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

in slavery, in want, in ignorance, in sin, and I can aid him and do not, he has much against me, and God can better wait for my prayer than my brother for my help!

INTUITIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

[A Sermon of Immortal Life. Preached in Boston, 20 September, 1846.]

TO my mind this is the great proof of Immortality: the fact that it is written in human nature; written there so plain that the rudest nations have not failed to find it, to know it; written just as much as form is written on the Circle, and extension on Matter in general. It comes to our consciousness as naturally as the notions of Time and Space. We feel it as a desire; we feel it as a fact. What is thus in Man is writ there of God, who writes no lies. To suppose that this universal desire has no corresponding gratification, is to represent him, not as the Father of all, but as only a Deceiver. I feel the longing after Immortality, a desire essential to my nature, deep as the foundation of my Being; I find the same desire in all men. I feel conscious of Immortality; that I am not to die-no; never to die, though often to change. I cannot believe this desire and consciousness are felt only to mislead, to beguile, to deceive me. I know God is my Father and the Father of the Nations. Can the Almighty deceive his children? For my own part, I can conceive of nothing which shall make me more certain of my Immortality. I ask no argument from learned lips. No miracle could make me more sure; no, not if the sheeted dead burst cerement and shroud, and rising forth from their honored tombs stood here before me, the disenchanted dust once more enchanted with that fiery life; no, not if the souls of all my sires since time began came thronging round, and with miraculous speech told me they lived and I should also live. I could only say, "I knew all this before; why waste your heavenly speech?" I have now indubitable certainty of eternal life. Death removing me to the next state, can give me infallible certainty.

There are a great many things true which no man as yet can prove true; some things so true that nothing can make them plainer, or more plainly true. I think it is so with this doctrine, and therefore, for myself, ask no argument. With my views of Man, of God, of the relation between the two, I want no proof, satisfied with my own consciousness of Immortality.

The Idea of Immortality, like the Idea of God, in a certain sense, is born in us, and fast as we come to consciousness of ourselves we come

to consciousness of God, and of ourselves as immortal. The higher we advance in wisdom, goodness, piety, the larger place do God and Immortality hold in our experience and inward life. I think that is the regular and natural process of a man's development. Doubt of either seems to me an exception, an irregularity.

What form our conscious, social, and increased activity shall take we know not. We know of that no more than before our birth we knew of this world, of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, or the things which they reveal. We are not born into that world, have not its senses yet. This we know, that the same God, all-powerful, all-wise, all-good, rules there and then, as here and now. Who cannot trust him to do right and best for all? For my own part I feel no wish to know how, or where, or what I shall be hereafter. I know it will be right; for my truest welfare; for the good of all. I am satisfied with this trust.

Yet

Yet the next life must be a state of Retribution. Thither we carry nothing but ourselves, our naked selves. Our fortune we leave behind. us; our honors and rank return to such as gave; even our reputation, the good or ill men thought we were, clings to us no more. We go thither without our staff or scrip-nothing but the man we are. that man is the result of all life's daily work; it is the one thing which we have brought to pass. I cannot believe men who have lived mean, little, vulgar, and selfish lives will go out of this and into that, great, noble, generous, good, and holy. Can the practical Saint and the practical Hypocrite enter on the same course of being together? I know the sufferings of bad men here, the wrong they do their nature, and what comes of that wrong. I think that suffering is the best part of sin, the medicine to heal it with. What men suffer here from their wrong-doing is its natural consequence; but all that suffering is a mercy, designed to make them better. Everything in this world is adapted to promote the welfare of God's creatures. Must it not be so in the next? How many men seem wicked from our point of view who are not so from their own; how many become infamous through no fault of theirs; the victims of circumstances, born into crime, of low and corrupt parents, whom former circumstances made corrupt. Such men cannot be sinners before God. Here they suffer from the tyranny of appetites they never were taught to subdue; they have not the joy of a cultivated mind. The children of the wild Indian are capable of the same cultivation as children here; yet they are savages. Is it always to be so; is God to be partial in granting the favors of another life? I cannot believe it. I doubt not that many a soul rises up from the dungeon and the gallows, yes, from dens of infamy amongst men, clean and beautiful before God. Christ assured the penitent thief of sharing Heaven with him-and that day. Many seem inferior to me, who in God's sight must be far before