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of their learning and devotion, compose hundreds of hymns and perform the sacred services, the same me men. In those days before my country kuew the demands, the tendencies and the restrictions of other civilization against women, there were no restrictions of an unwholesome character, nor were they kept in seclusion, denied ecucation, or excluded from the highest positions in society. Wives and brides were veiled often, not through any law or custom imposed upon them, but in obedience to the modest impulses of their own heart, but they had unrestricted liberty to go and come within the limits of self-imposed propriety. Prominent among the names of distinguished dames whose exa inples and wise precepts are embalmed in the sweet and holy measures of many hymns composed by themselves, is that of Vishavevara, the interpretation of which name is itself a commemoration of her virtues and learning-which is,'the elect lady.” Whoever will study the composition of this exalted woman will be inspired to know and to keep inviolable the mutual relations of husband and wife. Indeed, in the ages to which I refer, the wife was the queen of the household, whose word was law to the members of the same, and who, like the mothers of this age, would arouse the house. hold at early dawn and set everyone from the oldest to the youngest to his and her proper task, and whose example was the bright light to which all eyes
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