pathy which the intricacies of their position peculiarly demand. Our intention is, simply, to offer a few practical and suggestive hints to single women, how they may best put their shoulder to the wheel-their hearts to the work set before them, thus becoming "God's operatives," instead of spending money for that which is not bread, and labour for that which satisfieth not.

For this work, apparently so solitary, many of the elements of social and home work are required. The single woman must, more than any other, struggle against the law of self, for her toil is not for the near and the dear; it may not be met with love, and may fail in calling forth affection; it is for those, only connected with her by the wide, though unseen, family tie, which makes all her brothers and her sisters. Whenever a single woman resolutely devotes herself to the service of God in all its parts, she must become fully assured of her own position of its strength, its dignity, and its advantages. She must remember that it is her portion,-spoken of by the Apostle with respect and admiration,-to serve the Lord without carefulness." She must take to herself the encouragement, that even the solitary and the unappreciated has more weight in the social economy of the times than she has hitherto dreamed of; and that though her place and her influence may be as unmarked as the dew of the forest, or as the star of the galaxy, yet, if she fulfil not her mission, there

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will be a diminution of the strength and the light of

society.

The mission of the single woman is, in a great measure, to her own sex. There is a reproach hanging over it which she alone can take away. God has bestowed upon woman independent gifts and graces wherewith she may bring glory to Him. Forming so large a portion of society, it would have been inconsistent with His tender wisdom, had He left woman, when independent of man, a useless cipher, a discontented and objectless being. To look attentively upon society, however, it might be supposed that marriage is the great end of life, and that the unmarried have failed in the great mission intended for them. Their name and position are considered legitimate objects of raillery and ridicule, to escape from which many a woman is driven to attempt to establish herself in life," as it is called-equally degrading, whether successful or the reverse. Whenever a single woman so lives as to rebut these calumnies and disprove this necessity, she is doing a great work; when she is seen to be loved, and occupied, and happy, and respected, she is encouraging her sisterhood to be so likewise. She is a practical warning against the yoke of joyless and uncompanionable marriage, hastily assumed to escape from a position which she has proved capable of being a joyful and useful one. She is an example of the needlessness of entering those conventual establish

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ments, half-way between England and Rome, where women, fleeing from their single responsibilities, may set themselves where God has not set them-in families—or, weary of social insignificance, may place themselves upon a pinnacle.

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Another portion of social work belongs peculiarly to the old maid." It is hers to redeem her sisters from the imputation of being peculiarly guilty of "idle words," harsh judgments, and a proverbially strict surveillance over others. The heart that does not go out in love, will not feed upon itself alone, it will unlovingly press upon those around. The thoughts that do not perform their holy mission of meditating good for others, will become receptacles of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness-the words that are not sanctified will speak but of gossip and censoriousness. Every time, therefore, that the single woman, both by precept and example, attempts to stem and sweeten the waters of Marah, and to lead her sisters to perform the gentle charities of life, and to speak of things of beauty, and joy, and goodness, instead of the exaggerated story-the evil motive. taken from their own hearts,* imputed and discussed, she is doing no ignoble work for God: she is proving "that there is nothing on earth more tender than a woman's heart when it is the abode of piety.”

Another work to which the single woman may specially devote herself, and to which she is often * "Self-knowledge makes us uncharitable."-MASON.

proverbially disinclined, is the exercise of love and influence over the young. Pleasant it is to see an "old maid,” with, perchance, no external attraction but the sunshine of a gentle smile, no accomplishment but the music of a sweet tongue, amusing and instructing happy groups of children. Her influence over the youthful of her own sex may be strong; nay, we could imagine it to be, in some respects, greater than the maternal. Frequently, the mother, exhausted by the wear and tear of commonplace cares, or absorbed with the interests of her happy home, forgets the struggles and sorrows of her early life; she is disposed to view lightly the youthful trials of others, and to expect them to be as transient as her own now appear in her eyes. But the woman of no present ties remembers vividly the difficulties and dangers of the past; she can recall every rock and current in the stream of life, and none are better fitted to speak words of hope and warning to the dejected and the struggling. She can take them back to sorrows borne, and disappointments blessed; she can tell how great the "boon of suffering" is to woman; she can point to the refuge for the lonely, to the rest for the weary, so that, although none on earth can call her by the sweet name of mother, yet she may say in heaven, "Behold here I am, and the children which Thou hast given me.' It is beautiful to see the young and the old, the home-dweller and the isolated, thus clinging to each other, creating a new beauty,

and a new affection, and embellishing each other, like the sere leaves and the green of the beechen wood.

Nor is this all,-the single woman has yet another mission. She has a great debt to assist in paying. Although father and brother may be silent in the grave, and the lover of her youth may have passed from her, yet has she an influence to wield over man, a power to "help" him in his career. To use the words of a modern writer-"Il n'est pas bon que l'homme soit seul; je lui ferai un aide semblable à lui.' Ceci s'applique à toute femme, non à la femme mariée seulement. Car Eve n'apparait pas seulement ici comme la femme du premier homme, mais encore comme la première femme; et solidaire de tout son sexe, ainsi qu'Adam l'est du nôtre, elle en offre dans sa personne le type et une sorte de miniature. Honteuse d'elle-même et jalouse de se réhabiliter, la femme ne vivra plus que pour réparer le mal qu'elle a fait à l'homme, en lui prodiguant, avec les consolations qui peuvent adoucir l'amertume présente du péché, les avertissements qui peuvent en prévenir l'amertume éternelle."*

It may be objected that this influence requires the aids of youth, beauty, talents, and self-confidence, which the middle-aged and the solitary do not possess. Not so it requires but the moral youth and beauty bestowed by the graces of the Spirit; it re

* "La Femme; Deux discours par Adolphe Monod."

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