state threw around it a false and alluring halo, and inspired a degree of veneration and influence which proved but too flattering to the natural pride of the human heart.

Partial and perverted views of the real nature of unspotted purity, and of the true requirements of the Gospel, imperceptibly induced a disparagement of marriage; while a life of celibacy and asceticism was held up as the most acceptable mode of serving God. Saint Paul (1 Tim. v. 11. 14.) commanded young women not to make vows, but to marry, and become useful members of society: but, in the lapse of time, when men had departed from the first simplicity of the Gospel, many parents, like Læta, devoted their infant daughters as the brides of Christ, and compelled them to smother, in the retirement of the cloister, the best and holiest feelings of the human heart.

The great Apostle of the Gentiles had warned his converts, that the reign of Antichrist would be marked by the want of natural affection; when, under the most specious show of willworship and voluntary humility, men would give heed to the doctrines of devils, forbidding

to marry, commanding to abstain from meats, creeping into houses, and leading captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts."

So early as the time of Cyprian we find the opulent virgins of Carthage, who had devoted themselves to Christ, so much absorbed in the vanities of dress and pomp as to call forth the serious remonstrances of the bishop, in a distinct treatise, "De Habitu Virginum." But the most scandalous disorders were those occasioned by a sort of platonism, of associating such young women with unmarried ecclesiastical persons, under the specious pretext of an intercourse of a purely spiritual character. When we reflect upon all the sin and scandal in which this one error, of vows of chastity, has involved thousands, nay, millions, of deluded victims, we cannot hesitate to regard it as one of the most powerful strongholds of Satan, by which he maintains and perpetuates his empire over men.

The most influential, however, of the early fathers of the Church, especially Clement of Alexandria, the author of "Pastor Hermas,"

&c., ably exposed the dangers and fallacies of this system of extreme asceticism, this opus operatum, which insidiously beguiled men into pride and vainglory, to regard the means as the end, and, in the undue prominence of means, eventually to overlook the end altogether. The stress, too, laid upon the severities of religion, and the retirement from active life, which could be practised only by the few, gradually led to a lowering of the standard of evangelical requirement and christian perfection by the many. The shepherd of Hermas, in laying down the Gospel principles of continence and self-denial, well observes, "Above all things, exercise your abstinence in this, in abstaining from saying or listening to evil things; and purify your heart from all pollution, from all revengeful feelings and covetousness, and, on the day on which you fast, content yourself with bread, vegetables, and water, and thank God for these. Reckon, however, how much your meal would have cost you on this day, and give the price to which this comes to the poor. Happy is it for you, if you, with all

your children and your household, observe these things."

"Our Saviour," says Clement, “does not command us, as many superficially suppose, to cast away our earthly property, but to banish from our souls the thoughts of money, and desires after it, that sickness of the soul, the cares, the thorns of this earthly life, which choke the seed of heavenly life."

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.

Colossians, iv.

If we examine attentively the working of the system of domestic slavery, which subjected the bulk of mankind to the tyranny of a few freeborn masters, we shall find that, great as were the miseries which it entailed upon its unhappy victims, the curse reacted with tenfold degradation upon the master himself. It is the natural tendency of unlimited and irresponsible power over our own species, to demoralise even the most refined and benevolent minds; and where there is no counteracting and restraining principle of divine grace, its impunity proves but too congenial to the unrenewed heart. It will therefore excite no surprise, that a nation which held women generally in contempt should treat