ments and ordinances of religion. Were woman the creature of a day, passing hence to be no more, with neither hope of reward nor liability to wrath, beyond this world, why should she have the power of making vows at all; and so solemnly, that did man interfere with their due performance, he should bear her iniquity, and woman -aye, the despised and degraded woman-should be forgiven?

The candid and unprejudiced reader of the word of life, be his faith what it may, must perceive how mistaken is such a charge; and let not, then, our young sisters be tempted to quit their native fold for another, where they are told greater privileges await them, both as women and as immortal beings. Let them not be terrified by the charge that, as Jewish women, they are soulless slaves. But let them come to the word of God, and prove that there is their shield, there is their defence. That there their God Himself has revealed a love and care for His weaker children, too deeply, too nearly, too blessedly for them to need aught else; that there is their hope, as there is their consolation.

Yet more to protect his feebler creation from the fierce passions and unjust accusations of Eastern natures, the Most High, in His infinite mercy, instituted the law of jealousy, an awful and most terrible law, yet one which every innocent woman must have hailed with thankfulness, and which every guilty woman must have died ere she could have faced. The various sins prohibited by the voice of God Himself, in His Ten Commandments, are all in His sight of equal magnitude, and, therefore, without any reservation whatever, were all punishable with death. And well had it been for the purity, virtue,

and happiness of man, had this blessed law continued in force as it was given, and thence had emanated over the whole world. It has been called a law of fire and blood, given but to destroy and be destroyed. But the charge is false. The Eternal knew the natures of those to whom it was given-that severity was needed for the time; and had that severity been used, and the law literally and purely OBEYED, even as it was intended, each generation would have been purer and more spiritual than the former, till that holiness was at length universally attained, which would indeed have brought "the days of heaven on the earth;" and Israel would not now have been persecuted and tortured in some lands, and an exile and a wanderer, houseless and priestless, in them all!

Adultery, even as idolatry, sabbath-breaking, murder, &c., was punishable by death. In Israel, the ruthless spoiler of man's dearest shrine-his home, sacrificed not only his honor (which, however high-sounding, to such characters must be but a name), not only his standing and his wealth, but his LIFE. Aye, and not the tempter only, but the wife, the mother, who could fling misery upon a tortured husband, and undying shame upon her helpless babes. Yet amid a people irascible and fierce, too liable to jealousy to examine calmly and justly, as we know is the case at this very day with every Eastern nation, a law was imperatively needed to protect the helpless and innocent, alike from false charges and a husband's unjust hate. No man could take justice into his own hands. He dared not injure the reputation, or take the life of his wife, without having her guilt proved by God Himself. A false accusation had no power to

fling shame upon her, or render her station doubtful, as it would now. The Most High Himself interfered in her defence, and proved, in the face of the whole people, her innocence and honor; as, were she guilty, He took into His own hands her punishment, and the manifestation of her guilt.

The law of jealousy is not in general regarded by the women of Israel as it ought to be. False refinement shrinks from it as a thing perfectly unnecessary and antiquated now. Nay, perhaps, as a law so horrible, so indelicate, that they wonder that it is not expunged from the Bible. By us it is welcomed as another most consoling and unanswerable proof of the Eternal's tender mercy towards us. The full extent of its use and justice can only be realised by contrasting it with the statutes of the southern and eastern nations, with whose quick passions and excitability, Israel, when the law was given, had more in common than with the cooler and more dispassioned north.

With the followers of Mahomet does not a mere thought, a mere suspicion, unaided by the very shadow of proof, commit the helpless woman to a watery grave, with none to interfere in her behalf, or mourn her when at rest? None to clear her name, or bring the false and cruel husband to justice and to shame? And amidst those bearing the Christian name, do not the Italian and Spaniard make as murderous use of the stiletto or the drugged cup, as the Moslem of the sack? That such misery is seldom heard of in Protestant countries, comes not from actual law, but from that greater civilisation and refinement, which must spring from public and private communion with the BIBLE. This is the safeguard

of Protestant women, and this they owe to the spirit of that law given to us by God Himself. Some among the Gentiles there are, honest and spiritual enough to acknowledge this; and from our very heart we honour such honest lovers of truth. But others, and unhappily the greater number, there are who fling shame and dishonor upon the women of the very people for whose safety those blessed laws were framed, the spirit of which is now guiding the Protestants themselves.

By contrasting the law vouchsafed to us with those guiding the Gentiles of all denominations, we learn to know the true value of the blessed faith which we possess, and are armed against all insidious efforts to turn us from it. But this can never be whilst the women of Israel regard the laws of Moses only in a national and local, not in an individual, view, believing that, because they are no longer in actual use, they only relate to them in their several positions in Jerusalem, and do not in the least concern them

now.

They do concern us, most nearly and most consolingly. He whose infinite mercy gave them has not cast us from His love, though, for a time, compelled for our sins to bear witness to the nations of His justice and His wrath. Yet for us, as a people, and each of us, individually, He bears the same infinite long-suffering love which He bore to our ancestors in Egypt. We learn this from every prophet, who never spoke of sin without holding forth forgiveness, who never prophesied dispersion and banishment without comforting with the promise of restoration; and we know the extent of our Father's love towards us, by every statute of His law.

The interference of the Most High in cases similar to those calling for the law of jealousy, the wives of Israel may no longer need: but are there none in minor circumstances wrongfully accused? None needing a Father who knoweth every secret thought and inward struggle, to whom to look when man may wilfully wrong, or blindly misappreciate? None who struggle on in the petty, but how sadly wearing, trials of daily life, to do what seems the best, to act the kindest, to banish every throb of self, and sacrifice all of individual comfort and enjoyment to further the comfort and the wishes of another, yet finds her every effort turned against herself, and armed with acutest woe? In such cases,

and who shall say there are none such, where can woman turn, but to her God? Where find consolation, save in the belief that her innocence, her efforts rest with Him, and He will one day make them known? Where shall her heart, bleeding and torn from its earthly rest, find peace save in His love? O what woman, bearing the name of Israel, can hesitate one moment to pour forth her every grief to Him, and feel she is individually His care, and He will plead her cause?

The express commands relating to the marriages of the priests is another beautiful proof of woman's perfect equality in Israel, and compatibility to be holy unto the Lord, by sharing the holiness of His elected servants; a proof also, that in His service the Eternal demanded no sacrifice of human affections. They were, indeed, to be sanctified to Him, to be infused with His spirit, and so to become a blessing and a joy to His servants; but never to be annihilated, and so give temptation for the most awful abuses and crimes, as in the monastic