drances to the spread of it amongst some classes of females in the metropolis which no man can surmount. The formation and superintendence of maternal aşsociations, and associations of young women and little girls, opens a department of labour which under the blessing of God promises most important results; and here none but female agents can with propriety be employed. In many other ways the same agency is indispensable. The apostolic churches knew this, and called "widows indeed" to the deaconship. Priscilla, as well as her husband, had the thanks of all the churches of the Gentiles, crowned with Paul's personal gratitude, presented, to her at Rome. Rom. xvi. 4. Female agency in spreading the gospel is thus no novelty. It is agreeable to "the good old way" of the best times of the church. Now, such being the facts of the case, no feelings, amiable or adverse, can alter their authoritative bearings upon We are as much "shut up" to the use of a female agency as the primitive churches were, although by a different pressure of circumstances.

our times.

We are fully aware of the difficulties which are apt to present themselves even to the minds of those who are not deficient in benevolence and to prevent them for a time from assisting in those labours which contemplate the restoration of the fallen. The committee of the London Female Mission, when the urgent necessity of female agency was first pressed upon their attention, could see nothing but lions in the way. As husbands and brothers they felt that

the beauty of female holiness was as delicate as it was lovely and ought to be as sacred as it is sweet. They therefore shrunk almost instinctively from adopting the only expedient that seemed calculated to meet the case of those wretched outcasts whom they desired to save, and could only balance the dread of perilling a few agents by the certainty of many miserable victims perishing unless something were done to snatch them as brands from the burning: They had to pause and enquire before they could either pledge any of their own family to support or superintend female agents or appeal to other families on behalf of the Mission. Now, however, they have found that their fears were groundless. Female committees, similar in object to those required by the Mission, have long existed in London and elsewhere. That of the Female Penitentiary presents a cloud of witnesses" to the fact that honourable and devout women are not less honoured in public or at home on account of this labour of love. The matrons also of such institutions, instead of losing caste or respect, have won veneration and esteem from the noblest and best of the land. And what name is more hallowed than the name of Fry, the Howardess of female prisoners? Why should it be thought impracticable to multiply such committees, and to find such matrons as those of the Penitentiaries? The churches in London can surely furnish Phoebes, Dorcases, and Marys, as readily and abundantly as that in Jerusalem or Ephesus, and are far better able to sustain such

agents than the infant churches of Judea, Greece, and Rome, were.

No Christian who knows the state of our churches can despair of being able to find suitable instructors for the neglected and messengers of mercy to the perishing. No one who knows the human heart can doubt whether such messengers would succeed, whilst moving about in meekness and love amongst the friendless and forlorn. But, if there might seem room to doubt this before the experiment was tried, such a doubt cannot now be entertained. The effort has been made. Female agents are now at work, and every month bears ample testimony that their labours are not in vain. We can therefore with confidence appeal to such of our fellow-christians as may hitherto have kept aloof from this work of mercy. Let it be remembered that ETERNITY is before each of us, and that even at the judgment-seat we must be confronted with the neglected females who are now perishing around us. How can we meet the JUDGE, or them, if we refuse to care for their souls? Who will then dare to say that a FEMALE MISSION was visionary, or that it was unbecoming in any Christian lady to countenance its agents? This would not tell at the tribunal. This will not bear to be thought of through eternity. How could it? Even here it is almost impossible to sleep or breathe whilst remembering that TEN THOUSAND unhappy females die annually in our metropolis. Oh the ruin is not visionary! Alas for the lips which say that the remedy is so!

for, if it be, there is no balm in Gilead" for the

hurt.

Christian reader, weigh the import of that equitable sentence of the inspired word, "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin," and then act as conscience may dictate.

CONDITION OF WOMAN IN ALL AGES AND

COUNTRIES.
No. 1.

THE Condition of woman in different ages and countries furnishes one of the most important subjects of investigation, as it unquestionably forms one of the most decisive criterions of the degree of civilization and refinement. Among rude and savage tribes the females are generally found in a state of the deepest degradation; and it is only in that improved state of society in which mental and moral worth are ranked above mere corporeal strength that the women associate on equal terms with the men, and fill the place of voluntary and useful copartners. Hence it will appear on the strictest enquiry that the sentiment of an eminent writer, which we have quoted at p. 3 of this magazine, is strictly and literally true-" The religion of the gospel and the emancipation of the sex are in direct proportion to each other."

The records of history exhibit numerous and diversified states in which woman has existed. In some nations she has been exalted almost to divinity, in others degraded to the level of the brute. Sometimes she has been enthroned in all the pomp of empires, at other times driven out to perform the labour of the slave and herd with the cattle. There are periods referred to on the unwasting page in which

she has grasped the battle brand, and rushed forth to stay the progress of foreign invasion, or she has met, as the mother of Coriolanus did, the victorious foe, and pleaded with all the eloquence of tears the cause of her forlorn and enslaved country,-or, like Judith, she has by the energy of her single arm delivered from the relentless hold of tyranny the land of her birth. On the other hand numerous instances are recorded in which she has been apportioned to the service of the most contemptible voluptuousness and luxury-condemned to minister to the gross appetites of her lord paramount, her mind unilluminated by the faintest scintillations of intellectual light. In all the examples afforded by history, one thing however is certain, that between the condition of heathen woman and Christian woman there is no comparison, so immeasurably is the one removed from the other. In all heathen nations, the condition of woman, whether of a sensual or stoical character, was radically bad. She was not that "angel of life which God constituted her at the beginning, and which Christianity would again make her. She was either the slave of man or his sensual and impotent plaything; she possessed not his best and kindliest sympathies; she had no part nor lot in his affections; she was never consulted on the business and pleasures of his existence. The husband and the wife seldom mingled together the smiles of rejoicing or the tears of mutual distress. He was afflicted, and she was unconcerned. She was in trouble and heavi ness, and he heeded it not. Man could exchange the words of friendship with man. To woman, who could best have sympathised with him, the chambers of his breast were hermetically sealed. Was not this the age of iron-when affection was banished from