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ill effects of female interference in matters too high for them. It is the same spirit, under another form, breaking out in women professing godliness, which shows itself in frequenting assemblies, chiefly of their own sex, to discourse on, or to hear discussed, religious subjects. Assemblies, under the pretext, not false, but real, of religion, are not religious, but irreligious meetings; devotion and true feeling cannot be expressed to crowds, although it may be acted before them; and study can only be carried on over the bible. All society out of her own home, except that into which she is taken by her husband, is unlawful to the Christian mistress of a family. The injunction to be "keepers at home," will appear with the stronger force when it is considered how little women mix in society in the east; and how totally unknown to the ancients of the apostles' time, were those assemblies which are become so common in towns in our time. The practice of foreign travel is the very antipodes of God's command; which, however, will be considered hereafter.

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I once heard a person observe, concerning a young lady who had learned to speak six foreign languages with great fluency, she has six different ways of expressing her folly." When the evils of garrulity are so universally complained of in common life; when the temptation of females to run into this is the unanimous testimony of all mankind in all ages; when the apostle's remarks are so severe upon the use of the tongue; when our Lord sets us the example of expressing all wisdom in few and plain sentences; when he sets us further the example of the necessity of retirement for meditation and prayer, and of avoiding conversation in crises of trial, (John xix. 30.) it is inconceivable that women, professing to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, should not be more on their guard against this sin which does so easily beset them, and avoid as much as possible all society, the end of which is idle and unprofitable conversation. Instead of which, provided it is what they call with religious people, they scarcely seem to think it an evil at all.

The next class to 66 WIVES

" which the

apostle addresses, is "HUSBANDS," whom he enjoins to "love their wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water, by the word; that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of His body, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and His church; nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."

We have here, as in the former instance of wives, husbands exhorted to look to the rela

tionship existing between the Lord Jesus Christ and the church, as the great exemplar of their own conduct towards their wives. Let us therefore, as we did before, consider what it is that Christ is now daily doing for His church. He is watching over her with unceasing solicitude; He counts the wrongs that are offered to her as done to Himself; He provides for all her necessities; he pardons, for the great love He bears to her, all her offences; He directs her by his counsel; He supports her in every difficulty; He lends a ready ear to all her complaints; He sympathises with all her weaknesses; He partakes of all her sorrows.

"Thus, lest there should be any mistake or misunderstanding, it is expressly revealed, that in the management of the common family, the husband stands in a situation analogous to that in which even Christ stands to the church. Nothing being so essential to mutual harmony and harmonious operation, as an explanation of the grounds of authority, and the true character and connexion of such an intimate relation as this; in addressing the

wife, she is informed, not by the husband, but by God himself, that as Christ is her governor in the church, so is her husband in the family. His authority over her there, however, like that of the Saviour over the church, is founded in the love which he bears to her, the protection he affords, and the provision which he makes for her, of all the necessaries, and, if possible, all the conveniences of life. What a serious situation, then and how full of responsibility, is that of every husband! The obedience enjoined by God is, it seems, not for the husband's gratification merely, but for a higher end; and in return for the honour which is put upon him, he is bound to the fulfilment of corresponding duties.”Anderson.

In every country, but especially in Christian countries, the laws affecting man and wife do accurately set forth the offices of Christ and his church. The wife, upon her marriage, loses her own name by its being absorbed into that of her husband; so the church is no longer sin and folly, but righteousness and wisdom in Christ. The

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