salvation, they have been instituted as the means of salvation; and that, although they cannot give grace, they are the appointed channels of conveying it! And then, whilst with the just and devout Simeon, we "wait for the consolation of Israel," we shall be found, as recorded of Zechariah and Elizabeth, animated with the like faith and expectancy as he was, "Righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.

Preached 4th Sunday after Trinity, 1848.

"She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."-Prov. xxxi. 26-28.

It is again my privilege to minister the Word of God in this sacred edifice, this noble and beautiful temple dedicated to His service. It is not possible to have such a privilege, and one so rarely recurring, without a very anxious wish that the opportunity may not be wholly lost, but that I may be enabled, by God's help, to speak "a word in season," and to say something which may minister grace unto the hearers. I have chosen my present text, that I may speak to you on the influence which woman possesses over the temporal and eternal interests of mankind, and for the exercise of which she is awfully responsible.

Female influence is a subject of immense importance, far too little thought of or appreciated; which has often caused the downfall of empires; and on

which indeed, at every period of time, the destinies of the human race have been made by the mysterious decrees of God in great measure to depend. The influence of woman was mainly instrumental to the deluge, when the wicked daughters of Cain had corrupted the sons of Seth. When Balaam was compelled against his evil inclinations to bless Israel, he secretly counselled Balak to call to his aid the artifices of the women of Moab and of Midian. Through the allurements of strange women the heart of Solomon, in other respects the wisest of the sons of men," was turned from the Lord God of Israel," and his kingdom was rent asunder. In the French Revolution of the last century, the soldiers were seduced from loyalty and allegiance by the abandoned females of Paris; and the baleful influence of woman at that period is indelibly written in characters of blood in the records of guilt and misery unexampled since the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans eighteen hundred years ago. But I turn from further observations on what has been to the immediate purpose of this discourse, which is to make the fact of female influence practically useful to ourselves, by suggesting a few simple remarks on the manner in which it may be beneficially exerted, and how it ought to be directed.

The text places before us the mistress of a family, "she looketh well to the ways of her household"; the mother, "her children arise up, and call her blessed"; the wife, "her husband also, and he praiseth her." I propose to speak briefly on each of these positions which woman is called upon to fill; merely

reversing the order in which they have been given us above, and beginning with the wife.

It is among the happy consequences of those who look to God for guidance, that He directs them to their companionship, and gives them grace to choose those for their friends, who have chosen Him for their God, and whom He has chosen for His people. This is a great furtherance in the way of godliness and peace. One who loves the Lord is often the means of conversion and salvation to some friend who did not know Him before. And how much is such a consideration enhanced, when it has reference to the most intimate and most sacred of all human ties-the obligations of the marriage state! St. Paul, speaking to believers, says, "What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?" Thus it was the subject of the greatest anxiety to Abraham, to secure a believing and virtuous wife to his son Isaac: "I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth," said he to his faithful steward, "that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites amongst whom I dwell," for the Canaanites were people who knew not the Lord. Marriage was not then a matter influenced only by some worldly or carnal motive; but a wife was sought who was a child of God, His grace was her dowry, and His blessing on the union was prayed for and obtained. This holy estate was then entered upon, as our scriptural and apostolical Church so solemnly enjoins that it shall be now, "reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and

in the fear of God." And so much of national as well as individual welfare is involved in the important subject of marriage, that God enacted it as a law that the Israelites should not make marriages with the heathen: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son; nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly."

son.

In considering then the influence of woman, individually and generally, we must first regard her in the relation of wife, that for which she was first formed, an help-meet for her husband; not merely to be the partner of his social hours, but one who might share in his counsels, to whom he might confide what most interested himself, and from whom he might seek and receive, under the irritating cares and harassing avocations of the world, that solace and those soothing attentions which it is hers only to bestow. Perhaps she has herself one care deeper than his-one not known to him. She is a religious woman, whose views, thoughts, and anxieties extend far beyond the narrow limits and the trifling and fleeting interests of this present life. It is, moreover, no offensive truth to speak, though it must needs be a very melancholy one to think of, that the husband's education may have been such as to have given him a less clear and distinct view of spiritual and eternal things than it is her happier lot to be blessed with. In the lower classes of life in our rural districts, however inadequate

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