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CHRISTIAN STATUS OF WOMEN.

woman proves one of the principal means of drawing closer the bonds of union between her and her husband, and her very subjection insures a degree of consideration and kindness, which equality of strength and right would not have procured for her. Is it not to this charitable and holy principle that we may trace the generous spirit of chivalry, which, among all its extravagances, was based on a feeling of charity unknown to the ancient nations of the earth, before men's hearts were softened by the Gospel of CHRIST? Is it not to the same principle that we may ascribe the high station which Christian women occupy in modern society? A mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, what mingled feelings of tenderness and respect do these names call up. May we not, therefore, look on the apparent harshness of God's dispensation as another instance of most merciful forethought, a most wise provision for calling up those kind and generous feelings which, when sanctified by Christian principle, are the solace of our lives?

The chief trial of most of us is amidst the scenes of home. GOD made the parent responsible for the welfare of his children, and bade him train them up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. And He has bidden the children repay the solicitude and kindness of parents by rendering them that love and honour which is

POVERTY AND CRIME.

159

their due. And He has commanded the wife and husband to comfort and support each other, as they walk together hand in hand along the vale of life. And each one's spiritual advancement consists, in great part, in the performance of those duties of affection which as members of a Christian family we owe each other. A Christian home is a nursery of souls which are in training for the everlasting mansions.

And so in other relations of life. "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the LORD." GOD has made the poor the recipients of that unbounded debt of gratitude which His creatures owe Him. If there were no sick and afflicted there would be no Sisters of Mercy; if there were no poor and ignorant there would be no District Visitors and School Teachers, none of that kind and charitable attention to the wants of the distressed and feeble which so honourably characterises the ladies of England.

The very sins and crimes of men are converted to the good of His saints. If there were no oppressors, no unjust and cruel men, there would be no training of the souls of the faithful to lowly submission. If there had been no thieves between Jericho and Jerusalem there could have been no good Samaritan. Nay, but for the sins of men there would have been no Gospel of Salvation.

160

GOOD COMES OF EVIL.

But we are getting to subjects beyond our depth. Only let us be assured that God converts the ills of life, and even the sins which man's freedom of will causes, to occasions for the display of His lovingkindness.

CHAPTER XVII.

PROFESSOR BAIN'S OPINION THAT "WE ARE ALL BLOCKHEADS" ILLUSTRATED. "THE FOOL HATH SAID IN HIS HEART, THERE IS NO GOD."-ABSURD DREAD OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM.-THE CASE OF ULTRA-EVOLUTIONISTS

AND ANTI-TELEOLOGISTS.-LORD LITTON'S OPINION.

"WE are all blockheads

Bain.

says Professor

Stay, my good sir, speak for yourself if you please, but do not apply such a term to your friends."

But the Professor had not finished his sentence. "We are all blockheads," he says, "in something; some of us fail in mechanical aptitude, some in music, some in language, some in science. There must be in each case a deficiency of cerebral substance in that class of connection."

Well there is some truth in what the Professor says. In fact, instead of being as it might appear at first, only a good joke, it expands itself into an important psychological principle. The more one thinks of it the more important it ap

M

162

NATURAL DEFICIENCIES.

pears. It may be proved either deductively, from the known weakness of human nature, that every one of woman born must needs have some peculiar faultiness of intellectual development; or the subject may be treated inductively. A large induction might speedily be made of individual block heads, enough very soon to constitute a general law. For instance, there are some persons who have so little ear for music that they cannot tell the difference between "GOD save the Queen" and the "Old Hundredth," and some persons are afflicted with colour-blindness, all colours appear to them much the same. And yet both these classes of persons-those who have no ear for music, and those who have no power of distinguishing colours-may be in other respects very clever men, men of science, men of business, or knowledge of the world, even professors.

Whether this phenomenon involves "a deficiency of cerebral substance," I do not know, but suspect that is merely a guess of the Professor's. But I think the fact may be applied very seriously to illustrate a peculiar circumstance of the present generation. Not that the phenomenon to which I refer did not exist before, but it has shown itself. much more prominently of late. I mean the case of men, clever men, men in some respects more than ordinarily clever, who