comprehended the true nature of the glorious land of promise which lay before him-to which men would be guided by the light of his genius. But we find, in his writings, these remarkable sentences: "I have held up a light in the obscurity of philosophy, which will be seen centuries after I am dead. It will be seen amidst the erection of temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, bridges; making noble roads, cutting canals, granting multitudes of charters, the foundation of colleges and lectures for learning, and the education of youth; the foundations and institutions of orders and fraternities for enterprise and obedience; but, above all, the establishing good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world." If he could now re-appear upon earth, he would witness the fulfilment of these predictions. The influence of the Inductive Philosophy has led to the discovery of machinery in the various mechanic arts. Two hundred and fifty years ago, he held up a light in the obscurity of philosophy; and we may almost believe that, when he predicted it would be seen amidst the "making noble roads, and cutting canals," he foresaw that continents would be intersected by Rail Roads; and that steam would propel mighty ships over every sea, independent of the tides and winds, by the action of which the commerce and intercourse of nations was then maintained. Did not Cowley justly compare Bacon to Moses standing on Mount Pisgah? He has claims to the character bestowed on him by the bard of Twickenham, The wisest, brightest of mankind.

WOMAN AS A MISSIONARY.

THE American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions having sent out, from Boston, missionaries to Siam-a part of the mission consisting of the wives of the clergymen—a New York paper published a list of the missionaries, and commented on the cruelty of taking delicate women to die with pestilential diseases in barbarous lands, and find a grave in the sands of the desert. The writer assumes that the sole use of the wife is as a "special comfort" to the missionary; and then indulges in severe remarks against the selfishness of those who feel it a duty to preach the mild and benevolent principles of Christianity to heathen nations.

The assumption of the writer-that woman, as a missionary, acts only a negative part-is not true. If true, it would not prove that her self-sacrifice was useless. Suppose a missionary lives longer, and labours more energetically and efficiently, by having kind woman to commune with him when fatigued with arduous toil, or discouraged by opposition; to solace and relieve him when burning with fever, or tortured with pain? Is not the increased amount of good effected, instrumentally, her work? Had Henry Martyn been thus attended, he might not have closed his career

so soon as he did, when he sat under a tree in an orchard at Tocat, and "thought of God" and died. And, surely, no one will say that a Christian woman had lived in vain, had she been the instrument of prolonging the continuance, above the horizon, of that glorious missionary star, whose reflected light still shines on the idolatrous plains of Asia. When the Author of missions sent out his Apostles, he did not require them to go alone. He well knew what human nature demanded the advantages of companionship— and sent them by two and two. What was essential to an Apostle then, is no less essential to a missionary

now.

But the position of woman at missionary stations is far from being negative. Education is the handmaid to religion. The adult heathen is too strongly wedded to the customs and institutions of his fathers, to be easily won to the faith and practice of the Christian. His caste must be abandoned; his licentious indulgences restrained; all the associations of his former life severed. In a word, he must be changed from that inveterate corruption of the Gentile world, so forcibly described by Paul in the first chapter of Romans. If the children can be collected into schools, they may receive the light of civilization, and be taught the doctrines of the Bible. Is not the mother, in civilized lands, more successful in teaching the child, than the father? And the mild, and forbearing, and gentle, and loving nature of woman, gives her the best qualifications for instilling into the minds of heathen children, the principles of that religion whose essence is love.

The practice of the Apostles cannot be adduced as an example for the modern missionary. The circumstances of the world are essentially different. Then, all was pagan, except the Jewish community-at that time more hostile than the heathen nations to the new system: and the Apostles were driven from city to city, reviled, persecuted, stoned: evincing the sincerity of their belief in the doctrines they taught, amidst the fagot and the flame. But now, Christian nations send missionaries to stations among the heathen, with the expectation that they will pass their lives amidst the terror of the climate they have braved, and lay their bones beneath the sands of the sultry deserts. Under such circumstances-having a settled home-why should they be forbidden to indulge the tender charities of husband and father?

The writer of the article says he is tired of reading accounts of the death of our country-women in Asia and Africa. But is he tired of reading accounts of pagan rites and superstitions-of infanticide-of the immolation of widows on the funeral pyre of husbands -of the deplorable degradation into which heathen. lands are irredeemably plunged, unless they are raised by the arm of Christian benevolence? If woman's nature be so gentle, and her frame so delicate, that she must not be allowed to endure privation and suffering in attempts to enlighten the benighted, she was not the proper subject, in the early days of Christianity, to die a martyr's death, in order to witness a martyr's faith: and this writer would have had her to deny her risen Lord, that she might escape the torturing rack and the

consuming flame. Read the history of the ten persecutions, and you will find woman "mighty to suffer"the gentleness and delicacy of her nature being supported by the principle within her: thus giving a glorious illustration of the sincerity of the faith by which she lived, and for which she died. I shall never forget a remark made by the venerable Dr. Green to his class at Princeton: "You may never be called to die at the stake: but, unless you have the spirit of a martyr, you are no Christian." Had not woman been enabled to die, sooner than renounce her faith, much of the glorious light of martyrdom had never shined: much of the blood that has watered the tree, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations, had never flowed.

Who is so much indebted to Christianity as woman? It found her, not the companion of man, but his slave. The so much boasted philosophy of the ancient world did not essentially improve her condition. And, up to this hour, whether you trace her history amidst the darkness and superstitions of India-in the islands of the sea-with the Osmanlee-among the red men of the forest, or the African tribes, you find her debased below the men of her country. But the light of Christianity arose upon the nations, and her condition was changed. And, as if to show the connexion between. the position of woman, and the existing state of Christianity, the same enthusiastic age which sent the Crusader to prove the sincerity of his faith by attempts to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the possession of the Infidel, saw the knight throw down his glove, and assert the superiority of his "Ladye-faire" amidst the