moves stealthily in. Christ is speaking, and all eyes are fixed on Him. Quite unnoticed, she passes up, and sinks to the floor, at Christ's feet. He hears sobbing. Then there is a soft rain of tears on His feet. He turns. Lo buried in the cataract of her

fallen hair, a woman is kissing his travel-worn feet. Unprecedented honour to the despised and rejected of men! My friends, is there not an eloquence there that no words could utter? Her whole life, in one, solid, intense outflow, is going forth to her Deliverer.

Dropping everything of merely temporary significance, let us grasp the essential elements of this act. It was an act of personal devotion to Christ. It was an act in the line of her own feelings. No man would have taken this way of expressing his emotions. The woman spoke in it all.

2

We have here, then, an advance on the teaching of the former passage. There we learned that woman's work must be rooted in consecration of her whole being to Christ. In this we discover, among other truths, the ground and reason of this consecration, viz., gratitude for salvation received. There is no other gospel for women than for men. They must begin-the very best and wisest of them, equally with the degraded and fallen-by confessing themselves sinners, and by accepting the salvation of Christ; and gratitude for this salvation must be the spring of their whole being and endeavour.

But further, love must act according to the laws of the nature in which it burns. This woman never stopped to think what others would do. She did what her love-enflamed nature prompted. And it is this which gives its grand originality to her deed.

And now notice the sphere. Where did this woman witness for Christ? In her neighbour's house. Christian sisters! you visit. But do you witness for Christ in your visits, as this woman witnesssed? Do you let it be plainly seen that your heart is given to Christ? It does not need that you talk very much about Christ, though surely we should not be slow about that. In your way of looking at common things, in the manner in which you discusss family affairs, or your friends' and neighbours' conduct, and in the support you give, by speech and demeanour, to everything that makes for the right, you may testify most powerfully for Jesus.

But, further, mark that this was a special visit. The woman went with one errand, viz., to express her love to Christ. And

she went into a house where this act of testifying was required. Simon, if he had a correct life, had a frozen heart. It needed warming. And God sent this woman, whom he despised, to do him good. Here, then, is a precious sphere for you. God has given to you, my sisters, a personal influence which He has denied to man. You can win your way where we cannot. Well, Christ must have usury of these distinguishing gifts. Look around you, and see if there is not need for this special service. Are there not men and women, once regular in attendance on the house of God, now uniformly absent? Are there not many very careless about religion? Have you not acquaintances who, to your certain knowledge, are going wrong? Christian women! just think. Could not your love win a way to their hearts? Could not your quick instincts suggest the sure-the noblest way! If you went, in the spirit of this woman, with love to Jesus making your face to shine, do you not think you would prevail? I feel assured you might do a very noble service to the Church of God by such work. Ecclesiastical forms are cumbrous things. Discipline always appears harsh, however lovingly it be administered. The prevention of woman's love would save multitudes, whom the application of rebuke or suspension can never reach, or reaches only to repel. Be emulous, then, of the Master's approval. "She hath loved much,"-ah! will not that be a crown of glory on your head, when, not in Simon's house, but on the great white throne, Christ says that of you? And, after all, what will your love-gifts be, in comparison with His infinite grace already bestowed, when He said, as I trust He has said,-to your heart, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

But is even this the whole of woman's sphere? Is she confined to the home circle? Let us study the case of the woman of Samaria and see. The whole history of her relation to our Lord is too lengthened to be considered now. The outcome of her conversation is, that she feels her sin, and sees her Saviour. She has lived through more in the last half-hour than in all her life before. Under the probings of Christ's searching, but gentle words, all things that ever she did rose up before her. What an upheaval of soul! Her sins are glaring in upon her trembling, discovered spirit. Every refuge she can think of she tries. But she is driven, from one and all, by the mild, yet piercing light of Christ's utterances. At last, in the night of her forsakenness, the star of a glorious hope shines. The heaven-sent Deliverer is

come,-is come to her soul. What a wondrous truth! The world has become new to her. She herself is new. She must tell these tidings. Moving as in a dream, forgetting water, water-pot,everything, she hastens to the city. She sees a knot of men. In a minute her story is told, and she is hurrying them out to Jacob's well.

Look at this narrative. It speaks of more than family service. Here is public work done for the Master. This woman preaches, preaches in the street. And does the Master rebuke her? No! He is counting upon her ministry. He cannot eat till He has finished His work, by bringing those she is leading out to Him to peace. A woman, then, may speak to men even, about their souls? She may speak to knots of men; and who shall assign limits to these knots? No one dare, then, lay an embargo on women, saying, "Thou must not testify for Christ."

'What!' you say, 'do you advocate preaching by women?' Just in so far as the Bible advocates it. Christ does not choose any female disciples to be his immediate companions. He does not, at the close of His ministry, set apart female apostles to teach the nations. But when, prompted by desire for His glory, this woman spoke to her fellows, He accepted the service.

And her case does not stand alone. What is the great miraculous fact on which the New-Testament kingdom is based? It is the fact of the resurrection. Well, in the great Divine plan, women were the first witnesses and heralds of this startling fact. Themselves but imperfectly realising the truth, they yet awakened a despairing Church to inquiry, and then to joyful apprehension. They were the teachers of the apostles thus far.

Let no man say this means nought. This book,-the whole of it,-is a revelation of the Divine Being, an unveiling of the principles of the Divine government. As every twig or leaf is a living member of the tree, so is this episode a limb or component part of the revelation. If God gives a woman a truth, or experience, she must speak it. The fact that she is distinguished by having His light given to her, is her warrant to set it on a candlestick that it may give light to all God's house.

How many women are startling the Church into fuller consciousness of duty, by new departures in Christ's service! With bold inventiveness, and consummate skill, they are reaching out to classes hitherto left untouched, and are leading the very doctors in these enterprizes of love. Indeed, so magnificent a witness of God's Spirit accompanies their endeavours, that no Church dare

silence them, or proscribe their service. And in His service, they have got so near to Christ, have seen Him so vividly in His risen glory, that the "Rabboni Rabboni" of their consecration, breathed in poems, incarnated in work, has thrilled the Church's heart.

Need I labour further, to exhibit the large and important sphere open to women in the kingdom of Christ? Need I speak of Dorcas, or Priscilla, or Persis, who laboured much in the Lord? What, then, is your answer to the silent appeal of all this Scripture testimony? Do you not rejoice to think that God has put such high honour upon you? Show yourselves worthy of it, then. When Mary saw Lazarus raised from the dead, her heart so filled with love, that the costliest gift within her means was none too great for Christ. You see your womanhood raised from death, and your woman's race, from unspeakable degradation, by the power of Christ's resurrection. Bring your ointment of spikenard, bring your costliest service, till this Church, and this town, be filled with the odour of your consecration.

And now let us sum up the evidence hitherto adduced, ere we proceed to consider the teaching of Paul. In no age of the kingdom of God have women kept silence. In Old Testament times they sang God's praise, judged God's people, reared God's prophets and kings, ministered to God's servants, and prophesied in the name of the Lord. In Christ's days, they attended to His wants, testified their love to Him,-in their own homes, in their neighbours' homes, in the streets, and were the appointed heralds of the resurrection, receiving from the angels what they carried to the apostles.

And now, what says Paul, the inspired servant of God, to all this? At first sight, his teaching seems to be in glaring opposition to the statements of preceding Scriptures; for he says, and not in our text alone, "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." There is however, without resorting to any artifice, a way of harmonising these statements, which not only demonstrates the unity of the Spirit's teaching, but gives a sublime view of the true relation of the sexes, and the glorious goal to which they press on.

Observe that, from the beginning, all spiritual work done by a woman, when it went beyond ministering to material wants, was informal and spontaneous in its character. The summons came to the individual soul, in the breath of the living Spirit, and it was rapt out of itself in the discharge of its high and holy duty. The colleges of priests and prophets were composed of

men. The regular and stated work of Church and monarchy was carried on by men. And the Apostle virtually says it is to be so still. The regular ministry is to be a male ministry; the eldership a male eldership. The relation that has obtained hitherto is not to be subverted.

The kernel of the Apostle's sentence is doubtless its central clause. Women are "not to usurp authority over men" in the house of God. They are to confide in the judgment, and claim the protection, of those whom God has set apart to teach and rule in His Church. In this, as we have seen, Paul has the whole Word of God in agreement with him. But he himself would be the last to deny a place and work to women, in the kingdom of God. See how many are mentioned in Romans, as having "laboured," "laboured much in the Lord." Again, remember how Priscilla, as well as Aquila, took the great preacher Apollos aside, and "expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly." And further, let me ask, did Paul rebuke Lydia, and the other women whom he found praying by the river-side, before he preached to them the truth, as it is in Jesus? Assuredly not. Indeed, so completely is Paul's practice in harmony with that of our Lord, that we may erect, into a universal biblical principle, the conclusions we have reached. It being granted that the stated offices of teacher and ruler, are confined to men, there is practically no limit, save such as the Holy Spirit may assign in the distribution of His gifts, to the work of women. She may be the mouthpiece of God's will to her age, either by pen, or by pencil, or by the living voice,—in verse, in prose. She may teach all whom she can persuade to listen,-men as well as women. She may wrestle with God in gatherings for prayer, where no usurpation over man is implied in the act. She may agitate public questions. She may urge reforms. In short, there is no limit to her efforts if she loyally and lovingly observe the apostolic rule.

But why this rule? I believe the wisdom of God is specially seen here. This limit enhances the value of the liberty, as the one restraint in Eden turned a scene of mere material content into a sphere of moral probation. Christ's is a kingdom of love and love must be the bond binding each to all. And where love is, there must be diversity of circumstance to call it forth. Some must support, and others confide in that support. Some must order and provide, while others, rejoicing in this care, will be free to express, in spontaneous, grateful service, their thanks for what they have received. Thus a noble rivalry ensues. While one