She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight.
And now I see, with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveler betwixt life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warm, to comfort, and command
And yet a spirit still, and bright,
With something of an angel light.--Wordsworth.
"Man is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the
glory of the man," says the great Book. This is so true that most of the
charities and mercies for which mankind gets credit in his own moral
intelligence are inspired by the charitable and merciful attributes so
characteristic of true womanhood. Campbell, in the "Pleasures of Hope,"
speaks thus of the Garden of Paradise:
The world was sad--the garden was a wild,
And man, the hermit, sighed, till woman smiled.
And lovely woman has smiled forever. Into the lot of life she has put
all that has endeared it or made it tolerable; into the hope of the
hereafter she has ever breathed the breath of life and kept it a living
force. Besides the charms she has for man as a thing of superexcellent
beauty, woman has ever held him in the second greatest debt he owes. She
teaches him, not less, a greater debt (to God), and brings him before
that Chief Creditor with little thought of her own dues. Upon