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thought, disposing him for comprehensive observation, speculation and science; in woman it takes more the character of feeling, which is always something single, closely coupled with fancy and art; her thoughts are her own inward states and impressions mainly, and the product immediately of the outward occasions from which they grow. So again self-activity in man takes naturally the broad character of will, carrying him forth into the open world, involving him in business and conflict on the arena of public life; while in woman it is exercised more in the form of impulse and desire, falls more fully within the flow of nature as embodied in her own particular organization, and for this very reason, at the same time, participates more largely in the character of passive necessity and dependence, as the law by which nature is ruled. The personality of man is more vigorous and concentrated, and if we may use the expres sion, more thoroughly and completely personal, than the personality of woman: showing him clearly thus to be the centre and bearer properly of the human nature as a whole. This implies no inferiority on the side of woman; she is just as complete and whole in her own sphere as man can possibly be in his; and this sphere is just as necessary also as the other to the true perfection of human life. It lies however in the nature of the case, that this life should be, not a dualism, but an inward unity; and that the distinction therefore in which it starts, reaching as it does into the personal consciousness itself, should be so ordered nevertheless as to return in upon itself again to a common personal ground. The relation of the sexes then requires, that their two-fold constitution, dividing as it does the proper wholeness of humanity, should be supported at last as a single personality from a common basis on the one side or the other. The general nature accordingly is made to centre in man; and woman taken in symbolic vision from his side, while she forms the necessary complement of his being, comes to her full spiritual development and gains her true native freedom and independence, only by seeking in him the central support which she lacks in herself, and by bringing her whole consciousness thus into profound union with his life, as the inmost and deepest ground of her own.

With such natural and personal differences, the sexes are designated from the start to different spheres of life, and have widely different missions to fulfil in the social system. Neither the duties of the man on the one hand, nor his virtues and perfections on the other, are the same in general that belong to woman; and so also the vices which most dishonor the one, are not always

of exactly parallel turpitude for the other. Man's vocation is to go forth into the world, to wrestle with nature as its rightful lord and master, to make his understanding and will felt on the general course of life. The forest-felling axe, the soil-subduing plough, the mason's hammer and the joiner's saw, the wand of judgment, the sceptre of authority and the sword of war, belong properly to his hand, and to his alone. Business, politics, outward enterprize, learning and science, are all computed in his legitimate domain. Woman on the other hand, finds her true orbit, as we have already said, in the quiet retreats of private and domestic life. Her highest glory and greatest power are comprehended in the sacred names of wife and mother. She is not indeed shut out from society, in a wider view. On the contrary, she is fitted to exert the largest influence in the social sphere strictly taken, as distinguished from that of business and science. But it is always under her domestic character only, and in virtue of her peculiar constitution, as representing the individual side of the world's life, rather than that which is general and universal. The moment she affects to overstep this limit, by the personal assumption of public and general functions, in which she can have no part properly except through the he eyes floor medium of the other sex, she makes herself weak, and forfeits her title to respect. The popular platform, the rostrum, the pulpit, are interdicted to her nature, no less than the battle field and crowded exchange. All public primacy is unsuitable to her sex; nor is it easy to see certainly, how the "monstrous regimen of women" as denounced by the Old Scottish Elijah, in his memorable "Blast," should not be as fair an object of indignation and scorn when seated on the throne, as it is felt to be in all inferior stations.' Christianity here is always deep, and at the

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"Who would not judge that body to be a monster," says Knox, "where there was no head eminent above the rest, but that the eyes were in the hands, the tongue and the mouth beneath in the belly and the ears in the feet? No less is the body of that commonwealth, where a woman beareth empire; for either doth it lack a lawful head, as in very deed it doth, or else an idol is exalted instead of the true head. An idol I call that which hath the form and appearance, but lacketh the virtue and strength, which the name and proportion doth resemble and promise. I confess a realm may in despite of God-he of his wise judgment so giving them over unto a reprobate mind-exalt up a woman to that monstriferous honor to be esteemed as head. But impossible it is to man or angel, to give unto her the properties and perfect offices of a lawful head; for the same God that defe nied power to the hands to speak, to the belly to hear, and to the feet to see, hath denied to the woman power to command man, and hath taken away wisdom to consider, and providence to foresee, the things that be profitable to the commonwealth."-First Blast.

same time true to nature. the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." So again: "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression."

"Let your women keep silence in

The order of society, springing as it does from the sexual relation first of all, imperiously requires that the opposition in which it holds should be sacredly regarded and preserved, throughout the whole economy of life. All that serves to neutralize it, or to thrust it out of sight, should be reprobated as an agency unfriendly to the best interests of the human race. Civilization and culture, morality and religion, while they call for the free intercourse of the sexes, as polar sides of one and the same social constitution, call no less clearly at the same time for their constant distinction and separation in all that pertains to inward character and outward life. They need a different edu-V cation. The accomplishments which adorn the one, are not those which most become the other. It is not without reason that they are required to distinguish themselves in their outward dress. "Doth not even nature itself teach you," says the apostle," that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? but if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given her for a covering." All confusion of the sexes, all removal of the lines and land-marks that show the true and proper boundary between them, is a crime against society of the most serious order. For either sex to forsake its own sphere, and to intrude into that which belongs of right only to the other, though it should be even in the most trivial things merely, is ever something revolting to all reason and taste. To be unsexly, in costnme, habit, spirit or occupation, is to be at the same time unnatural also and immoral.

This opposition and distinction however, as we have already seen, are intended only to make room for the more perfect union of the two interests thus flung asunder. It is because they are different in this way, and in proportion also as the difference is understood and respected, that the sexes are capable of entering into the intimate union, which lies at the ground of our whole human life. Physically, psychologically, and morally, man shows himself to be at all points what woman is not. The one

is the opposite of the other. But for this very reason, the relation is one of reciprocal want and supply. Neither section of the race is complete in its own nature, while the defect which exists on each side is met with its proper complement precisely in the comparative advantage of the other. Humanity is the unity of the two sexes; which as such accordingly can never rest in one apart from the other, but must seek continually the full conjunction of both, as original, necessary component sides of its proper constitution. In the nature of the case it can never be satisfied with such conjunction, except under the most inward and spiritual form, as the power ultimately of a single individual life. The sexes are made complete only in and through each other; and this necessarily by such a union only, as extends to their whole constitution, physical and spiritual, embracing thus the entire inward life full as much as that which is exhibited out. wardly in the sphere of flesh and blood. Each is needed to fill out and complete the personality or moral nature of the other, no less than its material organization. The qualities of man's spirit require to be softened and refined by communion with the mild nature of woman; as she on the other hand needs the strength and firmness of his more universal life, on which to lean as the stable prop of her own. The personality of man is enriched and beautified, through woman, on the side of nature; the personality of woman is consolidated and perfected, through man, on the side of the idea.

In this view, of course, the union which the case demands, can not overthrow but must serve rather to establish in full force, the order we have already found to hold between the two sexes in their personal constitution. It is emphatically the fact of this order, involving as it does a certain primacy on the one side and a corresponding subordination on the other, that makes it possible for the union to take the vital, fundamental form, that is here required. Two strictly co-ordinate personalities could not be expected to flow thus into the power of a single life. It is because woman has her true and proper centre at last in man, and not in herself, that it is possible for the sexes to become, not simply one flesh, but one mind also and one soul. Her consciousness thus poised upon the personality of man, is brought to such harmony and freedom and active force within itself, as it could never be advanced to in any other way. All this implies no sort of dishonor or degradation. It is simply the necessary form of our general human life itself, whose perfection demands this distinction of sexes, as something which, to be real at all, must hold in such proportional relation and no other. It is precisely

the strength and glory of woman, to be thus dependently joined to the personality of man, as the vine is carried upwards by clinging to a trunk more vigorous and rough than its own, which it serves at the same time gracefully to ennoble and adorn. Marriage is indeed in this view, more significant and necessary, we 7 may say, for woman, than it can be held to be for man. It is the appointed and regular process of her full emancipation from the power of sense and nature over into the sphere of a firm and enduring spiritual independence. She needs it to make her own personality, whether as intelligence or will, sufficently central and deep to sustain itself as it should against the force of the surrounding world It is by the mighty energy of love, in this form, that she comes at last fully to herself, and is enabled to bring into clear revelation the true wealth of her nature. In a deep sense thus we may apply to the case, that mystic word of the apostle "She shall be saved (dia texvoyovias) by childbearing.” Connected as it is immediately with the thought of her moral weakness, as exemplified in the fall, (1. Tim. ii. 14, 15,) it seems to refer not obscurely to the like mystic word of the curse pronounced against her, Gen. iii. 16, in consequence of that catas trophe. The relation which is made the fountain of her deepest sorrows, under the iron reign of sin, becomes itself the wellspring of her salvation, through the law of "faith and charity and holiness" revealed in Jesus Christ. So profoundly true again is that other declaration: "The head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man;" or as we have it in another place: "The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church" (1. Cor. xi. 3: Eph. v. 28). So intimately close is the union, for which the sexual distinction opens the way, and in which alone it comes finally to its true meaning.

On this union, the primitive and most fundamental form of human fellowship, depends not simply the perpetuation of the race, but the entire problem besides of its social and moral history. It is by means of it, in the first place, that the generic or universal life of man is brought to assert its proper authority, over against the life of the individual singly and separately considered. The individual is forced to feel that he is no complete whole in himself; that his nature can be true to its own constitution, only by passing beyond his single person and seeking its necessary complement in another; that, in one word, to be a true and full man at all, he must enter into communion with his race, and make himself tributary, in a free way, to the high ends for which it has been placed in the world. This subordination

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