Still, so sure are we of the reality of our sensations, that were any one to tell us that the one instrument was merely louder and stronger than the other, we should have a poor opinion of his ear for music; while none but a deaf man could affirm that there is no difference except in outward shape. Just so we believe in the distinctive natures of man and woman. We feel the difference, even though we have only untuned instruments to judge from, and can only faintly guess what would be the full harmony, the glorious concord in contrast, which would flow from the perfection of both. But, though a full definition is beyond our power, and though it is true that no two women are alike, still there are certain features, more or less marked in every woman's character, from which we may gather what the general purpose of her life is meant to be.

We may say that a life of self-seeking is more intolerable in a woman than in a man, for she is less capable of solitary, self-contained enjoyment, but much more free to make another's joy her own, as she is more ready to enter into another's sorrow.

If it is not good for a man to be alone, utter loneliness is all but impossible for a woman. I do not mean to say that she must always be dependent on something stronger than herself. If she has no one to cling to, she will seek some one to lean on her, and the interchange of sympathy, were it even with a little child, the feeling of being helpful to some poor creature, struggling, as perhaps she herself is, in deep waters, is sufficient to keep her from withering up. A man is bound to stretch out his hand when he sees his fellow in trouble, but it is a womanly office to see always. There are sorrows which cry out openly, and which any man with a kind heart, be his hand ever so clumsy, can relieve. But there are other burdens which men seldom notice, griefs that will not speak-there are little fretting cares which seem not worth speaking about, and yet which form no small portion of life's load, and which, but for the readier and more delicate sympathy of woman, would, we fear, go on unobserved and unsoothed to the end. Thus our life may be more retired than man's, but not less actively useful. Our work attracts less observation, but is not less important. Our powers are not so much drawn out in one fixed direction; indeed, to confine them in the groove of a profession would, generally speaking, be only to cramp them. For if, in one aspect, it is the little things of life that chiefly

laim our care, in another, we have far more opportunity than most men have for attending to the greatest. The man who has to spend his day in a round of manual labour, in casting up accounts, or even in perfecting some great mechanical discovery, has his opportunities of usefulness more fettered than the woman who lives to watch over the interests, bodily and spiritual, of the inmates of her house; who finds, every hour, some new point of contact with her fellow-creatures, some joy which she may double by sharing, some vexation which she can remove, some perplexity out of which her good sense can point a way. If self-control and an equal balance of mind are needed any. where, it is in those delicate relations which we have with other minds. Affection, and a certain tact to please, may come naturally; but the clear judgment, which will quickly find, not the nearest turning, but the right one: the love which is too wise to flatter or spoil those dearest are not the results of unreflecting impulsiveness. The most cultivated woman need never feel her talents wasted in such a sphere as this, for all that makes her more complete in herself, increases her ability to discharge her varied duties well, and adds immeasurably to her influence. Therefore, we do not ask timidly, "What talents may a woman safely be allowed to cultivate?" We ask rather, "Is there any right tendency of her nature which she may not follow out?" There is no such thing, provided only the tendency be a genuine part of her own nature, and not the artificial product of self-willed ambition, and provided the work into which it leads her be not pursued at the expense of some better feeling or some higher duty.

I have only spoken of the individuality of the two characters; whether, as a whole, the one is superior to the other, is a question which we are hardly in a position to determine. But, even if we are, in some things, obliged to take the lowest place, it ought not much to hurt us, while we know that, in the highest things, we may all run the same race, and win the same prize. And I cannot help thinking that, though the possibilities of our nature may be as great as those of man's, yet, as a con. sequence of the Fall, our place now is one of comparative lowliness. To man the word was spoken: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread;" and the burden of hard toil still presses on him; labour, not for the high ends which might be worthy of the glad energies of a sinless being, but for the mere means of

animal existence, which in Eden were scattered freely as the dew. The sentence would appear a very humbling one if we were not so used to it, and yet it acts as a guard against that selfindulgent idleness which is far more terrible. To the woman, another word of punishment was spoken: "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Her original clinging love had a drop of wormwood mingled in it; suffering and unsatisfied desire were henceforth to be its accompaniments, more or less, because there is nothing earthly worthy of the perfect reliance which alone it could satisfy her heart to bestow.

But if, instead of vainly struggling against all that would remind us of our position, we quietly take our place, as assigned us by God, not man, we may perhaps find even in the core of the curse the sweetest of earthly joys, or, missing these, we may be led by it to the best of heavenly blessings. Perhaps we shall one day discover that our primeval sentence is as mercifully suited to the present needs of our nature as man's is to his. But we must never forget that, though our subjection dates from the Fall, our individual nature is no part of its results. Eve was not Adam, she was not like Adam even in Eden; she was a more genuine woman than any of her daughters, and perhaps on that account only more thoroughly distinct from man. And in recalling the names of those who have done most honour to our sex by their abilities, their courage, or their truehearted fidelity-Olympia Morata, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Roper, or Lady Rachel Russell, -we cannot find anything but what was truly womanly. And did ever woman's heart beat like that of the poetess of our century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning? Her images are bathed in the light of old Greece; her grand thoughts are struck out with force, as the sparks fly off from the anvil; but her learning never interferes with her womanhood: her strength is the strength of love, the strength of longing, and, alas! for her, the strength of sorrow. Ah! do any of us expect to inherit a nobler genius, or reach a higher point of culture than she did? and, if that were possible, do we imagine that our gifts would be of any service to ourselves or to the world if they made us other than more perfect women? Let us fight against our sins, but never against our womanhood; against our little-mindedness, but never against our vocation of minding little things; against the weakness that cannot stand alone when duty calls, but never against the desire of clinging

to that which is worthy of our trust; against the idolatry that would lead us to forget God for a fellow-creature, but never against the love that prompts us to forget self for others.

The relations between the sexes are in some respects changed from what they were in the days when an unwedded woman was so rare a phenomenon as to be a creature without an acknowledged place in the world at all. Now the difficulty is to discover how the world did without its maiden sisters. They have no need, certainly, to live for themselves or pine away for lack of occupation. Women have greatly gained in independence and vigour, but these qualities do not grow more rapidly than does the necessity for exerting them. With many the question is not how to spend life, but how to find the means of maintaining it. The lonely winning of bread for herself is not a woman's natural element; still it is infinitely less unnatural and unhappy than the sort of marriages often forced upon women formerly, and accepted by too many now, merely for the sake of a settlement. And, while we cannot regard the necessity for a woman to maintain herself as a thing to glory in, we rejoice that, as it is so often a necessity, so many new fields are being opened up in directions unthought of before, in which her efforts may prosper. There are some callings only now beginning to be taken up by women, which seem so suited to them that we wonder they have ever been followed by any others. There are other callings not so obviously appropriate, which some have ventured on, and glory in, as the means of giving scope to many buried talents, and perhaps of raising women up to a higher platform of existence. Others tremble at every innovation, and fear lest public and independent spheres of action should, by and by, encroach so much upon home virtue and duty as to wither up every germ of true feminine character. We believe that that character is too deeply seated to be either transformed or obliterated so easily. There are, doubtless, such anomalies in the world as masculine women, but we have no reason to think they are more common now than they used to be. Semiramis and Agrippina were more than a match for the hardiest of our day. And in all ages these have been but exceptions. Many of those who are called masculine are not really so. They are only a little too bracing for our weak nerves. Their energetic usefulness puts our lassitude to shame, and we find it easier to reproach them than to blame ourselves. We

ought to be very careful how we prepare a Procrustian bed for our sisters according to our own measure, cutting down every one who is too tall for us, lest their stature should prove to be the very beauty of their womanhood.

Though it be hard, very hard, for a woman to become unsexed, there is one passion by which I can conceive of the thing being accomplished, and that one, allowed to sway, has slain its thousands. It has various forms; the love of power, the desire to excel, the straining after éclat or notoriety; but its one name is ambition. It so often nearly resembles what is good, that it is difficult to detect its evil. It is the excelsior cry, only sounded to exalt self. It is the ardent pressing onward; but not because of any light of duty beckoning, and not because of any irrepressible fountain of energy that will find an outlet. The light that leads astray,

She has

is the prospect of being something that we are not, and never were intended to be; something which, to attain, will cost us the most precious treasures of our nature. When a woman sets out on the career of ambition, her mind is not cultivated but strained; her hand grasps all the harder, because the effort is unnatural; self-love asserts its own most jealously, because it is a usurper. And yet, even in the most extreme cases, no woman is truly unsexed. She has, indeed, missed her aim most thoroughly. She has lost her woman's virtues. retained her woman's faults. An Elizabeth may have strength to inspire a whole people with courage to repel the invader from their shores; she may have ability enough to rule the greatest men of a great age; but unless she strive with other weapons than those of boldness and love of power, she will never be able to cope with her own miserable vanity and coquetry. On the other hand, many a humble gentle woman, never dreaming of greatness, but only conscientiously anxious to do what is right, has, in the hour of trial and danger, found courage and power which she knew not she possessed, springing up out of the depths of her womanly nature.

It is not so much what a woman does, as the spirit in which she does it, that does her honour. If the most tender might plunge her hand in blood to save her child, and yet not be defiled, much more may the most retiring come forward on the most prominent scene of action at the call of duty. But to most it would be a terrible sacrifice to be obliged to come thus forward; and those who feel it easy for themselves to do so, should think twice

before they attempt to drag along with them thousands of their sisters into public places, where they would be utterly out of their ele ment.

There is no injustice in thus limiting woman's work chiefly to the quieter walks of life. Even supposing she might be able to shine in other regions, she is not the only being whose orbit is circumscribed. No man's sphere can be exactly commensurate with his capacity. A clever man has perhaps ten times the amount of ability that he will ever be able to call into exercise. He might be a physician, a schoolmaster, an author, or a man of business; he might be able to learn printing, or weaving, or gardening, or a thousand other trades. One or more of these may allure him with the fullest prospect of success; in others he could only excel by a painful effort. But it is certain he cannot follow them all at once, and if he be a wise man, he will not mourn long over that hardship, but devote himself to that which he will be sure to do best. If that is open to him, it would be a waste of talent to apply himself to any other. This is the true principle of division of labour, and ought to be applied in the case before us. We do not doubt that some women could fill public offices with more ability than some men. But it is not less true that there are men who fill them better than the best of us could do, and that, as women, we have work to do which no man can do for us. A woman may, at some future day, for aught I know, win fame as a barrister; but if she does, it will not be the best way in which she could have used her talents: unless, like Portia, some sudden impulse drive her to fulfil some special errand of mercy. If her intellect be clear and vigorous enough to make her an able speaker or politician, what a wife and mother she might have been, what a wise counsellor, what a considerate helper, what a powerful centre of good influence to the large circle which must naturally rally round her!

I can imagine a woman feeling herself called on by duty to adopt a particular professionthat of medicine, for instance. If the preliminary ordeal were less terrible, there need be nothing of unfeminine publicity in the practice afterwards. The result would be simply to change a tender nurse into a highly wise and intelligent one, as we ought all, in our measure, to be.

If those who desire to come forward in public, do so because they believe they have a work to do which they could not do so well in

any other way, we have no right to hold them back. But, if they are urged on only by a longing after personal advancement, or by the mistaken belief that they will thus promote the elevation of their sisters-I cannot help feeling that the greater their success, the greater will be the injury inflicted on themselves, and on their whole sex.

I can hardly conclude my essay without mentioning the subject of education; but it is far too wide to be more than touched on just now. I believe that girls are more influenced by the kind of life they expect to lead when they leave school, than by any amount of work exacted from them there. Thousands of mistakes are possible on this score. Those who trifle through their childhood, with the sole desire of growing up and entering into society as soon as possible, might almost as well have no education at all. Those who imagine that accomplishments are to be their chief ornaments through life, will hardly succeed in anything else. One who values more solid acquirements is apt to fall into the error of imagining the attainment of knowledge to be the chief end of life, instead of valuing it only as a means to higher ends. For years nothing occurs to shake that belief; she enters with full zest into every branch of study, fully persuaded that the intellectual culture which constitutes one of her greatest enjoyments is also her highest duty, and expecting to find life only a greater schoolroom, where she may carry on her favourite pursuits with more

freedom. She does find life truly a schoolroom, but its lessons are not all received from books; and many of them, which ought to have been familiar as A B C, have to be learnt at length at much unnecessary expense of time, thought, and temper.

Perhaps experience alone could have entirely undeceived such. It may be vain to try to convince the child who "hates sewing," how important it is that she should learn to mend her gloves, and keep her drawers tidy; but it is quite possible to make her do the things themselves. The learning of household concerns will not fret her spirit half so much in childhood as if deferred till later years; and the habit of attending to little duties, with the still more valuable habits of general observation and helpfulness, will soon become a second nature. These essential matters ought to be classed with the very foundations of learning, and taught at the same age as the reading, writing, and arithmetic, which we never imagine would present fewer difficulties if omitted till a later period.

I dare not launch out upon the ocean of further pursuits. They depend so much on individual tastes, abilities, and prospects.

To a thoughtful girl, whose helpful kindness and efforts after moral goodness keep pace with her intellectual advancement, no acquirement can be valueless; for each will furnish a new point of contact with her fellow-creatures, and will, through life, widen immeasurably the range of her sympathies.

M. L. B.

HE appeal of the Church of England is directly to Holy Scripture, not to the early Church as the authoritative interpreter of Scripture. She receives the three Creeds only because, in her judgment, "they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.” (Article VIII.) And so Bishop Jewel, in his Apology, says: "We refer all our controversies unto the Holy Scriptures, and report us to the selfsame words which we know were sealed by God Himself, and in comparison of them set

little by all other things whatsoever may be devised by men." "We profess that these

be the very sure and infallible rule whereby may be tried whether the Church do swerve or err, and whereunto all ecclesiastical doctrine ought to be called to account." "By that Word only we do condemn all sorts of the old heretics." "We have searched out of the Holy Bible, which we are sure cannot deceive us, one sure form of religion, and have returned again unto the primitive Church of the antient Fathers and Apostles; that is to

say, to the ground and beginning of things, unto the very foundations and headsprings of Christ's Church."

So in Nowell's Catechism (a work having public authority in our Church for many years, like Jewel's Apology) we are told that "the Christian religion is to be learnt from no other source than from the Heavenly Word of God Himself, which He hath delivered to us in the Holy Scriptures."

The testimony of the work drawn up by Archbishop Cranmer and his fellow-commissioners, entitled Reformatio Leg. Eccles., and which certainly shows the mind of our early Reformers, is remarkably clear and explicit on the point. To the question, "What is the authority of the holy Fathers ?" the reply is"We consider that the authority of the orthodox Fathers is by no means to be despised; for they have many excellent and useful observations. But that the Holy Scriptures should be interpreted by their decisions, we do not allow. For the Holy Scriptures ought to be to us both the rules and judges of all Christian doctrine."

And such is the view clearly expressed by Archbishop Parker in his speech to the Convocation of 1572. (Wilk. Conc.)

Even as to the first four General Councils, our Church attributes no authority to their decrees. Both Bishop Burnett and Bishop Tomline, in their Expositions of the Articles, assert this, and that our Church receives their decrees only from the conviction that they are Scriptural. As Dr. Clagett says in his treatise on the authority of Councils, published by Bishop Gibson-"If it be demanded why we approve of them, and not of all the rest, we answer, Because their determinations in matters of faith are manifestly warranted by the Holy Scriptures."

And the reference to them in the Act 1 Eliz. c. 1, xxxvi. is given simply as a limitation to the power of the High Commissioners, prohibiting them from "adjudging any matter or cause to be heresy but only such as heretofore have been determined, ordered or adjudged to be heresy by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures, or by [not by the authority of, but by] the first four General Councils or any of them," &c.

The utmost that this amounts to is a recognition of the orthodoxy of their decrees, and a permission of the High Commissioners to adjudge that to be heresy which those Councils had adjudged to be so. And of course the Act

which put an end to the High Commission Court made this clause a mere matter of his tory.

And the able Roman Catholic writer, Abraham Woodhead, than whom no one was better acquainted with the works of our divines, points out that all the references of our Formularies and great divines to the records of the early Church are made only in this view. He says "The Church of England, indeed, professeth her assent to the definitions of the first four General Councils; . . . . but you may observe that this assent is not yielded to those Councils because lawfully general, and so presumed to be assisted by our Lord in the right defining and delivery of all necessary faith; . . . . but because the matter defined by them-the Church being for herself judge hereof-ought to be assented to as being agree able to the Scripture. . . . . To this purpose see the 21st Art. of the Church of England, 'General Councils may err,' &c. See the Acts of Parliament 1 Eliz. c. 1 [and then adding quotations from Dr. Fern, Archbishop Land, Dr. Field, Dr. Hammond, Mr. Chillingworth, Dr. Whitby, and Bishop Stillingfleet, he adds] -From these quotations I think it appears that whatever fair professions are made, yet no assent is given by them to the first four Councils on this account, that they could not err in their definitions, nor yet because they are their sovereign judge, from whose sentence they may not dissent, if they be persuaded that it is repugnant to the Scriptures." (Rat. Acc. of Doctr. of Rom. Cath. conc. Guide in Controv. of Religion. 1673. pp. 174–9.)

The vital principle of the Reformation was the recognition of Holy Scripture as the source from which our faith should be derived, and on the sole authority of which it should be grounded. And the question, what are the doctrines maintained in the writings we have of the early Fathers. was a secondary consideration. The course of the Reformers is well described by Archdeacon Waterland, when he says: "The Protestants having well studied the Fathers, were now willing to rest their cause not upon Scripture only, but Fathers too; so far at least as the three first centuries." (See Vind. of Christ's Div., Pref. p. xvii.) And in his remarks on "the use and value of ecclesiastical antiquity in controversies of faith," in his treatise on "the importance of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity," he has pointed out its proper use as affording a good "argument" for a certain interpretation of Scripture while we are not to