and with these sentiments, that I so frequently suffer one chapter to run into and trench upon another. Such is the connection which I plainly perceive between health and morals, that I scarcely know how to separate them.

One word more. The wife should never forget, in any of her movements, that she is responsible, in no small degree, for the health of her husband, no less than of herself. None of us, says the Bible, liveth to himself, and none of us dieth to himself; and if this remark is peculiarly applicable in any relation of life short of that of brethren in the church, it is in matrimony. A great deal might be written-nay, a great deal has been written-to point out the proper means and methods in which and by which woman may discharge some of her relative duties. Enough for me, however, in this place, if I endeavor to see that she do not lose sight of her own happiness and that of her husband.

But it would require volumes to present, in detail, all the rules and directions which might properly be presented, in relation to the means of preserving and improving health. It would be to enter deeply into the philosophy of the human frame, in all its parts and functions, and to speak at length of exercise, temperature, air, sleep and dietetics. So closely, indeed, is our physical well

being dependent on the quantity and character of our food, that this alone requires a volume. All I can do in a work like the present, and, I trust, all that will be expected, will be, that I should barely allude to the subject. Of the importance of study, and of the instruments by which a course of study is to be pursued, I propose to say something in another place.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ATTENDING THE SICK.

Attending the sick should be a part of female education. Objections to this view considered. Reasons why females should be thus trained. Their native qualifications for this office. Their labor cheaper. They have stronger sympathies. Application of the principle to the case of the young wife.

THAT System of female education is wholly incomplete, which leaves neglected the art of nursing the sick. If it should be said that on this principle we have no perfect system of female education, I shall not object to the inference, nor attempt to lessen its force. I have long held, and still hold, the opinion, that every female should be taught the art of ministering at our bedside, and "binding the brow" in pain and in sickness.

The greatest known objection to this principle is, that it is sounder economy to expend our efforts in the way of preventing evil to the rising generation, in our own families and elsewhere, than to employ any large portions of our time in the correction of evils which have already arisen.

This objection would have more force, if the art of managing the sick required the expenditure of much time; but it does not. If we make the most in our power of the occurrences of life, in our own families and in the families of those around us, there is little danger that females will very soon be in want of opportunities for informing themselves in the art of attending the sick. I am as solicitous that we should be ready to serve our fellow beings, out of our own families, in cases of sickness, as I am that we should withhold our service and refuse that of our neighbors, in other circumstances.

The truth is, that as the world now is, every neighborhood of much size has, every year, if not almost every month, a greater or less amount of sickness. Sometimes the disease is slight, at others it is more severe. The art of rendering all our young ladies proper attendants on the sick consists in employing them whenever any sickness occurs, instead of requiring them, as is now the case almost universally, to stand at a distance.

"But shall we not, in this way, expose their health?" it may be asked. Expose their health! How? 66 Why, it always exposes our health to go among the sick," I shall be told. Not so fast, however. A little explanation is necessary.

It exposes our health to do anything beyond our strength, whether among the sick or the well. But in the ordinary circumstances of disease, there is no necessity that a female should go beyond her strength. Indeed, one prominent object of educating all females to the art of attending the sick is to prevent this. When there is only an individual here and there-one perhaps in a family, or sometimes only one in a neighborhood—that "understands sickness," as it is called, the danger of going beyond the strength is often considerable. But where every wife and daughter is equally qualified for the task, there is no necessity of the kind. Every hour of laborious employment can be alternated with several hours of relief or re-. laxation.

"But is it not true," you will perhaps ask, "that the sick room itself endangers the health, let our presence in it be ever so short?" Yes, it does, if there is a contagious disease, or if the room and its contents are not often enough ventilated. But contagion, in the usual acceptation of the term, is seldom present; and when it is, the danger of being affected by it is greatly heightened by our fears of it, and by the want of confidence. or courage which those who are newly initiated into the mysteries of the sick room almost always feel, and still more, by that over-fatigue to which,