men who had better be contented to exercise their singing talent in the sphere of Home, but Jenny Lind may sing to the world. The greatness of her gift indicates its sphere; and when she was tossed on the stormy seas, it was well said Death must be deaf should he touch her, but more reverently it might have been said, Providence cares for her, for she has a mighty work to do for the world. What a work she has effected? How she has proved that the noblest motives may be where it was dreamed only a love of the world's applause was courted by the song. Her character sang to the heart, while her music entranced the ear; and when such a woman wakes the homage of the world, it is a revelation of the goodness of human nature, recognizing not only an eminent gift, but a morally eminent use of that gift.

"When such a soul as hers is born, The morning stars their ancient music make."

But we cannot give up every other singer because of this Great Wonder. There were wheels within wheels in the prophet's vision by the banks of Chebar, and the Living Spirit was in all the wheels. Let them fly, small and great, each in its own peculiar sphere, and the work to be wrought shall be effected. If, really, any woman feels, in the depths of her being, that Home and that only is her sphere,- that she is a unit of Home, not of Society, I do not say that she ought to take part in Social Reform. There are those that ought not to enter that field. Frail and feeble, hovering forever on the verge of mortality, ready to expire, like a wounded sea-bird that must flutter about the shore, they do well if, in their resoluteness of soul, they ever serve others rather than receive service continually. When Jesus healed the maniac of Gadara, in fond devotion the Gadarene would follow him; but Jesus said, "Go home unto thy friends, and tell them what great thing the Lord hath done unto thee." O infinite tenderness! so mindful of weakness and exposure; calling one, strong and vigorous, to leave home, to mingle in the stern conflict of Reform, and bidding another to return to the quiet of a peaceful home, where the knowledge of what he had been would make the people tender and considerate, lest madness should return. So the principle applies to Woman and her spheres of duty and influence. It is wicked to set up a dogmatic standard and require all to come up to that, whether it is a standard that sends the soul Home, or calls her out into Society. If health and strength be en

joyed, if influence can be exerted, if retirement at Home contracts the sympathies, keeps away from the noblest charities, and makes the domestic woman censure the social, then that seclusion is wrong, sinful,-the sweetness of any act of devotion by such an one never rises to the moral height which the breath of Jesus gave to the offering of Mary.

John Foster described the sensibility of some people as "a mere bundle of aversions, and you hear them," he says, "display and parade it, not in recounting the things they are attached to, but in telling you how many things and persons they cannot bear." Here is a picture of the entire position of many people who are opposed to Woman being a Social Reformer. They cannot bear such and such persons, or things, or movements, and that is the whole of their argument; but, on the other hand, they who are thus rejected, cannot bear the enormous evils against which they protest, against which they think, feel, pray, devise and act. They cannot bear the servile, the sensual, the exposed condition of great classes of their sisterhood. They cannot bear the legislation, the business practices, the social customs, that cripple, distort and ruin the promise of exceeding beauty and moral symmetry and strength. They cannot bear to hear it said that "woman is perfectly constituted for the cares, the affections, the duties, the blessed duties of unpublic life," and yet if a church is to be built or repaired—a monument to be finished like that on Bunker Hill-a colporteur to be sent to the West, or a missionary to the heathen at home or abroad, or even a grave-yard to be made decent and respectable, (vide, a year ago levee at Rowley, Mass.,) they must step forward with the work of weeks of preparation, and invite the public to meet them, where their best graces are needed to unloose the purse-strings and make the generous people buy.

Now the case lies really here,-there is a class who cannot bear to be allowed every degree of publicity so long as they do man's work, while they are denied some degree of publicity when they would say a word, or devise some improvement for themselves, their sisters, their sex. They cannot bear to find their efforts at Reform repelled by the assertion that they are respected enough, while the fact is evident, that their sphere of Employments is exceedingly small in comparison with the extent of their fit ness for many departments of labor; and that when they are admitted into any new sphere of industry, their recompense, for the same amount

and quality of labor, is smaller than the reward paid to masculine toil. False unions in married life; debasement of soul in many conditions; resort, by almost imperceptible degrees, to vicious means of support; and wide spread curses amid the highest civilization, tell the story why good brained, true hearted and heroic women cannot bear the present condition of things in society, and would pierce the heavens and tingle the ears of man with the cry for Reform. Tenderly has one said, "They know not what they do,' is the apology that crucified womanhood must concede in justice and pity to the wrong doers."

It is so; man does not know what is the real character of his doing when he wrongs woman. It is her power that rules the hearts of mankind, and if she be taught to be a mere plaything of the hour,-to kindle fires, spread and grace the table, warm slippers and charm with her lullaby her lord to sleep,-or if she be goaded to the exercise of what may be made base in her nature, she will still rule, but it will be as Jezebel ruled in Ahab's time,-producing weakness, discontent, profaneness and death. What woman has to do that is great and good, she can do if permitted to exercise her power; but to crib and confine her-to limit her intercourse with the most educational of all things-to deny her endeavors a field of exertion, and then decide what she is capable of doing only by what she hath done, is cruel in the highest degree.

"But what would you have?" may be the thought of many of my readers. I answer,-I would have the same freedom granted to Woman to do what she regards to be her duty, and what she solemnly feels herself fitted for, as is granted to Man. Man works within restraints and limits. He must "abide his time" when his claim seems evident, his right manifest, but he must keep speaking and doing till hospitality is given to his word. When Byron was implored to speak in the House of Lords in defence of a petition from prisoners for debt, he resisted the entreaties of his friends, but after a moment's pause he said, mentioning a female friend,

so now, on every hand, there is the same need. Rosseau in speaking of Woman said, “What great things might be done with this lever," yet he only left to their tenderness the management of early childhood, and thought their mission accomplished in that portion of the life of her charge. Woman's influence should go beyond this, and be co-equal with the endurance of life.

Let us see how it is that Woman's claim for freedom to effect needed reforms in society is cut off. It is said that women are strong enough in our country; their sway is almost imperial, and there is no need of their asking for more power. This position is supported by a single idea, that the favor and acquaintance of a woman is a thing they can give or withhold at will. It is not so. The father, the husband, the brother rule in this matter; and one of the most difficult problems for the pure woman to solve is, "How far does my duty to father, husband, or brother require me to go in regard to hospitality and courtesy towards those I morally despise, but who are introduced by them into the home?" If Woman really kept the doors of society, as it is said she does keep them, the greatest social reform would be effected at once, for there would be set up the Equality of standards of morality and propriety between the sexes. Then would the sensualist, the intemperate, the profane, the dishonest, find themselves where the excluded guests in the parable of the Marriage Feast found themselves, "cast out into outer darkness, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Let me instance an illustrative case: An individual about to have a large party, declined to invite an intelligent and pure young lady, because, whether she knew it or not, her employer was regarded as a base man; yet that employer was invited. Who does not believe that if the ladies of the home where the party was to be held, could have decided the question, the employer would have been left uninvited, and the young woman welcomed as a guest. It is often said, That the licentious man might be reformed, or, at least, made to feel his degradation, if Woman would do her duty and exclude him from respectable society. But the real fact is, she is deceived by her relatives through the trust she has in them, that none but the worthy would be introduced to her notice; and when she knows the vile character, how shall she exclude her father's, her husband's, or her brother's guests? Here is the root of the matter, and it shows that Woman is not permitted to work as her nature,

her instincts, her delicacy, her purity, prompts her to work as the Social Reformer. And so in numerous instances, the Imperial Demands of the other sex require her to keep up customs and usages, to minister to appetite and pride, while her heart abhors the doing and her soul turns bitter at the waste of life. Give her the decision respecting the social position of men,-let her have equal authority to dictate what is proper in social customs,-let her war directly against the source of her deepest sorrows and her greatest wrongs, and her acts would indeed harmonize with the deed of Mary, and she would prove herself

Too great, oh God !-this crushing woe
That rankles in this guilty breast;
Doomed e'er a wanderer here below,
In vain to seek an Eden Rest.

Farewell my desecrated home!— Thrust from the presence of my God, I go mid desert wastes to roam,

Where human feet have never trod.

oh, Envy's fatal curse !—Farewell

This mangled corse, all stained with gore!— Its bloody image e'er will dwell

Within, where Peace can dwell no more."

The curse of Cain stands not alone
Amid Guilt's records here below;
Each soul which has Sin's poison known,
Has found it e'er his deadliest foe.

It is a curse which turns to gall

Each pleasure of the human soul; Binding the heart in slavery's thrall,

Where'er its poisonous fountains roll.

The curse of Crime,-it hath a blight

More frightful than the Simoon's breath; Quenching within the Spirit's light,

And blighting there with moral death.

Though Sin's wild fruits may seem so fair,
And tempting to the yearning taste,
Yet bitter they, as apples are

Which grow on wild Asphaltes' waste.

Where was Cain's curse? Where demons dwell?
Where burns the fierce, Tartarian flame?
Ah, let his living anguish tell!-

Guilt's fires with all e'en rage the same.

Each crime-stained soul, within, like Cain, Feels Guilt's deep curse where'er he goes; He seeks an Eden home in vain ;

Nor gold nor fame can yield repose.

E'en in perennial lands of bloom,

And mid his piles of wealth untold, A fugitive from peace !—His doom Will haunt him still, like Cain's sad doom of old.

A voice of doom rings through his soul ;

Guilt's phantoms haunt each feverish dream; And burning words are on the spirit's scroll, While wrathful lightnings to his vision gleam.

The wicked have no peace nor rest,

Thus spake the awful voice of God !—

E'en like the Homicide-unblest

Nod.

is glad to have a new hypothesis presented

E'en like the turbid, restless sea,

Whose mad waves lash some barren shore,-Still dashing more unquietly

When roused the Storm-King's giant roar,

How a Christian can justify to himself the promulgation of opinions, voluntarily and directly, which he neither sanctions nor opposes, surpasses our philosophy to understand. We were glad to find the following rebuke in the "Christian Register," (Unitarian) in reference to an article in the "Christian Examiner," (Unitarian) entitled "The Christ of the Jews:

"The writer of this article says of the results of recent rationalistic criticism in Germany, 'We purpose reporting these conclusions, not objecting to them, nor yet defending them. We confess our inadequacy to either task.' Then why aid in giving them publicity? To throw them before the American world without a word of objection is to defend them; for if they are not deemed sound and true, there is no need whatever of their promulgation. They represent a type of infidelity which will never be indigenous in the New World, and therefore need not be pointed at in the way of warning or caution. If false, they are worth no more than any of the myriads of elaborately false theories in religion and theology, which no reasonable man will waste his time in learning or in teaching. The adoption of these speculations by the constant use of the editorial first person, the repeated eulogies passed upon the immense erudition of their champions, and the representation of these men as the advance and reform party in Biblical criticism, certainly throw the whole weight of the writer's reputation, and with it that of the Examiner, or its editors, on the rationalistic side of the questions at issue."

Another editor of the "Christian Register" says he agrees with the above, "except that he

This is a common feeling with many Unitarian speculatists; they never seem satisfied, but are always eager to obtain any new hypothesis that will give new questions of subtlety and scholarship to the few, but which perplex the many.

We do think it time that some understanding should be clearly had by ministers of the Gospel in reference to unsettled opinions and theories,— whether it is right to give publicity to speculations, investigations, processes of inquiry, instead of waiting till some results have been reached, some opinions really formed. We speak it without bitterness, but simply to illustrate our meaning, when we say, we have known instances where as many as four sermons have been preached on the "Rappings," when the preacher owned to us that he was only giving his "investigations," and had formed no opinion concerning them. Nevertheless by associating these "rappings" and their phenomena with Bible facts and marvels, he was supposed to countenance the highest claims for the new medium so called, of ghostly intercourse. So have we known preachers to give the "pro and con" of a subject and there leave the matter, without showing that they had arrived at any result themselves. What is this but making the pulpit an epitomized debating society?

Really, there are too many testimonies to the want of downright sincerity in the pulpit. The first thing needed is, that the people be convinced that the preacher is sincere-that he speaks out of the abundance of his heart's convictionsthat he presents the results of independent, individual, solemn and weighty thought. I remember the noble expression of the countenance of the worthy and honored father of our brother T. S. King, when he rebukingly spake of a conversation with a minister, who is now a professor in a New England college, respecting the controversy between Skinner and Campbell, then in progress. That minister remarked that he was disappointed in the discussion, for he expected Mr. Campbell would quote the passages usually employed to support the idea of endless punishment and leave them without comment; as though such a course would be nothing wrong, adopted, as it is, by many preachers who are in doubt concerning the real import of those difficult passages. "That is the way you employ

the Scriptures," was the irresistible thought in my mind, said this worthy man who spake what he believed and only that.

"There is no need of your leaving us," said a prominent Baptist minister to an humble brother. "You need not be troubled about these difficult passages, but you can do as I do, -I quote them and leave the people to put their own construction upon them." And such have hearers decided was the course of other preachers whom they have heard quote the passages usually advanced in behalf of endless punishment, but never commenting upon them-never uttering a word on their strength and force. This is wrong. It is equivocation. It is "handling the Word of God deceitfully," inasmuch as the preacher is understood to be a believer in endless punishment, and it is supposed his quotations of the usually employed proof texts are for the support of that idea.

H. BACON.

So in the age succeeding the times of the Apostles we find the Christians commending their religion to the notice of unbelievers by the fact that it blended so well with the demands of active life. Nothing vexed the heathen more than to hear the Christians in workshop and field singing their sacred songs, obeying the exhortation of the Apostle, "Is any among you merry? let him sing psalms." While they followed the plough in the furrow, scattered seed, harvested the grain, or performed any other toilsome service, they did not whistle "for want of thought," but out of the abundance of the heart the mouth sang; and no less ardent were their praises of the Sun of Righteousness and its fruitful beams, than were the sons of the idolators as they praised the benefactions of Saturn. Yes, one evidence that Christianity was of God, was found in its encouragement of all righteous industry. It made toil honorable. It presented its founder as declaring, My father worketh hitherto and I work."

66

B.

WORK AND RELIGION.

UNDER the Mosaic economy every male child was instructed in some branch of manual industry. At any emergency the full strength of the nation could be concentrated in the development of material resources; and alike from the palace of affluence, the schools of the prophets, and the cottages and fields of the lowly, came producing laborers in the time of need. Hence we find the sons of prophets hewing timber for their school-house; Jesus is seen at the carpenter's bench, though the anointed of God, and Paul is familiar with tent-making, though brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. Thus Religion and Business were united by the sanctions which religion gave to the pursuits of industry, the toils of the workshop and field. Religion, under Moses, pointed itself against Idolatry and sin no less by its regulations concerning the sowing of seed and the weaving of a fabric for clothing, than by the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement. Every where it was found saying by its order of service-its ritual that owned the worship of toil, Work and Religion have a unity.

Paul set forth this sentiment many times. He practically enforced it by his example when he wrought in Thessalonica at the making of tents and preached at night; and when rebuking those who in dreaming of the end of the world, forgot the demands of the present, he declared that those who would not work, should not eat.

THE GRANDMOTHER'S STORY.

"COME now, grandma, tell us a story," said Ellen Lee, as she drew her chair near the old lady, and took her little sister Carrie upon her lap. "Tell us a good long story about the grand old times when proud lords lived in glorious castles, high up on the beetling crags; and their flaunting banners waved proudly in the morning sunbeams, and the warder's call rung wildly on the rushing breeze. I love to hear stories of those fine old days, when ladies were all one as crowned queens; and gay knights and warlike lords knelt before them like very slaves."

"No, my love; I cannot tell you a tale of the olden time to-night. You can read plenty of them in a few years. But I will tell you a home story, such a one as transpires in our very midst, in the charmed experience of many a throbbing heart, of whose inner life we know nothing. I will tell you of one you already know; a heartstory of Margaret the washer-woman."