atrous Ritual, went in idle or mocking unconcern to the Temple Feast, and physically enjoyed, where before he had spiritually served and trembled. It was an irreverent and indecent bravado, the worst reaction of Slavery on a coarse heart, when its bond is broken, and the mean passions dare come forth. We are now to contemplate another instance of this partial Liberty manifesting itself violently, mistaking Rights for Duties, and by an eager forwardness violating the fulness of Christian sentiment. Christianity established the equality of the sexes; and, by restoring Woman to her place, removed the worst description of barbarism and inhumanity that ever poisoned the sources of Civilization. Slavery over a race of men, deemed inferior by caste or color, or serfs by conquest, would be a light injury to the heart, in comparison with a Home where the noblest affections trembled in vile dependence, and every tie of Love was under gross conditions of constraint. In the highest civilization of Greece there lurked that savage element, and Woman, except when a stain upon her name gave pungency to prurient taste, appears not in Grecian History. But in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female, neither bond nor free. The soul that can hold an immediate connection with God, has a Right of independence of every other soul. We cannot be accountable to God, and bound to man; and where equal is the responsibility to the Father of the spirit, equal must be the Liberty. Can man be answerable for woman with his own soul at the final bar of God?- and if not, how can he have a Right over that Conscience

which must answer for itself? But this Truth should work gently, and without violence, in the deep heart, not produce rent and confusion in the established arrangements of our outward Life. In the Corinthian Church this spiritual oneness, in relation to God, was by some conceived to carry with it the abolition of all social distinctions, as if moral equality implied sameness of place and mission in the world,—as if the Duties, and aptitudes, and grace of Sex, could in any way be relaxed, because its appropriate functions were now to be discharged in the meekness of freedom, and no longer under the bondage of constraint. Spiritual equality can in no respect affect, or alter, the principles which Nature establishes, and the common sentiment makes sacred. Yet who can be surprised, when the Slave breaks her chain and feels herself at large, that she should not discern the moral bounds of her Liberty, with as fine a tact as one who, never conscious of restraint, has long found her blessedness and her power within the wide circle of her natural gifts and aptitudes? This tendency to excess was but a broken wave from the first rush of long imprisoned waters; and when unfretted by constraint, it returned again to its still fountain and quiet flow, and we hear of it in the Church no more. There never has been shown, on any large scale, a tendency of Woman to overstep her sphere, and the tides of ocean might sooner break from the gentle and heavenly forces that measure their benignant movements, than these aptitudes of Nature suffer any general violence. In fact, the single instance, in early Chris

tian History, which the Corinthian Church supplies, of Woman assuming, not an equality of Rights, for that was conceded, but a sameness of Function and of outward manners, is mainly worthy of notice for the great lesson it teaches, that excess and reaction in an opposite direction are the natural consequences of abridged Rights. If you dread encroachments, stay the restless temper by full measures of Justice. If you fear Licentiousness, give ample Liberty. The chain you refuse to loosen will be a fearful weapon when it is torn from your hand by rude revenge. The passage I am about to quote from Hase's account of “The Public and Private Life of the Ancient Greeks" will remove all surprise at a momentary excess, which disappeared almost immediately from Christian History.

"The female citizens of Athens were bound in such rigid restraints of traditional usage, that their resigned submission to these antiquated forms is matter of no surprise. They grew up, guarded by bolts and bars, in a seclusion almost equal to that of an Eastern harem. The house-door was the threshold of the forbidden world to an honorable matron; and, to the maidens, it was fastened by a lock or seal, which was loosened with the greatest solemnity on days of high festival, when they walked in procession with downcast eyes."

"Nor did these privations of their early years receive the smallest compensation in after life, from the pleasures of freedom and of social intercourse. The early marriage into which they were often forced, was generally dictated by considerations of family

interest; frequently, as in the case of heiresses, by legal obligation. In a connection in which speaking in company was esteemed a sort of indecorum,- in which to be absolutely unobserved was, according to Thucydides, the highest of all merits, and unconditional submission to the will or the caprice of their husbands the first duty of Woman, the decent virtues of a housewife must necessarily have been the only ones which could be regarded with respect. Where, under such circumstances, any one of those talents that cheer and embellish existence unfolded itself, it must have been the irrepressible offspring of Nature, not the foster-child of Education. And these remarks apply generally to the States of Ionic extraction, so long as the ancient domestic constitution of society existed."

There is considerable obscurity in the details of this passage from the 2d to the end of the 16th verse, in which St. Paul rebukes that mistaken Liberty which led the Corinthian woman to speak in public with uncovered head. In the first place, there is supposed to be an inconsistency with a passage in the fourteenth chapter, in which women are absolutely forbidden to speak in the Church under any circumstances, whilst here the prohibition applies only to the uncovered head. But the question of the Veil, or of exposure, contrary to all Grecian sentiment of propriety, was the only matter before his mind; and he deals with one point at a time. It is evident that he had been asked the question by the Corinthian Church, and he meets it on his own ground, without superseding it altogether by the introduction of

another principle. He takes another occasion of recommending Silence: he takes the present occasion of meeting the direct question that had been asked him, whether the Veil should be worn. It must be remembered, in examining this passage, that we are treading on the shifting ground of arbitrary notions. Decent respect for the usages of Society is not arbitrary, but a permanent part of Christian Sentiment. But the usages themselves are entirely so; and consequently the sentiment of St. Paul in this passage may be perfectly clear, whilst the observances referred to may have so totally disappeared as to render the individual expressions incapable of accurate explanation. Locke declares that some of these he does not understand; and after this it might be wise to pass them over, satisfied with extracting from them the general sentiment, about which there can be no doubt. But, perhaps, Interpreters have looked too deep for a meaning, and rejected the obvious ones, only because they were not just and natural to their own times and modes of thinking. I understand St. Paul to discuss this question on the grounds of reasoning, and on the grounds of sentiment. Now the reasoning may be inconclusive to us, because it proceeds upon social ideas that no longer exist, - whilst the sentiment remains in force, because it is the permanent feeling of mankind.

The Veil was the emblem of voluntary subjection, and was never thrown off, except by Grecian Priestesses, when in moments of inspiration they claimed communion with a God. The flowing hair was regarded as the Veil which Nature herself had