"The sentiment," says the authoress of the "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," that a woman may allow all innocent freedoms, provided her virtue is secure, is both grossly indelicate and dangerous, and has proved fatal to many of her sex." With this opinion I altogether coincide. A sensible man, or an amiable woman, possessing any pure feeling, must always wish to convince a beloved object that it is the "homage" of the individual, not the sex, that is received and returned with pleasure; and that the HEART, rather than the senses, is moved. Without the natural delicacy, love (how often miscalled?) becomes a selfish personal qualification, and cannot fail, in a very short time, to degrade the fairest character.

I will carry this sentiment still further. Affection, when love is out of the question, authorizes many personal endearments, that naturally, flowing from an innocent heart, give life to the behaviour: but the personal intercourse of gallantry, or vanity, is unpardonable. When a man of fashion presses the hand of a handsome woman, whom he has never seen before, as he perchance conducts her to her carrriage, she will consider such an impertinent freedom in the light of an insult, if she have any true delicacy, instead of being flattered by such unmeaning offering to beauty. These are the privileges of friendship, or the momentary tribute which the heart pays to virtue, when it flashes suddenly on the notice-mere "animal spirits" have no claim to the kindnesses of affection.

"Wishing," says a brilliant female writer, "to feed the 'affections' with what is now the food of vanity, I would fain persuade the sex to act from simpler principles. Let them merit love, and they will be sure to obtain it, though they may never be told that the power of a fine woman over the hearts of men, of men of the finest parts, is even beyond what she conceives."

"Let woman," says another eminent writer, "once acquire good sense; and, if it deserve the name, it will teach her (or of what use will it be?) how to employ it."

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Happy would it be for the world, and for individuals of course, if all this unavailing solicitude to attain worldly happiness, on a confined plan, were turned into an anxious

desire to improve the understanding.

"Wisdom is the principal thing: therefore, get wisdom; and, with all thy gettings, get understanding." "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity and hate knowledge ?” saith Wisdom to the daughters of men!

THE BIRTH OF WOMAN.

How cold was the planet, ere Love lent its light
To beam on the desolate regions of night!
Deep silence and solitude circled the earth,
And sad was creation till Love had its birth!

He sprang out of chaos,--and flushed with desire,
The young sun leapt forth from his mansion of fire;
Earth felt the fond passion awake in her breast,
And pursued him with love-laughing eyes to the west.
The dark caves of ocean re-echoed his call,
And his pow'r and his sway were acknowledged by all
Through the bounds of existence the soft impulse ran,
And shed its bright beams on the bosom of man.

All joyous and lone on the threshold of fate,
He felt the deep rapture, and stept forth elate;
While the visions of love in their fulness impart
Fresh fire to his eyes, and new streams to his heart!

She came in the fulness of beauty and love,
The Eve of his dreams came down from above!
The stars sang in heaven, and sweet was the morn
By angels uncurtain'd when Woman was born!

In the might of his joy, in his heart's gushing pride!
He clasp'd to his bosom his heaven-blooming bride!
While rapture and music encircled the earth,

And fair was creation when Love had his birth!

W. S. R.

7

EXISTENCE OF THE WORLD.

THE WORLD'S AGE.

THE World is supposed to have existed more than 6000 years. Its precise age, however, cannot be ascertained.

From the formation and being of Adam, to the period of the flood, it was conjectured to be 1656 years; from the year of the Flood down to the Epoch, or Birth of our Saviour, 2348 years; and from the Birth of Christ to this eventful and prophetic era of Christian history, 1835 years. The Jews, without any exception, believed a "tradition," which went to show, that as the World was made, and all the sublime and beautiful works of creative excellence completed, by ONE GREAT MASTER HAND in six days, and those six days succeeded by a seventh, or Sabbath, which was, and is, and ever shall be, kept holy, and sacred as a day of rest, by the good and faithful of the pure Apostolical Church; so the world was doomed to labour under the visible darkness consequent on the dominion of Sin, and Diabolas Apollyon, or Satan, for 6000 years; ulterior to which, the bright and illustrious reign of the GLORIOUS MESSIAH should take place, during which "spiritual illumination" the Earth was to enjoy rest for 1000 years. I have considered it my duty to quote the texts of Scripture, which, in some measure, testify or asseverate this ancient tradition of the Forefathers of the long-degraded, unhappy, and expatriated Jews.-ED.

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"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 2 Peter, iii. 8. "And I saw Angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain, in his hand. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that Old Serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the

bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should not deceive the nations any more, till the "thousand years" should be fulfilled: and after that-he must be loosed a little season." Rev. xx. v. 1—3.

"The foolish body hath said in his heart there is no God."

How truly, painfully mortifying must the mental affliction, which this indelible and too solemn accusation carries with it, whenever it is uttered—or even whispered-prove to every enlightened and persevering Christian? If I were permitted to say, without prejudice to the faithful Soldiers of Jerusalem, and the Apostolic church, I would go on to assert, that this insulting sentence of the Satanised Infidel conveys to the right and spiritual understanding of every acknowledged Apostle of Christ-a species of degradation, that, at one and the same time, tends to appal and cause him to examine his conscience, and (hence cometh good out of evil) thus is quickened his "immortal spirit" for a sight of that everlasting sphere, where the FINGER of GOD ruleth in Eternal Omnipotence; and where life and infinite existence have their habitations among the superstructive avalanches of time; and the enduring heavenly hills, at the foot of which, the immoveable sun, in all the effulgence of beautiful and immaculate light and loveliness, lets fall, from the adamantine throne of incommunicable mercy,—the Manna of Calvary,—the undying blaze of mercy and forgiveness.

I have given the text of Scripture, in order that the reader may more immediately, by reference to the Bible, be put in possession of the truth. Looking at the "signs of the times," moreover, and contrasting the general procedure of the religious and Christian World, with times past, I am led to hope, in a religous sense, that few, if any, Infidels are to be found on the smiling face of this beautiful earth, and under the illustrated and gorgeous canopy of the most sacred and highest heaven.

Surely, the "Warnings" the inhabitants of the World have had of late, will suffice to create, in every Christian bosom, "a love and dread" of the Divine pleasure and vengeance?

Surely, the strange and wonderful geographical route of the mysterious CHOLERA, which emanated from the "crimsoned East," its sudden departure from one district of the Earth to another, overleaping gigantic seas and vast continents—its unexpected return to the spot from whence it had so imposingly retired-together with the "human havock" this latent scourge has been made, by the hand of Power, to consummate-the punishment it has wrought-the ruin it has completed-the

parental and other affliction it has brought upon the Protestant and Militant Christian World; the desolate and heart-broken Mother weeping for her Children--"because they were not:"—the Father mourning for his Son, whose Spirit had quickly (and without warning of God, most awful visitation and calamity!) passed off the Earth. Surely, I presume to repeat, all these will prove moral Malady, or “Sickness.” ED.

WOMAN.

"LET there be light!" th' Eternal Father said :-
Primeval darkness into chaos fled;

Astonish'd Nature saw her gates unfold,
And felt the Godhead as the fiat roll'd;

Creation teems beneath the forming hand;

Earth, seas, and skies, obey the great command:

The stream of life from heaven's great fountain ran,
Imparted being, and converged in man:

Man, lordly man, the glorious scene beheld,
But felt a void,-a something yet withheld;

This last, best work, the Godhead form'd and view'd,
Pronounc'd it Woman, and confess'd it good.
Oh! formed to bless and harmonize mankind,
To soothe the tortur'd, heal the wounded mind;
While Time her silent, secret course pursues,
While heavenly truth the human mind imbues,
Your smile, with hallow'd ray, shall gild our days,
And your approval be our dearest praise.

D.

THE CREATOR-ALMIGHTY FATHER-
UNIVERSAL GOD.

I.

"THUS saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the Womb-I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens above; and spreadeth abroad the earth myself."-Isaiah xliv. 24.

2.

"In the beginning was the 'Word,' and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was not any thing made that was made."

3.

"Dost thou know the balancing of the heavens, and the wonderful works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?"