And if she has had unparalleled trials and irreparable losses, she has her corresponding consolations and compensations.  For she has a freedom to go about and do good, a liberty and an experience that neither the unmarried maiden nor the married wife can possibly have.  She can do multitudes of things that in the nature of things neither of them can attempt to do.  Things that would be both unseemly and impossible for other women to say or to do are both perfectly seemly and wholly open for her to say and to do.  Her widowhood is a sacred shield to her.  Her sorrow is a crown of honour and a sceptre of authority to her.  She is consulted by the young and the inexperienced, by the forsaken and by the forlorn, as no other human being ever is.  She has come through this life, and by a long experience she knows this world and the hearts that fill it and make it what it is.  A widow indeed can show a sympathy, and give a counsel, and speak with a weight of wisdom that one’s own mother cannot always do.  All you who by God’s sad dispensation are now clothed in the “white and wimpled folds” of widowhood, let your prayer and your endeavour day and night be that God would guide and enable you to be widows indeed.  And, if you do, you shall want neither your occupation nor your honour.

THE ENCHANTED GROUND

   “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any
   divination against Israel.”—­Balaam.

“I saw then in my dream that they went till they came into a certain country whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy if he came a stranger to it.  And here Hopeful began to be very dull and heavy of sleep, wherefore he said unto Christian, I do now begin to grow so drowsy that I can scarcely hold up mine eyes; let us lie down here and take one nap.”  And then when we turn to the same place in the Second Part we read thus:  “By this time they were got to the Enchanted Ground, where the air naturally tended to make one drowsy.  And that place was all grown over with briars and thorns, excepting here and there, where was an enchanted arbour, upon which, if a man sits, or in which if a man sleeps, ’tis a question, say some, whether they shall ever rise or wake again in this world.  Now, they had not gone far, but a great mist and darkness fell upon them all, so that they could scarce, for a great while, see the one the other.  Wherefore they were forced for some time to feel for one another by words, for they walked not by sight.  Nor was there on all this ground so much as one inn or victualling-house wherein to refresh the feebler sort.  Then they came to an arbour, warm, and promising much refreshing to the pilgrims, for it was finely wrought above head, beautified with greens, and furnished with couches and settles.  It also had a soft couch on which the weary might lean.  This arbour was called The Slothful Man’s Friend, on purpose to allure,