invention to relieve the Almighty from the incessant care of his creation. We cannot deny that some eyes have been dazzled by it, so as to become insensible to the more needed light of spiritual faith. But how could there be such brilliancy, except in an emanation from divine light? The intellectual force of the conception is consequent upon its verity. Any harm which it may have done is due, not to the impurity or dimness of the light, but to the weakness or disease of the eye.

An undeviating succession of events has been observed. Such a phenomenon is inseparable from uniformity of law and plan, and is the only possible expression of an unchangeable will, which is subject to no caprice. It is the mode of growth adopted by the Creator to accomplish the plan of creation. The universe is a book written for man's reading. If it were destitute of strict logical connection, it would fail of its purpose, and be unintelligible. The luminous order of the pages and the successive introduction of new and strange truths are marvellously adapted to the development and expansion of the created intellect. It is a glorious manifestation of the all-pervading affection and of the fostering care of divine wisdom. Facility of execution was no motive to the Omnipotent, nor transparency of conception to the Omniscient. Our weakness has been consulted in the spiritual food presented to our nutri

ment.

The divine presence only at the beginning, and the seeming absence of Deity from the actual course of natural events, is a human misconception not easy to be eradicated, for it is one which is incident to our finite nature. Man lives in time and space. It is only through media that he is cognizant of the near and the remote, of the past and the future. Standing on the earth, he sees the distant star by the light. which strikes his eye; and, by the aid of the telescope, can see one still more remote. Guided by the law of cause and effect, he traces back events into the past and prophesies the future.

This is man's mode of seeing; but it cannot be God's. The Omniscient and Omnipresent needs neither created light nor human telescope to penetrate space, nor our logic to connect events. With him there is nothing distant; all objects, celestial and terrestrial, are in immediate proximity, and the past and the future are forever present. Deity does not exist in time and space; but they are in him,—they are his inward conceptions, his created conditions, to which man by his will is subject.

This wonderful riddle is at present beyond human conception; it is faintly represented in the mystery of the dream. But it is vain for the finite to strive to comprehend the infinite. We are permitted to know all that we require. The universal plan is apparent to every mind which yields itself to logical induction. The links of the all-embracing chain are in open sight. We need not search the obscure past to find out God.

It is not in the first appearance of animal life or of man himself that He need be sought, any more than in the whirlwind or the earthquake. His dwelling is not where the law of continuity is broken. There would be the proper home of some heathen deity, who rejoiced in lawlessness. But our God proclaims himself in the silent law of universal gravitation; He is forever present in the quiet grandeur and intellectual simplicity of the processes of the nebular theory, and in the soul of man, which is fitted to understand the divine harmony. The Creator is not. ruled out of the universe by our theory of evolution. That which we call evolution is but the mode in which He is present on whom mortal cannot look with physical eyes and live. It is the manifestation of his paternity. He becomes through it, more legibly than ever, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the eternal I AM, the omnipresent Father, the breath of whose nostrils is wisdom and power

and love.

Louisa Susannah McCord.

BORN in Charleston, S. C., 1810. DIED there, 1880.

A DIFFERENCE IN KIND.

[The Southern Quarterly Review. 1852.]

E are ourselves inclined to believe that the difference of intellect

WE

in the sexes exists, as we have said, rather in kind than degree. There is much talk of the difference of education and rearing bestowed upon individuals of either sex, and we think too much stress is laid upon. it. Education, no doubt, influences the intellect in each individual case; but it is as logically certain, that intellect, in its kind and degree, influences education en masse;-that is to say, Thomas, the individual man, may be better suited to woman's duties, than Betty, the individual woman, and vice versa. Thomas might make a capital child's nurse, in which Betty succeeds but badly; while Betty might be quite competent. to beat Thomas hollow in a stump oration; and yet we have a fair right to argue that Thomas and Betty are but individual exceptions to a general rule, which general rule is plainly indicated by the universal practice of mankind. The fact that such relative positions of the sexes, and such habits of mind, have existed, more or less modified, in all ages of the world, and under all systems of government, goes far to prove that these are the impulses of instinct and teachings of Nature. It is certainly a little hard on Mrs. Betty to be forced from occupations for

which she feels herself particularly well-qualified, and to make way for Mr. Thomas, who, although particularly ill-qualified for them, will be certain to assert his right; but laws cannot be made for exceptional cases, and if Mrs. Betty has good sense, as well as talent, she will let the former curb the latter; she will teach her woman-intellect to curb her man intellect, and will make herself the stronger woman thereby. The fact that less effort has been made to teach woman certain things is a strong argument that she has (taking her as a class) less aptitude for being taught those certain things. It is difficult to chain down mind by any habit or any teaching, and if woman's intellect has the same turn as man's, it is most unlikely that so many myriads should have passed away and "made no sign." In the field of literature, how many women have enjoyed all the advantages which men can command, and yet how very few have distinguished themselves; and how far behind are even those few from the great and burning lights of letters! Who ever hopes to see a woman Shakespeare? And yet a greater than Shakespeare may she be. It may be doubtful whether the brilliant intellect, which, inspiring noble thoughts, leaves still the great thinker grovelling in the lowest vices and slave of his passions, without the self-command to keep them in sway, is superior to that which, knowing good and evil, grasps almost instinctively at the first. Such, in its uncorrupted nature, is woman's intellect such her inspiration. While man writes, she does; while he imagines the hero-soul, she is often performing its task; while he is painting she is acting. The heart, it is sometimes argued, and not the brain, is the priceless pearl of womanhood, "the oracular jewel, the Urim and Thummim before which gross man can only inquire and adore." This is fancy, and not reasoning. The heart is known to be only a part of our anatomical system, regulating the currents of the blood, and nothing more. It has, by an allegory based upon exploded error, been allowed to stand for a certain class of feelings which everybody now knows to be, equally with other classes, dependent upon the brain; and, in a serious argument, not the heart and the brain, but the difference of brain; not the feeling and the intellect, but the varieties of intellect, should be discussed. We consider, therefore, the question of preeminence as simply idle. We have already endeavored to prove that, whatever the intellect of woman, it would have no influence in altering the relative position of the sexes; we now go farther, and maintain that the nature of her intellect confirms this position. The higher her intellect, the better is she suited to fulfil that heaviest task of life which makes her the "martyr to the pang without the palm." If she suffers, -what is this but the fate of every higher grade of humanity, which rises in suffering as it rises in dignity? for, is not all intellect suffering?

James Aldrich.

BORN in Mattituck, L. I, N. Y., 1810. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1856.

ELF-TORTURED, self-deceived, why tremblest thou

SELF

At that great sea which laves no mortal shore ?

Rightly conceived, Eternity is now,

And Time, with all its troubles, is no more.

IT

Theodore Parker.

BORN in Lexington, Mass., 1810. DIED in Florence, Italy, 1860.

THE REAL CHURCH.

[Installation Discourse in Boston, 4 January, 1846.]

T seems to me that a church which dares name itself Christian, the Church of the Redeemer, which aspires to be a true church, must set itself about all this business, and be not merely a church of theology, but of religion; not of faith only, but of works; a just church, by its faith bringing works into life. It should not be a church termagant, which only peevishly scolds at sin, in its anile way; but a church militant against every form of evil, which not only censures, but writes out on the walls of the world the brave example of a Christian life, that all may take pattern therefrom. Thus only can it become the church triumphant. If a church were to waste less time in building its palaces of theological speculation, palaces mainly of straw, and based upon the chaff, erecting air-castles and fighting battles to defend those palaces of straw, it would surely have more time to use in the practical good works of the day. If it thus made a city free from want and ignorance and crime-I know I vent a heresy-I think it would be quite as Christian an enterprise as though it restored all the theology of the dark ages; quite as pleasing to God. A good sermon is a good thing, no doubt, but its end is not answered by its being preached; even by its being listened to and applauded; only by its awakening a deeper life in the hearers. But in the multitude of sermons there is danger lest the bare hearing thereof be thought a religious duty, not a means, but an end, and so our Christianity vanish in words. What if every Sunday afternoon the most pious and manly of our number, who saw fit, resolved themselves into a committee of the whole for practical religion, and held not a formal meeting, but one more free, sometimes for the purpose of devotion, the practical work of making ourselves better Christians, nearer to one another, and sometimes that we might find means to help such as needed help, the poor, the ignorant, the intemperate, and the wicked? Would it not be a work profitable to ourselves, and useful to others weaker than we? For my own part, I think there are no ordinances of religion like good works; no day too sacred to help my brother in; no Christianity like a practical love of God shown by a practical love of men. Christ told us that if we had brought our gift to the very altar, and there remembered our brother had cause of complaint against us, we must leave the divine service, and pay the human service first! If my brother be