so far as character and spirit are concerned, | such union with a particular natural orthan simply to make them change places ganization, as to have wrought into it from for a time in the order of society, confining first to last the same particularity, as a nethe male sex to the employments of the cessary part of its own constitution. It is nursery and kitchen, and throwing open to one of the great merits of Schleiermacher the female sex the active walks of business, again, to have perceived and asserted, with politics and trade. The difference, as we proper force, the claims of the individual may all easily see, is original and constituover against the authority of the universal tional, and in this view co-extensive in full and absolute, as a permanent element in with the entire range of our common life. the constitution of man. The question beIt shows itself in the character even of the fore us then, according to this view, is alinfant, as soon as it begins to discover any ready answered. The multiplication of the signs of character whatever. The tastes race will not extend, it is true, over into and tendencies of the boyish nature are pe- the other world, and with this must come culiar to it as such, from the first hour of to an end also the present significance of its activity in the nursery, clearly distin- the sexual relation as concerned in that obguishing it from the nature of the girl. ject; our whole present physical state inThe distinction reigns throughout all the deed being but the transient process by sports of childhood, and accompanies the which our being is destined to emerge entire subsequent development of the hereafter into a higher order of existence. spirit, onward and upward to mature age. In that higher state, we are told, they shall It prevails in full force over the whole neither marry nor be given in marriage, broad range of middle life, imparting to it but resemble in this respect the angels its highest interest and value in a moral in heaven. The family constitution, in its view. Finally, it ceases not in the decay strict sense, though it be the basis of all of bodily vigor and beauty, induced by old morality in its process of revelation, beage itself, but reaches forward still, with longs only to the present order of things, a radiant light that grows only more mel- and will not be continued in the complete low as it is less tinged with the coloring of kingdom of God. But we may not supsense, far down into the vale of years; pose, that the vast and mighty distinction covering thus in truth the universal tract in our nature, out of which this radical conof our mortal existence, from the mystery stitution now springs, will come to an end of the womb to the still more impenetrable in the same way. Entering as it does into and solemn mystery of the grave. the life of the entire person, it cannot be overthrown by the simple elevation of our mortal individuality into the undying sphere of the spirit. On the contrary, it may be expected rather to appear now under its most purely ethical, and for that reason its highest also and richest form. In Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female, as there is also neither Jew nor Greek; not however by the full obliteration of all such differences, but only through their free harmonious comprehension in a form of consciousness, that is deeper than their opposition, and able thus to reconcile them in an organic way. It is on the background of such universal unity precisely, that the differences stand out after all in the clearest delineation which their nature admits. There will be races and nationalities, and temperaments, strongly marked in heaven, no doubt, as we find them here in course of sanctification upon the earth. And so there will be, not in the flesh, but Nor can the distinction possibly terminate here. It has been made a question indeed, whether the difference of sex extends to the other world; and it is characteristic of the Hegelian way of thinking in particular, that it allows but little room for any such supposition, having a tendency always to merge the individual in the general, and to make men mere passing exemplifications of humanity. But this view overthrows in the end the doctrine of a future state altogether; since without the distinctions of individual nature, as something continued over from the present life, there can be no sense of personal identity, no true resurrection, or other-world consciousness, in any form. It lies in the very conception of our being as we have here described it, that its individual distinctions should reach throughout the whole man in a permanent and enduring way. Personality cannot be evolved at all, except in in the spirit, the difference of sex there too. Humanity, made forever complete in the new creation, will comprise in itself still, as the deep ground tone of its universal organic harmony, the two great forms of existence in which it was comprehended at the beginning, when God created man, we are told, male and female, after his own image. In this view, it involves no extravagance to extend the idea of sex even to the angels themselves, although they neither marry nor are given in marriage. We are now prepared to notice more particularly, though of course still only in the most general way, the constitutional character of the two sexes in a comparative view. The case requires of course, as already intimated, a glance at the simply physical side of our nature, in the first place, and then at its moral or spiritual side in which only the first comes finally to its full human significance and force. So intimately interwoven however are these two spheres of existence, that no full view can be had of one apart from the other, and it is only in their union at last that we are enabled to complete properly the comparison we have in hand. The physical difference of the sexes is not limited by any means, in the first place, to any particular organs and functions of our simply corporeal structure, but extends to the body as a whole. This is in no sense a mechanical composition merely of various parts, outwardly fitted together, but a living whole pervaded throughout with the presence of a common principle and constitution. It is not possible, accordingly, that a peculiarity so broad and deep as that of sex should appear as something adventitious and accidental only, in some particular parts of the general organization, without affecting the rest. It must impress itself, more or less clearly, upon the whole. This we find, accordingly, to be the case in fact. Both anatomically and physiologically considered, the whole body is made to participate in the sexual character. Man and woman are so completely different in their whole organization that, as it has been remarked, no single part of the one could be properly substituted for the corresponding part of the other. Bones and muscles, the turn of the limbs, general height and bulk, the conformation of the head and breast, the show of the skin, the expression of the face, the tone of the voice, the bearing and carriage of the person, all are comprehended in the same reigning universal distinction. So also in the case of the several great systems of which life is composed; the action of the liver, lungs and brain is subjected to corresponding modification. In man, the arterial and cerebral systems prevail; in woman, the venous and ganglionic; creating a preponderance of irritability in the first case, and in the second a similar preponderance of sensibility; conditioning thus throughout their different capabilities and tendencies, and indicating with sure necessity the different spheres in which they are appointed to move. In the next place, with the purely corporeal or somatic difference now stated, corresponds also the inward or psychical region of what must still be denominated our physical nature. This includes the whole natural consciousness, the product directly of our animal organization as such, which the true spirit within us is required to raise into its own native sphere of freedom, that it may become the ves ture, subsequently, of its own life. Such consciousness, from the start, is not the same thing in man that it is found to be in woman. Sensation and perception, feeling and affection, appetite and tendency, inclination and desire, are all modified by the power of sex. The whole inward and outward nature, harmonionsly constructed in each case within itself, is comprehended in the same distinction, and carried always in the same direction. Man is characterized by superior strength and activity, while woman is more delicately tender and passive. Thought predominates in man; in woman, taste and feeling. All goes to indicate that man is formed to exercise authority and protection, and to wrestle both physically and spiritually with the surrounding world; while woman is led by her whole nature, rather, to cultivate a spirit of submission and dependence, and finds her proper sphere in the retirement of the house and family. We are in this way, however, conducted over to a still higher apprehension of the difference under consideration. It is only as nature passes upwards, as its constitution here requires it to do, into the sphere of the spirit, that the full sense and force of the distinction thus sublimated by the ethical process is brought finally into full view. it In this character the difference is no longer natural, simply, but in the fullest sense moral. Personality unites in itself the presence of a spiritual universal life, which is strictly and truly the fountain of its own activity in the form of intelligence and will, and a material organization as the necessary medium and basis of its revelation. In this revelation, the spirit, while it must remain always the centre of the whole person, with the power to assert its own proper primacy, is notwithstanding capable of being acted upon and influenced in very various measures by the power of nature, as brought to bear upon it through the organism of the body. In proportion, at the same time, to the independence may be urged and enabled to assert in its own sphere, will be the strength and force of the personality thus brought into view. Now it results from the whole peculiarity of her organization, as already described, and so of course lies also in the proper purpose and destiny of her sex, that woman should possess less of this independence than man. Her life springs more immediately and directly from nature, even under its true ethical form. There is a specific difference, in this view, between the personality of the sexes, taking up into itself and completing the sense of all differences in a lower sphere. It resolves itself, ultimately, we may say, into this, that the universal side of our common humanity prevails in man, and its individual side in woman. Self-consciousness in man runs readily into the general form of thought, disposing him for comprehensive observation, speculation and science: in woman, it takes more the character of feeling, which is always something single, closely coupled with fancy and art; her thoughts are her own inward states and impressions mainly, and the product immediately of the outward occasions from which they grow. So again self-activity in man takes naturally the broad character of will, carrying him forth into the open world, involving him in business and conflict on the arena of public life; while with woman it is exercised more in the form of impulse and desire, falls more fully within the flow of nature as embodied in her own particular organization, and for this very reason at the same time participates more largely in the character of passive necessity and dependence, as the law by which nature is ruled. The personality of man is more vigorous and concentrated, and, if we may use the expression, more thoroughly and completely personal, than the personality of woman; showing him clearly thus to be the centre and bearer properly of the human nature as a whole. This implies no inferiority on the part of woman; she is just as complete and noble in her own sphere as man can possibly be in his; and this sphere is just as necessary as the other also to the true perfection of human life. It lies, however, in the nature of the case, that this life should be, not a dualism, but an inward unity; and that the distinction, therefore, in which it starts, reaching as it does into the personal consciousness itself, should be so ordered, nevertheless, as to return in upon. itself again to a common personal ground. The relation of the sexes, then, requires that their two-fold constitution, dividing as it does the proper wholeness of humanity, should be supported at least as a single personality from a common basis, on one side or the other. The general nature, accordingly, is made to centre in man; and woman, taken in symbolic vision from his side, while she forms the necessary complement of his being, comes to her full spiritual development, and gains her true native freedom and independence, only by seeking in him the central support which she lacks in herself, and bringing her whole consciousness thus into profound union with his life, as the inmost and deepest ground of her own. With such natural and personal difference, the sexes are designated from the start to different spheres of life, and have widely different missions to fulfil in the social system. Neither the duties of the man, on the one hand, nor his virtues and perfections on the other, are the same in general that belong to woman; and so also the vices which most dishonor the one are not always of parallel turpitude for the other. Man's vocation is to go forth into the world, to wrestle with nature as its rightful lord and master, to make his understanding and will felt on the general course of life. The forest-felling axe, the soil-subduing plough, the mason's hammer and the joiner's, saw, the wand of judgment, the sceptre of au- | "Who would not judge that body to be a monster," says Knox, where there was no head eminent above the rest, but that the eyes were in the hands, the tongue and the mouth beneath in the belly, and the ears in the feet? No less is the body of that commonwealth, where a woman beareth empire; for either doth it lack a lawful head, as in very deed it doth, or else an idol is exalted instead of the true head. An idol I call that which hath the form and appearance, but lacketh the virtue and strength, which the name and proportion doth resemble and promise. I confess a realm may, in despite of God-he of his own wise judgment so giving them over unto a reprobate mind-exalt up a woman to that monstriferous honor, to be esteemed as head. impossible it is to man or angel to give unto her the properties and perfect offices of a lawful head; for the same God that denied power to the hand to speak, to the belly to hear, and to the feet to But always deep, and at the same time true to nature. "Let your women keep silent in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." So again: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." The order of society, springing as it does from the sexual relation first of all, imperiously requires that the opposition in which it holds should be sacredly regarded and preserved, throughout the whole economy of life. All that serves to neutralize it, or to thrust it out of sight, should be reprobated as an agency unfriendly to the best interests of the human race. Civilization and culture, morality and religion, while they call for the free intercourse of the sexes, as polar sides of one and the same social constitution, call no less clearly at the same time for their constant distinction and separation in all that pertains to inward character and outward life. They need a different education. The accomplishments which adorn the one are not those that most become the other. It is not without reason, that they are required to distinguish themselves in their outward dress. "Doth not even nature itself teach you," says the apostle, "that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her for her hair is given her for a covering." All confusion of the sexes, all removal of the lines and landmarks that show the true and proper boundary between them, is a crime against society of the most serious order. For either sex to forsake its own sphere, and intrude into that which belongs of right only to the other, though it should be even in the most trivial things merely, is ever something revolting to all reason and taste. To be unsexly, in cos see, hath denied to the woman power to command man, and hath taken away wisdom to consider, and providence to foresee, the things that be profitable to the commonwealth."-First Blast. tume, habit, spirit or occupation, is to be | between the two sexes in their personal at the same time unnatural and immoral. This opposition and distinction, however, as we have already seen, are intended only to make room for the more perfect union of the two interests thus flung asunder. It is because they are different in this way, and in proportion also as the difference is understood and respected, that the sexes are capable of entering into the intimate union, which lies at the ground of our whole human life. Physically, psychologically, and morally, man shows himself to be at all points what woman is not. The one is the opposite of the other. But for this very reason, the relation is one also of reciprocal want and supply. Neither section of the race is complete in its own nature, while the defect which exists on each side is met with its proper complement precisely in the comparative advantage of the other. Humanity is the unity of the two sexes; which, as such, accordingly can never rest in one apart from the other, but must seek continually the full conjunction of both, as original, necessary component sides of its proper constitution. In the nature of the case, it can never be satisfied with such conjunction, except under the most inward and spiritual form as the power, ultimately, of a single individual life. The sexes are made complete only in and through each other; and this necessarily by such a union only as extends to their whole constitution, physical and spiritual, embracing thus the entire inward life full as much as that which is exhibited outwardly in the sphere of flesh and blood. Each is needed to fill out and complete the personality or moral nature of the other, no less than its material organization. The qualities of man's spirit require to be softened and refined by communion with the milder nature of woman; as she on the other hand needs the strength and firmness of his more universal life, on which to lean as the stable prop of her own. The personality of man is enriched and beautified through woman, on the side of nature; the personality of woman is consolidated and perfected through man, on the side of the idea. In this view, of course, the union which the case demands, cannot overthrow, but must serve rather to establish in full force, the order we have already found to hold constitution. It is emphatically the fact of this order, involving as it does a certain primacy on the one side and a corresponding subordination on the other, that makes it possible for the union to take that vital, fundamental form that is here required. Two strictly co-ordinate personalities could not be expected to flow thus into the power of a single life. It is because woman has her true and proper centre at last in man, and not in herself, that it is possible for the sexes to become not simply one flesh, but one mind also and one soul. Her consciousness thus poised upon the personality of man, is brought to such harmony, and freedom, and active force within itself, as it could never be advanced to in any other way. All this implies no sort of dishonor or degradation. It is simply the necessary form of our general human life itself, whose perfection demands this distinction of sexes as something which, to be real at all, must hold in such proportional relation and no other. It is precisely the strength and glory of woman, to be thus dependently joined to the personality of man, as the vine is carried upwards by clinging to a trunk more vigorous and rough than its own, which it serves at the same time gracefully to ennoble and adorn. Marriage is, indeed, in this view, more significant and necessary, we may say, for woman, than it can be held to be for man. It is the appointed and regular process of her full emancipation from the power of sense and nature, over into the sphere of a firm and enduring spiritual independence. She needs it to make her own personality, whether as intelligence or will, sufficiently central and deep, to sustain itself as it should against the force of the surrounding world. It is by the mighty energy of love in this form that she comes at last fully to herself, and is enabled to bring into clear revelation the true wealth of her nature. In a deep sense thus we may apply to the case that mystic word of the apostle : She shall be saved (διὰ τεχνολο vias) by child-bearing." Connected as it is immediately with the thought of her moral weakness, as exemplified in the fall, (1 Tim. ii. 14, 15,) it seems to refer not obscurely to the like mystic word of the curse pronounced against her, Gen. iii. 16, in consequence of that catastrophe. The |