of the chief ends of your education has been, to give you the trained intellect, that you may quickly and correctly discern, in each relation and circumstance of life—from day to day, and from hour to hour—what is the work that you are called upon to do. Another chief aim has been to give you that disciplined self-command that will enable you—not lazily putting it off till a more convenient season—to do it at once, and to do it thoroughly and well.

If you have here gained or strengthened the habit of industry, preserve it to the end. Without labor, there is no excellence and no happiness. It is the most vulgar of all vulgar errors, that a lady is a person who does nothing. Such a person would be good for nothing, and miserable indeed. Work, however, is of many kinds; work of the brain, and work of the heart, as well as work of the hands; and the humblest kind is not the hardest.

It is another vulgar error, that work is degrading. Labor was imposed on our fallen race, because it was fallen; but the decree went forth more in pity than in anger. Work was not imposed upon the angels, for they needed no such compulsion. Angelic natures work willingly and cheerfully; and how is the idea that to do nothing is a desirable thing, reconciled with the sublime words, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work."

In the description of the woman of old, it is said: "In her tongue, is the law of kindness;" and this I would most earnestly entreat you to emulate, believing that few things would conduce more to your usefulness and happiness. Saint James tells us that "if any man seemeth to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, this man's religion is vain." Elsewhere in his Epistle, you may learn how difficult a thing he conceives this to be. It requires a perfect control of one's self, and a large charity. Of the former, we hope that you have gained something here; the other, you can gain somewhat from experience, but in perfection only from the grace of God.

I would have your conversation governed by the charity of which the Apostle Paul saith, that it "suffereth long and is kind; envieth not; vaunteth not itself; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil." This kindness of spirit, this charity, is a high Christian grace; but it might almost be taught by experience, seeing how little we really know the motives that sway the human soul, and how often the severe judgments which we pronounce on our fellow-mortals, have to be reconsidered with much pain and self humiliation, when perhaps it is forever too late to right the wrong, and to recompense the suffering that we have occasioned.

Friendships broken, causeless enmities, opportunities for doing good and getting good thrown away, too often teach us—too late to prevent, to ourselves and to others, much lasting injury—the value of the law of kindness as the law of our words. Especially is this law of kindness needed in the speech of woman, whose hasty, thoughtless words can influence to fury the pride and wrath of man, and set on fire his heart with the fires of hell. Dissensions in families, hatred between neighbors, enmity between states and nations, follow when woman's tongue embitters man's jealousy and passion.

If the sphere of woman is hereafter to be enlarged, we all should more earnestly hope, and more fervently pray, that she may everywhere carry with her "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."

What is the characteristic in woman that should most fasten the affections, and secure the esteem, of man? Is it the varying charm of manner, or beauty of person? The Scripture before us, answers these questions in a few decisive words: "Favor is deceitful,"—that is, an unsatisfying thing—"and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised."

I know few things, even in