In our town we have had many addresses on this subject; and human ingenuity has exhausted all its arts to make an impression. One orator gave us a dialogue between a drunkard and a snake sticking his head out of a bottle; which snake I believe was the devil—though on that point the speaker was not very clear. Another painted to us the miseries of a neglected family; described a ruined house and farm. Some have showed the physical effects of intemperance, some the political, and some the moral; and all have given us a good spice of what is too often the chief ingredient in popular eloquence-exaggeration. I have been hoping my fellow-townsmen would choose me to address them on this subject; but hitherto they have neglected me; and I am determined that the burden which rests on my spirits, shall be removed; and the eloquence which might have inspired my voice, shall trickle from my pen.

Spirit of Decency! and Spirit of Truth! descend from the skies, and hover over my head with your mixed pinions, whose colors are composed of black and white, and every hue between them! Let my eloquence flow not in a pure crystal stream, for such streams are scarcely found in nature, and I am sure are seldom found in New England. But let the real waters of Mother Brooks or Mill River, flow from my mouth. I am the child of nature; I am the servant of truth; and to the children of nature, in the simplicity of truth, would I choose to speak. O ye

severer powers, who watch the weeds as well as the roses of our world, come, come from your homely abodes, your colleges, your taverns, your barns and your wigwams, to enlighten my perceptions and prompt my tongue!

Notwithstanding all the changes which have been run through on this subject, there is one point of light in which, though important, I have not yet seen it fully placed. I allude to the influence which the female sex may have on this cause. We have had a great deal of pathetic description of domestic suffering; and, in all these scenes, the woman has been introduced as the victim, and not in the smallest degree as the coadjutor in the blame. We have had pictured before our eyes, until our tears have flowed like rivers, the brutal husband, coming home from the tavern, to play the tyrant over his family; knocking down his wife; throwing his children into the fire; now whetting his knife to cut their throats, and thirsting for their blood almost as intensely as before he thirsted for his drink; raving, scolding, storming, and filling the whole house with distress and alarm; while his poor innocent partner sits by, dissolved in tears; an angel of perfection, introduced by the skilful painter for no other purpose than as a foil to set off the depravity of her husband, who is represented as nothing but the image of personified drunkenness. All the brutality and wrong are on one side, and all the innocence and suffering on the other. These

gentlemen seem to forget in their gallantry, that God has made of one blood, all the nations which dwell on the earth; that the same appetites are found in both sexes; that a female tippler is not absolutely an ens rationis; that often the wife follows the husband in the transgression, and has even been known to lead the way. Sin in one respect is like the great Being who abhors it--it is no respecter of persons; and will sometimes take up its abode in those gentle bosoms from which our imagination would wish it away. I think, I have read in a book which has as little romantic feeling in it, as any book I ever did read, of a man and his wife, who were once placed in a garden, in which there was one tree bearing hurtful fruit. It bore some analogy to ardent spirit; it was intoxicating and dangerous, liable to injure both themselves and family; and they were enjoined a total abstinence with respect to it. Well, who was it broke over this rule first? Who first violated the temperance pledge in the garden of Eden? The man did not go to this grog-shop of forbidden gratification, to make himself intoxicated with the essence of human depravity; and then go home to beat his poor wife, and turn her out from her beautiful abode into a wilderness of thorns and briers. No doubt this would have made a much more pathetic story than the dry repulsive facts as we now find them on the unimaginative page of the oldest of all books. But how was it? The woMAN, being deceived, was the first in the transgression. When

THE WOMAN saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat and gave also to her husband with her and he did eat. Eve has generally been accounted a beautiful woman; she was certainly a wife, and she led her husband into sin; and hence I infer, from the Bible itself, notwithstanding all our fine imaginings, that the fair may be frail; that the grossest vice may deform and disgrace the tenderest sex.

The influence of females may be great in promoting temperance, and all its happy consequences.

The influence of woman has been great in all the departments of life. Her smiles cheer, her frowns depress, her counsels are heard, her tears are felt, and her example will be followed. It is true, her power is not like the thunder, which strikes and consumes, but it is like the blossom which silently perfumes the air. Solomon, the wisest of men, has represented the tenderness of maternal wisdom, pouring its counsel into the ears of a son; and it is generally supposed to be himself under a fictitious name. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. The wisdom of Solomon would have been useless without temperance, and temperance was taught from a mother's tongue. In Greece, the state of female manners was one of the most powerful

causes of the cold and heartless fashions of domestic life. Education was lavished on the harlot, while the wife, imprisoned at home, raised but a little above the domestic slaves, was denied all those accomplishments which would surround utility with the ornaments of the imagination, and give new attractions to the beauties of virtue. Female influence was felt in Roman history. It has been justly remarked, that most of their great revolutions are to be traced to the influence of woman on the public councils. The names of Julia, Lucretia, Virginia, Fulvia and Cleopatra, are proofs of what I say. Female influence never can be accounted as trifling, when it is recollected that two of the greatest events in which this world was ever interested, were accomplished by their instrumentality. By a woman sin entered our world, and by a woman a Saviour was born!

But especially in domestic life is their example felt. A garden is not more the proper place for some fair flower to unfold its leaves, and diffuse its sweetness, than domestic life is the place where a woman, by a constant action amidst quiet shades, is to accomplish the good which is not the less real, because it may never reach the public ear. It is the throne of her influence, the sphere of her duties, the paradise of her enjoyments. Take a man of the most decided character, of the most settled resolution, of the clearest views, and he will sometimes be influenced by his wife. Buonaparte was an example. The impetuous