold the countenance of a heavenly bride, whose eyes sparkle with the joys of a spiritual love. She does not simply lean upon the arm of her bridegroom, but He dwells within as the stay and staff of her soul. Though He sits enthroned at the right hand of the majesty on high, he at the same time sways His loving sceptre over the domain of her heart. Her affections, her confidence and her faith, all centre in her heavenly friend. Christ is her guardian, Christ is her guide for this and the future life. He is her firm support in all the changes and weakness of her temporal relations. She still lives in a world of faith, and in a blessed hope of that glorious world, where faith shall change to sight. At one time she is happy in the consciousness of her vital union with the Redeemer; at another she is tremblingly alarmed by a sense of her frailties and need. of redemption. She looks beyond the world of time and toil into that eternity of light where dwells her beloved in peerless glory. Love to Christ is her vital breath. Holy love is the moving spring of all her actions, the animating principle of her heart, which loves all for the Lord's sake; which cares, pities, prays, sacrifices and suffers "in the Lord;" to which humility