that in a world of which the Spirit is the life, less can by possibility have an advantage over more!

From Ben Jonson's "Picture of a Mind,” I take this reverential estimate of the endowments of the human form Divine,

"Thrice happy house, thou hast receipt
For this so lofty form, so straight,
So polished, perfect, round, and even,
As it slid moulded off from heaven.

"Smooth, soft, and sweet, in all a flood,
Where it may run to any good;

And where it stays, it there becomes
A nest of odorous spice and gums.

"In thee, fair mansion, let it rest,
Yet know with what thou art possest

Thou entertaining in thy breast

But such a mind, mak'st God thy guest."

While, however, we recognise woman's need of wisdom in the relation she sustains to the opening mind of childhood, not less is that need apparent in what from character as well as circumstance must ever largely constitute her proper work in this world: I mean the relief of suffering. Some insight into the meaning of its mystery, as well as

!

much skill to fathom and rightly apprehend its infinite varieties, degrees, and capacities for alleviation, is surely wanted by those who, in the hour of need, would do the part of "ministering angels."

For, am I not right in the suggestion, that the increased refinement of natural feeling which renders the average English woman of to-day a being scarce owning kindred with the Indian squaw, while it has well nigh rendered her incapable of inflicting, has in some cases also unfitted her for looking at, much more for personally relieving, acute suffering of any kind?

The tender-hearted little girl to whom, from earliest consciousness, the sight, the thought of suffering inflicted on an animal gives pain; from whom one glance at the needy child extorts the sudden tear, must gain some strengthening power if she is to retain, yet to exercise for good, those keen sympathies which never can be blunted by use and wont, or concentrated in narrower interests, without serious damage to her unconscious influence.

Am I not also confessing to a common experience when I say that, in certain times and moods, visions of misery have risen before us so appalling that we

have exclaimed, "These things must not be thought of after these ways?" For myself, I do not know how they can be thought of, apart from a recognition of the supreme worth of spiritual life, or without faith in the adaptation of suffering to the development of that life. Yet has it been no angel's voice from heaven but that of stricken humanity on earth, which has so often been heard saying, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted;" while, from personal observation, I can testify that this very experience gives power to face, to sympathize with, and almost incalculably to lessen sorrow of all kinds, which it were worth some suffering to each of us to share, and benignly to impart. I would not here be misunderstood to imply that I take the loss of health, of wealth, of material good of any kind to be in itself gain. Health is unquestionably an inheritance which, in its possession and retention, affords better ground for boasting as to the credit of ourselves and our progenitors than can be found in most inheritances; although it should be borne in mind that wealth, too, is usually indicative of the presence of moral as well as intellectual energy. Each extra possession increases responsibility, and also privilege and

power for good, but it lies with us to make it a help or a hindrance to the world's progress. I believe this to hold good even of moral qualities, which, simply inherited, as are habits, do under the names of "ignorant," (I think it should be called indolent) "conscientiousness" and "firmness of character "—(little better than blind persistency,) avail to throw "a moral weight" into the wrong scale. With respect to the acquisition of worldiy good, Spinoza testifies:

"The acquisition of Gold, the striving after Pleasure and Honour, are hurtful so long as we treat these objects not as means but as ends. If we seek Gold, Pleasure, and Honour as means, so can we preserve moderation, and they appear (or prove) no hindrances, rather do they even further the attainment of the end for whose sake they are sought."

Gladly do I quote these words, because neither the Transcendentalist of the sixteenth nor of the nineteenth century, not even Spinoza with his repute for skill in a mechanical trade, escapes better than the Apostle of the first century, the charge of indifference to the affairs of the world, and to the improvement of man's material con

*Leben und Lehre."

dition, prejudged by others to be the legitimate result of the single aim and the views of life entertained by the spiritual man.

Yet is this charge often refuted, but too obviously as well as too mournfully, by the manifest overappreciation and ill use made by the inheritors of the great gains amassed in virtue of the skill, the faithfulness, the energy of their godly forefathers. What, I would ask, was the character of the citizens which the Paris of 1572, more "atheistic" I must think, practically, than the Paris of 1789, murdered in her streets, and which France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes dispersed to fructify and to make available the riches of the earth, everywhere possessed and enjoyed by the Truth-seeker as "the Lord's?"

The history of Protestant Europe affords ample testimony that not in the field of warfare only have "they of the religion borne them best in fight," that the path of free thought and spiritual life is marked by material progress: that work done "to the Lord" is work done "heartily.'

Not by lessening the wants, still less by gratuitously adding to the sufferings of humanity, will the real religionist seek his great ends; rather,