Woman's mission.

Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Woman's mission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/180 (page 56)
    56‘ in them would be fatal to the best interest^ of society. How, then, are women to interfere in politics? As moral agents; as representatives of the moral principle; as champions of the right in preference to the expedient; by their endeavours to instil into their relatives of the other sex the uncom- promising sense of duty and self-devotion, which ought to be their ruling principles! The immense influence which women possess will be most bene- ficial, if allowed to flow in its natural channels, viz.—domestic ones,—because it is of the utmost importance to the existence of influence, that purity of motive be unquestioned. It is by no means affirmed, that women’s political feelings are always guided by the abstract principles of right and wrong; but they are surely more likely to be so, if they themselves are restrained from the public expression of them. Participation in scenes of popular emotion has a natural tendency to warpr conscience and overcome charity. Now conscience and charity (or love) are the very essence of woman’s beneficial influence; therefore everything tending to blunt the one and sour the other is- sedulously to be avoided by her. It is of the utmost importance to men to feel, in consulting a wife, a mother, or a sister, that they are appealing from their passions and prejudices, and not to them as embodied in a second self: nothing tends to give