rarely, a man with a soft, and easy, and affectionate, but weak disposition, so pampers the irritability of a mind weakened by sickness, and rendered selfish by infirmity, if not by original constitution, that instead of making use of his own strength to counteract the caprice of his wife, he becomes its victim, and the pander to its diseased appetite. The cause is irrelevant; the effect is the same; the type is broken; and the family consequently disorganized and miserable. Such consequences of the wife's usurpation have been observed, while the cause has been unknown, and made the favourite theme of satirists and moralists in every age; Juvenal, Boileau, Molière, and Pope, have all ridiculed them, men whose talent consists in the accurate observation and exposure of the errors of human actions. Pope, in describing the perfection of a gentle wife's disposition, says,

O blest with temper whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;

She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or if she rules him, never shows she rules;

Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most when she obeys: And the classical scholar will remember the sentiment of Euripides;

αυτη τε παντα συμφέρουσα,

ηπερ μεγιστη γιγνεται σωτηρια οταν γυνη προς ανδρα μη δεχοστατη. The two extremes to be guarded against, are the lawful authority of the husband degenerating into tyranny; and the neglect of the proper exercise of that authority, allowing the wife to usurp above her proper sphere. Each age and rank will modify these dangers at different periods, making this more prevalent at one period, and that more common at another. In the present circumstances of Christendom, the insubordination to proper authority is in every situation the evil of most frequent occurrence.

There are some families which are conducted in a manner that is evidently contrary to the wishes of the head, with respect to the expense of personal decoration on the persons of the female members, whether wife or daughter, or both; the worldly things,

which cannot, by any perversion of reasoning, be construed into being conducive to Christianity, such as dancing, in which the children are instructed; the kind as well as extent of company with which she passes her time. Still the husbands do not directly forbid these proceedings, partly from hoping that as their wives advance in the Divine life, these frivolities will fall off; and partly from not wishing to require any thing from them which it is feared might be looked upon in the light of a sacrifice, and be painfully felt, and perhaps not given up without resistance and a struggle. The wives think themselves all the while the most obedient creatures imaginable; they have fallen in with the religious views of their husbands; they neither go to operas nor playhouses; and therefore they suppose that they do not live in the world. But the change of conversation which takes place when religious or worldly people are present: the anxiety to be prepared with different kinds of books that shall be seen on the table according as saints or sinners are expected to inspect them; the never

ceasing round of frivolity on which their thoughts are fixed and time spent, and a thousand other trifling indications of a similar nature, proclaim, with sufficient clearness, to an observant byestander, the real state of the heart within.

Husbands should clearly understand the painful truth, that the compliance with their wishes in religious observances shown by their wives, would have been equally shown had they themselves turned to worship Juggernaut, instead of Jehovah. As they value the souls of their wives, let them remember that they, and they alone, are responsible for the governance of their families: that if they wish God to bless their prayers for the salvation of their wives and children, they must compel them by their authority, to walk in the path of Christian duty and consistency: they must not fear to excite the wrath, which has, perhaps, never till now been excited against themselves: they must take up the cross of Christ in that situation in which He requires them to do so; they may rest assured that God will bless His own ordinance: that

He has not vested power in the man over the woman, for the purpose of being used as an instrument of tyranny and gratification to man, but as a mean of conducing to the eternal welfare of both husband and wife. With all love then, with all gentleness, with all delicacy, with all tenderness, nay, if they will, with all playfulness, provided only it be with all firmness, let them tell their wives, "these things must not be; I love you, but I love and fear God also: His book, and my own conscience tell me that the course we are pursuing is not right." Her conduct is very possibly actuated by an erroneous estimate of what is agreeable to her husband; and let him only say that his love for his wife will be increased by her compliance, and he may rest assured that God will honour His word, that says of the woman, "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee," and that his family will be blessed with an hundred fold of increase of love, and peace, and harmony.

It is remarkable, that in all nations, and in many creeds, where the true origin is un