considers the matrimonial relation from that in which it is viewed by Pagan and Mahometan lands, and by unbelievers in divine revelation in lands that are Christian. This sacred Book regards it as a religious institution; as owing its origin, not to earth, but to heaven, not to the light of nature, but to a divine command; as an institution established by the Creator himself immediately after the formation of man, and subsequently put under the protection of his law. It inscribes in deep legible characters on every nuptial altar, "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!" It explicitly defines marriage to be the act of uniting two persons in wedlock and only two. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." The degrees of consanguinity within which this union is lawful are not left to the judgment of fallible men, but in the institutions of the inspired legislator of the Hebrews, are marked with perfect definiteness. And when once formed, the Bible pronounces this connection a perpetual union, and to be dissolved only by crime, or death. "The woman that hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is losed from the law of her husband." And with what tenderness, does it prescribe the reciprocal duties of this relation! "Husbands love your wives,"--not according to the maxims of a cold and changing philosophy-not after the fash

ion of this world,—but "as Christ loved the Church. Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church." Who that has seen heedless and frequent infringements upon these precepts, has not seen the wisdom of them in the disastrous consequences of their own folly,-not merely upon the peace, and harmony, and mutual confidence that ought always to distinguish this happy relation-not merely upon their own respectability and influence in the Church and in the world-but upon the character and conduct of their children? Rarely can you find affectionate children, where there is an unkind husband; or dutiful children, where there is an undutiful wife. And how solemnly do the Scriptures protect the sanctity of the marriage vow! God required that the adulterer and adultress should be punished with death. He affirms before the world, "Whoremongers and adulterers, God will judge." With an emphasis never to be forgotten, he demands, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy?" Nothing but the Bible can set bounds to human licentiousness. There is a place of which the unerring voice of inspiration has said, "He knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell." There is a character of which the same unerring voice declares, "None that go

unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life." There is a sin of which this Book of God often speaks, but on which it rarely expatiates a sin which the pure and holy Author of the Bible does no more than significantly indicate with the one hand, while with the other he opens to its obdurate and grovelling perpetrator the doors of the eternal prison, and points to the "lake which burns with fire."

In speaking of the social institutions, we may not forget how much the Bible has done for woman. The condition of woman was more exalted in Rome than it ever has been to my knowledge in any land where the day spring from on high has not visited her. The nations of the east have kept her in a state of ignorance and slavery. Among the Greeks, she occupied a very inferior sphere; so that if she was restrained from evil, she was helpless to do good. While the laws of Rome, on the other hand, allowed her greater liberty and consideration than she had heretofore enjoyed, still was the sex without those restraints of morality and purity which alone can preserve her from degradation. No happy influence did she exert upon the public, or private welfare of the state. Her influence ascended to ambition; politicians intrigued with her; and her liberty degenerated into licentiousness. The former deluged the streets of the capital with its best blood; and to such an extent was the latter carried, that among the several decrees which passed the

senate, under the reign of Tiberius, against the licentiousness of female manners, it was ordained "that no woman whose grandfather, or father, or husband was a Roman Knight, should be allowed to make her person venal!" The laws of a nation are a faithful and instructive history of its manners. And what must have been the corruption of female manners in Rome, when such a law was necessary to suppress female licentiousness in the highest ranks of society? If such was the character of a Roman baronness, what must have been that of the subordinate classes? There can scarcely be a more degrading view of woman than this, unless it be the condition which she now presents in pagan lands. And what is that condition, now, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era? Hated and despised from her birth, and her birth itself esteemed a calamity-in some countries not even allowed the rank of a moral and responsible agent-so tenderly alive to her own degradation, that she acquiesces in the murder of her female offspring-immured from infancy-without education-married without her consent-in a multitude of instances, sold by her parents—refused the confidence of her husband, and banished from his table-on her husband's death, doomed to the funeral pile, or to contempt that renders life a burden: such is her degraded and pitiable condition, in almost all except Christian lands. The Bible has an appropriate place for woman, a place for which she is fitted and in which she shines. It

elevates her, but assigns her her proper sphere. It does indeed exclude her from the corruption of the camp and the debates of the forum. It does not invite her to the professor's chair, nor conduct her to the bar, nor make her welcome to the pulpit, nor admit her to the place of magistracy. It bids her beware how she overleaps the delicacy of her sex, and listens to the doctrines of effeminate debaters, or becomes the dupe of modern reformers and fashionable journalists. It asks not to hear her gentle voice in the popular assembly, and even "suffers her not to speak in the Church of God." It claims not for her the right of suffrage, nor any immunity by which she may "usurp authority over the man." And yet it gives her her throne; for she is the queen of the domestic circle. It is the bosom of her family. It is the heart of her husband and children. It is the supremacy in all that interesting domain, where love, and tenderness, and refinement of thought and feeling preside. It is the privilege of making her husband happy and honoured, and her sons and her daughters the ornaments of human society. It is the sphere of piety, prudence, diligence in the domestic station, and a holy and devout life. It is the sphere that was occupied by Hannah, the mother of Samuel; by Elizabeth, the mother of John; and by Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price." It is the respect and esteem of mankind. It is that silent, unob