And the good lady smiled with the air of one who had repeated a good thing. But Cynthy broke out contemptuously, "As good as most men's, indeed! And he thought, I suppose, he was paying her a compliment. Why, there is more good judgment in Miss Abby's little finger, than in Mr. C.'s whole body!"

I went home and recounted all this to mother and Aunt Judith.

"I hardly think it will amount to much," said Aunt Judith. Remember this did not start in Boston," dear soul, Boston is her Jerusalem still. "There is Miss H, who goes up every year to the State House, and pays her tax under a protest, but what does it amount to? the taxes are paid all the same, and nothing comes of it."

"But the lady satisfies her conscience, I presume," said I.

"Theoretically I believe in this thing," she said, "but I don't think the time has come."

"That was just what the people said about slavery, auntie," I replied, "theoretically people didn't believe in it, but the time was not ripe for its abolishment, but suddenly people found that the time grew ripe very fast, and so it will be with this thing."

"In God's time, my dear."

“Yes,” said I, “but men and women are God's tools with which he works his sovereign will."

"But women do not as a body ask for it." "Must we wait till every woman in the States signs a petition? A right is a right, isn't it, whether six women ask for it or sixty ?"

"But, Hannah, the millennium will not come and governments will not be perfect even if, as Abby Smith says, 'men and women be one in the business of government.' And isn't it just possible that the intrigue of politics may tend to demoralize women? It is a problem with me whether women will purify politics, or politics will demoralize women."

"How has it been in other cases? How was it when women were not admitted on festive occasions? There was excess and noise and profanity. Men lay drunk under the table or were carried insensible to bed

by the servants. When woman was admitted, did she too get drunk, or did her presence bring about a change for the better? Don't you remember reading in one of the papers Margaret sent us, that one gentleman urged it as a reason for admitting women to the School Board, that her presence would have a good influence over the conduct of the male members of the Board?"

"It does seem to me," said mother, "that at least women should have a voice in all town or city elections, because it is in these that she, by not being represented, suffers special injustice. A town is an incorporated body; a woman votes in all other corporations in which she has a pecuniary interest. Women too are more economical than men, and would not run into debt so recklessly, and they have also more respect for individual rights and would not wholly overlook them as men are apt to do in their theory of the greatest good for the greatest number."

Now you may think from what I have said that I am strong on this question. But though when I reason about it I can come to no other conclusion than this of a noted divine, "that every argument that goes to giving the ballot to man goes to giving it to women," still like Festus I am only almost persuaded, I don't feel that I am quite ready to cast in my lot with the party. Though the head is convinced, the fetters of custom, and all former usages cling to me. It is very much like leaving off trail skirts for a bloomer costume, or any long accustomed mode of dress for a new one. Yet I am prepared to do battle for Miss Smith and her cows if need be. In the meantime I hug my own insignificance, though feeling that beneath all this shrinking, is the martyr spirit, and, if I had one hundred and thirty acres of land and the firm conviction that this way was the right, I too should make a stand on principle. Isn't it a good thing to live just now when so many exciting things are coming up and so many great things being done? I wonder if it is so always, if every time is so full of thrilling events. I asked mother the other day when I read your letter to her if, when she was young, there were

always so many wonderful things happening. She smiled, you know how, and said, Yes, she guessed so, at least she thought at the time they were as wonderful, for with the young the now is only second to the to be, but to me," and you know how she said this, "the has been is more than any to be this side of the beyond."

We have a new sensation, a new minister. I haven't decided yet whether I like him or not. I like his prayers, though it doesn't seem quite right to criticise prayer, yet we so seldom hear a prayer that is a true petition and exalts and purifies the heart. Set prayers do not touch me. I speak only for myself. No doubt there are -those whose souls they satisfy, they do not satisfy mine. It stirs my heart to read the Psalms, but they are songs of praise, not prayers, and a prayer that is but a repetition of these songs of praise, is not a petition. God is our Father, and we are told to come to him as to a father, to come for strength and for succor, to come in our distress and our trouble, in our joy and our sorrow. Now a child addressing a father would not be likely to say, "O thou King of kings and Light of lights," nor "Thou that dwellest beneath the cherubims, shine forth." It is the old Jewish service of praise to God, but not prayer; not like the simple petition Christ has given us, "Our Father who art in Heaven." And this man's prayers suit me because they are simple petitions to the good Father that he would take us all up from whatever impurities might have been about us through the week; that this blessed day the man of business who had been perplexed and harassed all the week; the woman whose cares have been many and seemed sometimes more than she could bear; young men and maidens with whom life was bright, and who were in danger of forgetting they were in the midst of temptation; that all, might be made pnre and clean in spirit through divine grace this blessed day. "All fathers and mothers whose children have left them, all children whose parents have been called away, all who miss the presence of a dear friend, O Father, comfort them all with thy grace, and let them feel how very near they

dwell to him whose personal presence they yet cannot see." As he thus prayed I think each one present felt that he or she had indeed been brought very near to the Father, and that divine help had been asked for each one's burden and sorrow, and for the strength and guidance of each individual soul. "Gifted in prayer," our good old grandmother used to say of a certain preacher, and I think this expression applies to this minister. Aunt Judith is a judge of clerical ability, and she pronounces him a person of ability, and seemingly sincere, earnest and devotional. Our society goes on in the same track, the tenor walks home from church with the soprano, also the bass with the alto, they have frequent rehearsals and all goes harmoniously.

Aunt Judith wants me to ask you to send her ten yards of Hamburg trimming, she sees by the papers you send, that it is selling quite cheap. She wants five yards of it about an inch wide, the other five somewhat wider. She could get it just as cheap and good here in G but she prefers Boston Hamburg, one of her idiosyncracies. I told her what you said in your letter about Miss Anne. She didn't say anything, but it is just possible you will hear from her. Yours,

HANNAH W.

What is this new series of lectures upon Dress reform? My curiosity is excited. "Are we to have a Bloomer and with the Bloomers stand?" or what is it? I don't think Bloomers are graceful, though they may be convenient for climbing mountains

and for bathing. But if Boston is about to express herself in meetings upon this suball about it. I hope they wont want us to ject and you attend, I suppose I shall hear make guys of ourselves, but if they do, it

will be no more than fashion has often required of us. How fashion and custom transform ugly things to beautiful things. You know our friend G-S―, who said if it were the fashion to wear a turnip on her head she should wear it. She had faith that fashion would make it a thing of beauty. I suppose the next thing I hear of will be, a Woman's Dress Reform Bureau. H. W.

N. T. Munroe.

TH

HERE are probably few persons, who have not in their minds an ideal of what the church should be. Their expressions may take a negative rather than a positive form, but such as it is, it shows that people have a feeling in reference to the subject, even when there is no deliberate conviction. One who would be puzzled to tell just what he thinks the church should be, and just how he thinks it ought to work, will, without hesitation, indicate the points of failure, and tell you just where and how things are going wrong. But the experience of the world has proved

that while it is easy to find fault, or, in other words, to show how things ought not to be, it is quite another and more difficult thing to tell how they ought to be. We may know that a certain statement is false, and yet have no knowledge of the truth, and to discover the truth would be a most difficult, perhaps impossible achievement. We may meet a friend who is on the wrong road, and while able to assure him that the course he is pursuing will not lead him to the destination he desires, we may not be able to direct him aright. Again we may know that there is something wrong with

a fine watch, and yet not know what the matter is, or if we do, we lack the skill to remedy the evil. And so everywhere, we find that although it may be a great thing to know when a wrong exists, it is a greater and better thing to have a clear idea of the right.

There are two kinds of people in the world of work, the workers and the faultfinders. The workers seldom find fault; they are busy and have no time for it. The faultfinders seldom work. They seem to imagine that they have done their part when they have told where things are wrong and out of joint. It is not uncommon also, to find this class too busy in their inconoclastic mission to do anything in the positive work of building up. Many of the so-called reformers are merely faultfinders. They denounce in fitting terms the various evils existing in human society, and we all commend what they say; but how seldom do we hear words of counsel, encouragement, or instruction in behalf of the right. They will take away such standing-room as you have, and give you no place whatever in its stead. And moreover, they never seem to consider, that you must have a place, someway, somewhere.

We find the same thing in various degrees of activity in all our social, political, and religious affairs. And the merest glance at the subject is sufficient to show, that a tithe of the persistent energy of word and deed, now employed in tearing down, and unsettling the existing state of things, by finding fault with them, expended in buildus the right, in strengthening the convictions of duty, and in cheerfully encouraging those who are bearing the burden and heat of the day; in other words, if all the discouraging, faultfinding, not to say ill natured talk of the world, were turned into a directly opposite channel, the Millennium would be well nigh here. There is more time and strength spent in showing that the world needs saving, then there is in the actual endeavor to save it. Is not this practical folly? If one meets his friend journeying on the wrong road, he should not fall to and berate him for being astray, when doubtless he was plodding along and trying to find his way as best he could.

Far better that he should be able to point out the right and to say to the wanderer in the words of the prophet, "This is the way, walk ye in it." Or if one finds the affairs of church or State suffering from wrong management, instead of standing aloof with folded hands, making the state of things a subject of malicious satisfaction, or by his grumbling, and dire predictions, adding to the trials and embarrassments of those who are trying to guide the ark, should he not come forward, put a shoulder to the wheel, and say in the words of Paul, to those who will doubtless be glad to listen to him, "Behold I show you a more excellent way." Is not this practical wisdom?

Each and every effort or endeavor has one of two results,-failure or success. Whatever the matter in hand, we have little occasion to inquire concerning the elements of failure ;if we know those of success, it is sufficient. True, we are sometimes aided on the highway to success, by a knowledge of what will bring failure, but we can imagine men and women, either individually or collectively, succeeding in whatever good thing they undertake, by going straight forward, with absorbed attention, and consecrated purpose, looking neither to the right hand or the left, never remembering or realizing that there is such a thing as failure,-up to the mark of the prize of their high calling. I say we can conceive of this, just as we can conceive of the angels as living holy and happy in the Kingdom of Heaven, never having known the contrast of sin.

Speaking therefore, upon the conditions of success in church work we shall have nothing to say of those things that may cause or constitute failure. The contrast will be sufficiently apparent to any who may choose to look upon that side of the matter. The mission of the Church of Christ, is to bless, or,-to use a word that we can better understand to help the world; not a few people, not a limited circle, not those alone who are already members of it, but the world, just as far as its influence can reach. The fulfilment of this mission is success, the non-fulfilment Of course there may be both par

failure.

case.

tial success and partial failure in any given This is the record of most church organizations. But the successful church in the true acceptation of the word, is one that has a record of "peace on earth and good will to men," as broad as the charity of the gospel. There are just four ways of helping or blessing the world. They all come within the broad scope of Christian duty and purpose, and are so linked together, so joined, hand in hand as it were, that you cannot touch humanity in one of these respects without affecting it in all of them. First, physically. There is a large class of human beings, who are wholly absorbed in their bodily discomforts, of one kind and another. They are literally sick and in prison, and need to be visited. They are wounded, and, faint with their bleeding and pain, need that the Good Samaritan should find them out. They are so hungry, and naked, and cold, that they can think of nothing else until these wants are supplied. The poor man is out of work, or he has not received his pay, or some thief has defrauded him; and want, with his skeleton presence, has come over the threshold, and sits waiting by his cooling hearthstone and by his scanty table. The poor widow gathers her helpless babes at her knee, and she is as helpless as they. For all through the years of her youth, while her brothers were trained to useful and lucrative occupations, parents and friends, and society at large, not foreseeing this hour, neglected her training, and now when the hour of trial has come, when there is no one to love, or protect, or provide for her, she finds that she does not know how to do a single honest thing under the sun, well enough so that people will pay her the money for it. The poor authorities will allow her a pittance of fuel and food, and possibly an angel from the church of Christ may visit her once or twice, in her lifetime, but the demons of hunger and cold are not kept at bay. Think of it, ye who are warmed and clothed, and fed, and yet complain of poverty! She has absolutely no resources, and your imagination must strive in vain to paint an adequate picture of her life of suffering, temptation, and sorrow. Then there are young women, and young men too, by the thousands,

VOL. LI. 18

whom nobody owns, and nobody makes a place for, and they are going carelessly into the broad way of misery and death. All this destitution paves the way for disease in all its most loathsome forms, and the sum of misery is beyond telling. These people are at your very doors, even though you do live in a small town, or in the country; even though you do not know who or where they are, they can be found. The first thing that Christianity should do for these people, is to relieve their physical necessities. Indeed, until it has done this, it can do nothing else. For their every faculty is absorbed in the overwhelming consciousness of their misery and destitution. These are they who need a physician, whether through their own fault or not, their need is just as urgent. Granted that many of them are lost sheep of the house of Israel. Granted that many of them are the Great Father's prodigal children. So much greater need and claim have they. It is to them the church is sent. For them it exists. If it succeeds in its mission, it will do them good, commencing where the need is greatest.

The precepts of the gospel are not so exclusively spiritual as some would like to believe. They have a practical significance also, and the practical, the earthly is first, afterward that which is spiritual. The church is the natural and providential medium of extending to the needy the help they need. The successful church is diligent and faithful in this good work.

Having ministered to the bodily comfort of such, it may be reasonably expected that they will now hear sermons, and consider creeds, perhaps even read tracts, and they are now in a condition in which they can by possibility be benefited by, or enjoy these exercises.

But in order that they may receive profit and pleasure in this way, the church has another preliminary work to do. It must help these needy souls intellectually, and the multitudes are as needy in this respect, as they are physically; and this is the second method by which the church can bless the world. Christian truth appeals to the intellect, and the understanding, as any other truth does. It can only be distin