is denied to them. Just think for a moment of the difference between a family circle in Turkey or New Guinea, and an English or American home. In proportion too as a people become more thoroughly imbued with Christian principle, the gentler sex rise in general consideration, and occupy a position of greater exaltation and respect. The remarkable deference paid to them in the United States, has always appeared to me one of the most hopeful symptoms in the condition of the body politic there, and is sufficient in itself to outweigh many causes of natural weakness. In France and Italy, where there is comparatively little true godliness, we find woman treated with much less regard, more in fact as a plaything than as an help-meet for man.

One might write a volume upon the elevating effects of female influence, especially that exercised by mothers in this little island of ours. How many good and great men have traced their best impressions to maternal counsels! George Herbert tell us, that when pursuing his studies at Cambridge, his mother's image seemed to hang up like a picture in his little chamber, restraining him from vice, calming down passion, and smiling him on to labour. I have often admired the closing lines of the epilogue, which Mr. Lamb wrote to Sheridan's tragedy of "Pizarro," with reference to maternal influence :—

"That voice we hear-oh, be its will obey'd!

'Tis valour's impulse, and 'tis virtue's aid:

It prompts to all benevolence admires,

To all that heavenly piety inspires,

To all that praise repeats through lengthen'd years,
That honour sanctifies, and time reveres."

This holy agency, recollect, is Christianity's child. The Mahomme dan has no refined and serious mother, deeply

impressed with a sense of responsibility to guide his youthful footsteps into the paths of peace; the idolator finds her treated as a mere bond-servant, whose place it is to do the hard work of their miserable home. No wonder that women throng our temples; for to the true religion they owe the possession of all that sweetens and dignifies life.

The creed of the idolator and the Mahommetan, besides, vitiates the taste, prevents enjoyment of the noble and beautiful, and represses literary and artistic attainment. But for that religion which he professes to disbelieve, the modern infidel might have been bowing to dumb idols, offering up human sacrifices, and living like a beast of the forest, without a written language, a knowledge of science, or any of the characteristics of true manhood. Nor is its influence less conspicuous on the temporal condition than on the characters of men. Socrates, and the thinking spirits of Greece, delivered oracular sayings full of wisdom and truth, but they had no practical bearing on the evils of life; it was reserved for the ministers of the gospel to announce a message which was, in very deed and truth, to be one of "peace on earth and good-will towards men."

The mythology of Athens may have charmed an imaginative people; but it left their evil passions unsubdued, and it entered no cottage to alleviate the sorrows and miseries of man. There are signs of comfort, cheerfulness, and order, about the dwelling of the humblest Christian peasant, for which you may look in vain among a people devoted to strange gods. One might suppose that a religion which teaches, as a leading maxim, the vanity of temporal things, might make men indifferent to the interests of the life that now is; but this is far from being the case. Not only does it render this earth happier and more beautiful for ourselves; it impels us to seek the present welfare of others also. Milner, in his Church History, writing of the eleventh

century, (and what was true of the eleventh is equally true of the nineteenth) says, "The true reliefs and mitigations of human misery lay entirely, at that time, in the influence of Christianity: and small as that influence then was, the ferocity of the age was tempered by it; and human life was thence prevented from being entirely degraded to a level with that of the beasts which perish." Even Gibbon, freethinker as he was, thus expresses himself: "Yet truth and candour must acknowledge that the conversion of the North imparted many temporal benefits, both to the old and the new Christians. The admission of the barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society, delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare their brethren and cultivate their possessions." Adam of Bremen, in the year 1080, thus graphically alludes to the marvellous change. "Ecce illa ferocissima Danorum natio—jamdudum novit in Dei laudibus Alleluia rosonare. Ecce populus ille piraticus-suis nunc finibus contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis semper inacessa propter cultum idolorum-predicatores veritatis ubique certatim admittit." Another peculiarity of our faith is its care for the multitude. It admits no distinction of rank, and has nothing in common with those philosophic systems which

"Consider reason as a leveller,

And scorn to share a blessing with the crowd."

The effect of Christianity on national stability and greatness is no less striking. The careful student of history will not expect much good from mere political revolutions and changes, alterations of modes of government, and outward forms. The motive principle of a nation must be a pure morality, based on the true religion, else it is founded

on a shifting sandbank, which may, at any moment, be engulfed by an unlooked-for tempest. The virtues of temperance, industry, self-denial, and active benevolence, are the pillars of a state, and where are they so conspicuous as amongst Christians? A religious people can reform, and at the same time preserve. They know how to obtain redress of grievances without listening to sordid demagogues, and involving their country in all the horrors of anarchy and civil war. Think for a moment of what took place in France, during the denouement of what Burke called "the conspiracy of Atheism, which will not leave to religion even a toleration, and make virtue herself less than a name." With Rabelais began a series of brilliant, though presumptuous and wicked men, who paved the way for a political revolution, attended with unparalleled horrors, and who warred against morality and religion.

"They made themselves a fearful monument!

The wreck of old opinions-things which grew,
Breathed from the breath of time; the veil they rent,
And what behind it lay all earth shall view;
But good with ill they also overthrew,
Leaving but ruins."

And do you remember how soon those puny mortals became terrified at the spectre whom they had evoked? Can you forget that they had anew to proclaim "the Eternal," lest the very frame-work of society should be destroyed? The consequences of daring impiety were so frightful, that the hardiest sceptic hastened to alter his policy, and, thereby, perhaps, Europe lost the sight of God, in his indignation, destroying a second Sodom. But a great experiment was tried and a great lesson taught. Infidelity had been spreading, and Christendom required to be warned how deadly was the sting of the serpent which it

cherished in its midst. France had been the chief offender, and she awoke not from her day-dream of folly, till the streets of her capital were watered with the blood of her sons. Is there a man who hears me that doubts that nations, like individuals, are indebted to Christianity for all that makes life enjoyable, prosperous, and secure? Nor ought we to overlook its effects on mind. Not only did it inaugurate a new morality, and, in ten thousand different ways, elevate and embellish social life; it imparted a great impulse to mental improvement; brought into active exercise faculties that had long lain dormant; gave vitality to reason and philosophic thought; and by exciting hopes founded on immortality, at once dispelled the gloom in which futurity was involved to the heathen, and furnished fresh motives for exerting all the intellectual powers. The stranger visiting the Vatican may observe one very remarkable point of contrast between the inscriptions on the tombs of the early Christians and those of the Pagans. The former contain frequent reference to a state beyond the grave; the latter are the expression of sorrow without hope, the mourning of those who take refuge in annihilation. So elevating was the influence of a creed which taught the soul

"Set free from aims inglorious

And sordid sweets, to mouut

To Reason's region, her own element,

Breathe hope immortal and affect the skies."

Then Christianity itself invites inquiry, and thereby encourages thought. "Ceterum suspecta est lex quæ probari non vult." So said Tertullian, when arguing in favour of a religion, offering a striking contrast to the mysteries of idolatry which courted darkness and shunned the light. So great indeed was the mental agitation caused