entwined that her degradation is his debasement. He cannot be blessed if she is cursed; he cannot remain pure, elevated, and happy, if she be vitiated, degraded, and miserable. If woman remain ignorant, man too must grope in mental darkness. If she wanders in the paths of vice, she drags him with her to destruction. It cannot be otherwise. Woman is the real teacher and guide of man-the potent moulder of human destiny. The fate of nations is in her hand. It depends on her whether peace and truth shall guide to prosperous reform; or reckless revolution stamp, with its bloody characters, the annals of the next generation. Woman is ever moulding the future man; however undesignedly she may exert it, her influence is around him and upon him. He comes in contact with it on all hands; nature renders its withdrawal impossible. The expression of the mother's countenance, the tones of her voice, whether addressing her child or those around; her feelings and ideas have given a stamp before infancy is past, to his character, which after years may deepen, but seldom, if ever, obliterate. This influence does not lose its power; the boy and the youth are moulded by it. The mother, the sister, and even the servant-maid will sympathise with the sorrows of boyhood, and listen to the day-dreams of youth, when man would disdain to lend an ear. Nor is her influence less potent when youth is past. She is with man in the hour of man's weakness; to her he flies for assistance and sympathy in the season of suffering, and her sentiments become a part of his nature. Female influence has been potent in all ages of the world, among all classes of men, as well in barbarous as in civilized nations. Too often, alas! has it been exerted in luring man from the path of duty-a fact recorded in the blackest characters on almost every page of human history. Hitherto the pregnant source of innumerable evils, it is, however, destined ere long to be one of the richest blessings to society, when, purified by piety and guided by intelligence, the influence of woman, like the early dew distilling unseen, but refreshing all nature, will renew the moral beauty of earth. That misery, however, which has ever been attendant on the dethronement of woman from her natural position as the companion and friend of man will never be removed till the last vestige of the long entertained idea, that the female mind is of an inferior order, fitting woman only to hold a dependent place, is wholly abandoned. Neglect of female education is the natural consequence of this idea. If the sphere nature assigns to females be regarded as inferior, and their duties considered frivolous, their education of course appears equally unimportant. It was to be expected that this idea should prevail in ages while man yet uncultivated lived only for the present, while the seen and the sensual engrosses all his thoughts, leaving neither time nor desire to feel after the unseen and the intellectual. It is strange, however, that it should have any place among us in this age of civilization, when the links, uniting causes, and consequences are unveiled; when the broad irresistible stream is traced to the bubbling spring, that may be stopped or turned aside by a handful of clay; when results the most momentous and lasting, are discovered to arise from causes apparently the most trivial and transient. How much more incredible that such an idea should obtain among Christians. Yet to what else can we attribute the general prevalence among them of systems of education for their daughters-so limited as regards any knowledge of the principles of science, and so little calculated to form them to useful habits of thought and action? It is to be hoped that this idea is fast vanishing from all thinking and intelligent minds; although exploded in theory, it still exerts a powerful influence in deciding to what studies young women shall be directed. As yet it scarcely seems to have occurred to any that they ought to be acquainted with physiology, medicine, or chemistry; or, indeed, that they should be conversant with any but the simplest authors on any subject. IMPROVED LEGISLATION. THERE is no more striking indication | morals of the legislating class were too of the advance we have made upon the fitly represented by a circumstance rehabits of our fathers than this-that lated by Romilly: "While I was whereas life is now taken only for life, standing at the bar of the House of and a growing feeling is in the country Commons, a young man, the brother of against even that exaction of supposed a peer, came up to me, and breathing equivalents; Romilly, a man of great in my face the nauseous fumes of his personal and political influence, at the undigested debauch, stammered out, head of his profession, eminent for elo- I am against your bill; I am for hangquence and legal skill-spent his best ing all.' I was confounded; and enyears, from 1808 to 1818, in trying deavouring to find out some excuse for to persuade the legislature to exempt him I observed that I supposed he petty thieves from the gallows; and meant that the certainty of punishment prevailed only in taking pocket-watches affording the only prospect of suppressand bleaching-linen from the long list ing crime, the laws, whatever they of articles to purloin which was death. were, ought to be executed.' 'No, no, It affords, too, another instance of the he said, 'it is not that. There is no anticipation of legislative by public good done by mercy, they only get opinion. It was not till one institution worse. I would hang them all up at of the country set itself in opposition once."" It was upon such material as to another, that juries rendered bad this that the Eldons and Ellenboroughs laws inoperative by pious frauds, and of the age stamped the impress of their prosecutors preferred to connive at theft fallacious logic and of a barbarous anrather than to be parties to judicial tiquity. - History of the Half Cenmurder, that those laws were ameli- tury, by Washington Wilks, pp. 115, orated. The understanding and the 116. SOLITARY PRAYER. GRATEFUL to tread once more the soft green sward, and glad to be alone under the canopy of heaven, after so many weeks' confinement on shipboard among men, I experienced a gush of joyful emotion never before known. Leaving a basket of specimens by a large white rock at the edge of the cliff, while the rest of the party were intent only upon game, I proceeded alone, inland, to a high rocky ridge that commanded a view of the sea, the islands, some fresh water lakes, and a distant sand beach. It was good to be again by one's self. Christ's closet was once the mountain; and here, where prayer, perhaps, was never before made, it was a privilege to pour out the heart's pentup emotions, which flow more readily in the channel of articulate expression than when limited to an internal utterance which God only can know. Home, friends, health, Christian firmness, and the wisdom that is from above, and more than all, spiritual renovation and healing for companions of the voyage, were the subjects of that prayer. May it be presented with Christ's prevalent intercession before the mercy-seat on high! A surprisal by some of our ramblers interrupted a communion, that, short as it was, shall make that rugged island more verdant in memory than the gardens of the Hesperides. One short half hour in which the soul lives and has intercourse with its Maker is worth more than years in which everything is enjoyed but God H. T. Cheever. PRAISE. "It is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely." PSALM cxlvii. 1. WITHIN thee now, my Soul, let silence reign! The wanton current of thy thoughts restrain! With powers which shine with still increasing flame, From Earth's gay tempting scenes withdraw thy It feels its greatness, whilst it speaks the name His Love's the spring whence all my blessings flow. In reverence to Him whose love transcends Its highest thought. God's noblest work, impressed With His own image, and so freely blest Of Him from whom alone that greatness came. With forms which 'neath her magic pencil rise. And darts her beam into the Future's gloom, But now, my Soul, the glowing Past review, And mark His favours ever fresh and new; What love and gratitude such gifts demand! O let me trace His kind paternal hand In all the happiness my heart has known ;- Shall not His praise my noblest powers employ? What could His boundless love have given me more? Rejoicing Nature shouts aloud her songs In praise of Him to whom all praise belongs. The gentle winds that whisper to the trees, The swift-winged blast that dashes o'er the seas; The mountain stream that murmurs its delight, The bounding ocean glorying in its might; The birds whose music charm the listening ear, The forest-king with his loud roar of fear;All blend their voices in sublime accord And sing the lofty praises of the Lord. And shall my tongue alone neglect its part? And shall my silence prove a thankless heart? Shall I, whilst grateful strains of love ascend, Forget to praise my best, my truest Friend? Away, the base, unworthy thought away! E'en nature seems to chide whilst I delay. Who hath been blessed, as I have, from above, And who should know so well that God is Love? Come then, my Soul, approach the mercy-seat, Pour forth thy thanks, and worship at his feet; Univ. Coll, London. He will not from thy praises turn away, THE PRAYER. Great God! Thy praise what creature tongue can tell? In Thee all beauties meet, all glories dwell! All borrowed splendour fades, for Thou art God alone! Thou art supreme! Our eyes can only see Our highest thoughts of Thee are mean and low, To seek thy presence I should never dare, To Thee, to Thee my thankful heart I lift. O may I feel thy Love's attractive power, With eager gladness serve thee here below; May its own joyful effort e'er fulfil, Nerved by thine aid, thy wise and sovereign will. When Earth, and Time itself, shall be no more ; I may be welcomed to thy Bliss above, Where all is peace, and purity, and love, LEO. i REVIEW S. The Works of John Bunyan, with an Intro-, of good feeling on their part, than of duction to each Treatise, Notes, and a Sketch of his Life, Times, and Contemporaries. Vols. I. and II. Experimental, Doctrinal, and Practical. Edited by George Offor, Esq. Blackie and Son, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London: super royal 8vo. Pp. xx. 771, and 758. With numerous Illustrations. MANY a pious, learned, and faithful minister deplores from week to week the smallness of his congregation. He has done his best to become an effective preacher, but he cannot interest the masses around him. He has studied critically the sacred book which he desires to interpret, anxious to ascertain the exact meaning of every text; he has read the works of the most celebrated modern theologians; he has cultivated an acquaintance with science and general literature; he has adopted means to attract the attention of the neighbourhood to the place in which he labours; he has habitually prepared with care his ordinary as well as his extraordinary discourses; but nothing he has done has been effectual to induce the multitudes around him to take a permanent interest in the services which he conducts. This is depressing; but he feels it to be still more discouraging that the persons belonging to the uneducated classes who are under the influence of religious feeling, and who are members of the church under his care, have no very decided preference for his pulpit ministrations. They respect him because of his personal excellencies, and the high esteem in which he is held by their most judicious and influential friends, but their attachment to him is rather the result VOL. XV.-FOURTH SERIES. direct attraction arising from the superiority of his public labours. He is tormented with a suspicion sometimes that a man of far less knowledge than himself would be in some respects more suitable to the station than he is, and decidedly more popular with ninetenths of the community. "When If there is any one of our ministerial readers who is in this case, we should like to suggest to him an experiment which it might be advantageous to try. Bunyan was no less popular as a preacher in his life-time, than he has been as a writer of allegories since his death. Not only in the counties adjacent to that in which he resided after his imprisonment, did the people flock to hear him, but in the metropolis also, which he visited frequently. Mr. Bunyan preached in London," says his contemporary, Mr. Doe, "if there were but one day's notice given, there would be more people come together to hear him preach than the meetinghouse would hold. I have seen, to hear him preach, by my computation, about twelve hundred at a morning lecture, by seven o'clock, on a working day, in the dark winter-time. I also computed about three thousand that came to hear him one Lord's day in London, at a town's end meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was fain, at a back door, to be pulled almost over people to get up stairs to his pulpit." Undoubtedly his sufferings as a prisoner for conscience' sake, and his authorship, conduced to render him an object of curiosity; but he was popular as a preacher before he was either a prisoner or a writer, and the character of his 2 г |