ruption, which assumes a thousand amiable forms in order to contribute to their pleasures? Let us be just. Women, always secondary, and without hopes of acquiring glory, can only associate with our sex. It is for men to atchieve great things, it is for women to inspire them. Woe to them if we establish a vicious order; they could but be corrupted along with us, or else remain immaculate alone, in the midst of the general depravity, without power. ever to reform the state of society, or oppose themselves to the invasions of vice. One man may alone reform the manners of a community; but many virtuous females united have it not in their power. The first Romans owed, without doubt, a part of their energy, and of their virtues, to the precious qualities of this sex; but in order that women should inflame our minds, and excite us to worthy deeds, the inclination towards the good must be already determined. What influence had the Portias, and the Arias, in Rome when the empire was falling into decay? None. Let us not then require of the women what we cannot hope from them. They have understanding, and sometimes genius; too susceptible not to be agitated by passion; too volatile to form laws; to submit themselves is the greatest effort of which they are capable. To excite the object which they esteem to the love of glory ; to sacrifice, likewise, their sentiments to his honour, and his duty; to be our counsellors, our supporters, our consolations in sufferings, the source of our most perfect enjoyments; these are the ends for which they are placed with us on the earth. THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY. Af WE have been able thus far to observe the influence of governments and of laws on the manners of women. ter several successive ages a change was effected, which went in some measure to purify and renew the morals of this sex, too weak to stem the torrent of licentiousness. We have successively seen the women among the patriarchs reduced to the simple employment of a mother of a family; among the Egyptians treated with more consideration, and always regarded as alone the sources of happiness; in Greece sometimes neglected, as in Athens; sometimes, as among the Lacedemonians, exposed, in a state of nudity, to the curious eyes of the men, and, at the same time, the victims of a cold and criminal philosophy, which, by misplacing, degraded them. They held a more respectable situation in Rome, in the first ages of the republic; but soon afterwards, abandoned to all its dissoluteness, and all its dangers, they are seen to follow the Roman empire in its decline, to partake of its corruption, and involve themselves in its ruin. Such was the gradual progress of the manners and the conditions of women so far as the reign of Tiberius. At length Christianity arose: it came to offer to mankind a safe system of morals, of present and of future happiness; it proposed to them as their glory a reconciliation to the supreme Being, as an end in adopting it, sweet consolations on the earth, and as a reward for persevering in it, an eternal rest in heaven. Until that time the women, unsettled in their desires, and subdued even in their thoughts; and unacquainted with any other light than the transient glimmerings of pleasure, waited without hope. Having become Christians, they subdued their passions and their reason; and, warmed by a pure and vivid flame, they elevated themselves to the divine love, and tasted that anticipated happiness which faith inspires in our breasts even in adversity. It is on these tender minds, above all others, that the law of Christ ought to exercise all its influence. They were, in fact, the first to embrace these religious doctrines, which, corresponding to all the secret movements of their hearts, to their natural fondness for pity, for love, and for devotion, proposed to them engaging occupations, and enjoyments without remorse. It is difficult to delineate the amazing revolution which this period effected. Christianity, severe in its principles, but proffering forgiveness, substituted the reign of the mind for that of the passions. If politics and philosophy altogether related to the interests of society, the new legislation made this world appear as an empty shadow, from |