no ground to complain of the very injustice to which they are themselves so ruthlessly subjected. To this letter Mr. Barker's attention was called, and it was deemed only fair to call upon him, either, 1, To acknowledge that he made assertions into the grounds of which he took no pains to inquire, and which were, therefore, rash and gratuitous; or 2, to confess that having so inquired, he withheld the truth; or 3, to avail himself, with the patience and impartiality which become a candid inquirer, of the means of investigation offered, in any case he pleased, and to make known the result of his inquiry; or 4, to affirm (and prove) that the statements of the above letter were also false; or 5, to affirm (and prove) that the public should accept everything he thinks proper to say with unquestioning submission. After some delay, Mr. Barker replied, and said (exclusive of some personalities unworthy of notice) :

"That letter acknowledges, 1. That some of their tracts are fictions, 2. That the fictions were till lately mingled with what they call their true narratives, even in the catalogue, not being distinguished even by a separate place. 3. That these acknowledged fictions are not yet called fictions, but are published as true stories, and allowed to impose on unwary readers. 4. That in one case one of these fictions imposed on the world a hundred years; that the Tract Society reprinted this fiction without investigation; that when induced at last to investigate, the case was so bad that even they were obliged to suppress the work."

An "evident"

The sophistries of this imaginary "reply" are easily disposed of. "The Tract Society acknowledges that some of its tracts are fictions." The words are "evidently fictions," and that which is "evidently" fictitious imposes on nobody. Macbeth is "evidently" a fiction; does any one, therefore, accuse Shakspeare of deceiving the public? But "they were till lately mingled," &c. But the letter says they "cannot be confounded by the most casual reader" with the true narratives. If Mr. Barker does not believe this clause of the same sentence, why the other; except on the "eclectic" principle of doubting or believing as it may suit a purpose? "The acknowledged fictions are not yet called fictions.' thing requires no "calling." Does every sketch in a magazine call itself a mere sketch? They are published as true stories.” This is an "evident fiction.' "One" (unlike the destiny of Mr. Barker's writings) "imposed on the world a hundred years." This only proves the difficulty of collecting evidence, and the thorough honesty that preferred meeting the difficulty to evading it. Facilities, and not difficulties, are offered to Mr. Barker, but he refuses to "investigate." "The case was so bad, even they," &c. There is no "even" in the matter. A falsehood is a falsehood; nor would it be worth a man's while who told a thousand lies to take great pains to prove one was a mistake. This argument only reveals that Christian agents are, what infidel agents are not, fastidiously scrupulous not to "impose on the world," even where there is a doubt, (for this is all attached to the instance spoken of,) and even if loss be the consequence, will Mr. Barker suppress his "Christianity Triumphant," which he must think "imposed on the world;" or allow the stock to be sold out?

But the facts left behind are not so soon got rid of. They are simply these. That Mr. Barker has made public statements for which he has not offered a shadow of proof; and that he has not dared to avail himself of the facilities of inquiry so frankly offered. Until he and others do so the books

in question stand unimpeached, with all their solemn facts and warnings; nor can any infidel lecturer, in the face of these circumstances, again impeach them, or evade the inferences they involve, without becoming obnoxious to charges it would be unpalatable to characterize.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

THE BIBLE THE FRIEND OF WOMAN.

VOX.

The Bible is the friend of woman, and he who is familiar with his Bible, and with its effects upon our race, and willing to allow their legitimate influence on his judgment, must feel called upon at once to admit the fact. If it be the friend of the human family, as such, woman must come in for a share of its regards and influences. If it be the friend of man, as distinguished from woman, it must the friend of woman too; for it cannot have an effect for good on the one, without having a similar effect of good upon the other. The two sexes are so inseparably connected, that what is of real advantage to either must be for good to both. Upon this position, we were about to say, we might take our stand, and defy all who affirm that the Bible is the enemy of woman. Were we to ask for proof, we might have served up to us, perhaps, a collection of passages, taken from the Bible itself, quoted frequently without any reference to their connection, and with a meaning, taken for granted, which is just as far from the meaning as anything well can be; or, if rightly explained, having in them some fact, the mere statement of which can have no bearing upon the question whatsoever, and shows nothing, as to whether the Bible, in which the fact is recorded, be woman's friend or woman's foe. Very likely one thing would be specially dwelt upon, the position assigned to woman in the Bible; and it would be triumphantly asked, could the Bible be the friend of woman, seeing it assigns to her such a position?

In replying to such a question, we might, with all fairness, call for a definition of the position referred to, and proof from the Bible that it assigns such a place to woman. If what we sought were given, we should be told, probably, that, in spirit and statement, man is made the master and woman the servantman the superior and woman the inferior; that the Bible takes away her individuality, and accords to her only the common right to suffer, while it withholds from her the common right to complain; and we should have all passages in which obedience, subjection, and such like, on the part of wives to their husbands, are enjoined, Now, in answer to such, if we turn to the Bible itself, the very first passage in it that refers to woman, and the place assigned her, contradicts what is affirmed, and shows that the proofs advanced will not bear it out. The Creator of man said, "It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." Man, without woman, could not realize the full enjoyment of all his faculties, or serve the end of his being. Amongst all the creatures God had made, Adam could find no suitable help-mate. He must have some one who could he his companion and friend, with whom he could hold intercourse, in whose society and converse he could find pleasure. This companion God gave him in Eve-formed, not of dust of the ground directly, but from a portion of his organized body, intimating that she was part of himself. This he recognized when she was brought to him, and gave to her a name corresponding thereto. In connection with this, the duty of a man to his wife is laid down. He is to leave father and mother and cleave to her. Their union is so intimate as to approach to identity. "They shall be one flesh." Nor must we omit to remember the general statement of the creation of man :-" So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him ;

male and female created He them." The woman was made as certainly in the image of God as was the man. And all through the Bible, she is presented to us as on a level with man as to religious obligations, duties, and privileges. She has a soul as precious as the soul of man; and she needs a Saviour as certainly as he, she may have a share in the same salvation, and rise to the enjoyment of the same heaven. In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.

But is she not mentioned as having had addressed to her such words as these, "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee?" and if she was equal with man before the fall, is it not herein intimated, that after the fall she had ceased to have such a position? Such a statement may be predictive― pointing to what should be the result of sin, where the truth of God, as indicating man's duty, was not known or acted on. But supposing it intimates a general fact, applicable in every case, it by no means implies degradation on the part of woman, nor is there necessarily any sense of degradation; for the woman's desire is to her husband-he is the centre of her earthly wishes. She is so constituted as to find herself happiest, and most certainly where she would wish to be, when she is queen of a home, the head of which is a husband in whose heart Christian principle reigns, and whose conduct to her is ever such as that God, who has given him and her their respective positions, requires him to display. She is the companion and the friend of man, not his inferior. She ministers to him, but she is not his slave. The same Bible which calls for her obedience, limits it by making it obedience" in the Lord," that is, so far only as her duty to the Lord admits. That same Bible which requires the submission of the wife says, with equal authority, "Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it. So ought men to

Her

love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself." The Bible that demands such of husbands cannot mean the degradation of the wife, and cannot surely, in fairness, be considered the enemy of woman. Creator has assigned her a place in which her duties are not so prominently public as those of man. While she acts the part of the wife, the mother, the daughter, the sister, the friend, man feels that she is a companion invaluablethe gift of God to him; and she feels that her sphere and satisfaction are in being such. Man could not do the duties to man she does. He has not the fitness for them. She has. And in his natural inability to perform the kind and gentle, the sweet and soothing offices which fall to woman, and in her fitness for them, we see that the Bible is not woman's foe, but woman's friend. And woman has a sense of that herself, for, as a general fact, all attempts on the part of her pretended friends to take her from it have found no sympathy with her. Those who would have us believe that the Bible is the enemy of woman, by the position it assigns her, seem to forget that such a position gives her a greater influence than any other could. The characteristics of woman, so far as they have heen developed in the world's history, both in regard to mind and body, intimate pretty plainly that her place is not amidst the rough labour of head or hand which man has to perform-the toil and turmoil, the stir and struggle for which he is specially fitted. Were she put in that place, she could not, from her very constitution, mental and physical, have the influence which she possesses in a sphere which is peculiarly her own. As the mother, she has

an influence which no other has-not even the father. On her devolves the duty of drawing forth the faculties and feelings of those who shall influence, for good or for ill, the future. To her is in a great measure necessarily committed the moulding, and training, and instilling which shall issue in the character of the coming age. As the wife, the sister, the daughter, the friend, she has an influence less noticed than that of man, but as great, nay greater, on the age in which she lives. Man may be unconscious of it, or not be willing to allow the -fact; but in his feelings and desires, his aims and efforts, he is, and cannot but

be, influenced by female loved ones he has at home. But such an influence is woman's, just because she has the place the Bible gives her. Those, then, who seek, as they profess, to give to woman such a place as shall afford her influence, had better leave her where the revelation of her Maker's will declares that Maker to have put her. And just for a moment look to what would be the effect upon woman in the future, were woman in the present taken from the place the Bible, backed by long experience and her aptness for it, says she ought to fill. What would be the character of the daughters in our families, if their mothers were taken ftom a mother's duties? What place would they be fit to hold? Would it be a place such as would exalt the sex? And how would our sons, who had not felt a mother's influence, be disposed to treat these daughters? Would it be with greater kindness, honour, and regard, than if they themselves had ever associated with the female character a sacredness and love, the result of a mother's kind, affectionate, and tender care? Ah! woman of the present would leave a legacy of woe for woman of the future, did she quit that sphere the Bible so appropriately assigns her. She would then prove that she herself, and not the Bible, was the enemy of woman.

In what we have said upon the subject of this paper, we have confined ourselves to one point; not because there are not many others, but because the enemies of the Bible (and, as we are disposed to style them, the enemies of woman) have given it a special prominence. We cannot close, however, without a few words on some other points. The Bible gives woman a prominent place-such a place as it would never give her in its pages were it her enemy. It does record cases of females, whose character is far from lovely, but it is not woman's enemy because it tells her the truth. A friend is no less a friend that he warns us against sins to which we may be tempted. And while the Bible is honest in this respect, it gives special prominence to female piety, and calls special attention to those by whom it was displayed, and the circumstances in which it was manifested. We are, indeed, informed that Eve yielded to the tempter, and thus brought sin into the world-acting, in her turn, the tempter to Adam. But while the statement of a fact is no evidence of enmity, the Bible records another fact, which more exalts her, that woman was the mother of the Saviour. "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman." We find in Old Testament history mention made of many a godly woman; and in the New Testament, woman is not only brought forward as having been to the Saviour the object of peculiar interest, but as waiting on him, showing self-denial, continuing faithful, abiding by him when others had forsaken, and taking no small part, in her appropriate sphere, in the advancement of the gospel. And as a tree is known by its fruit, so the effect of the Bible is a reasonable test by which to judge whether it be the friend of woman or her foe. And what has been that effect? History, ancient and modern, and facts transpiring at the present day, combine to show, that wherever the Bible has been received, there woman's condition has been improved. The religion of the Bible has raised woman from being the drudge of man, to be his companion; from being his toy, to be his friend and help-mate; from being the instrument of gratification to the basest lusts, to be the wife of his bosom, the instructress of his children, and his second self. It requires but an examination of what woman was in heathen lands, before the gospel found its way thither, and what she is now, when its claims are admitted and its influence allowed, to see that the Bible is her friend. Even where civilization had made most progress, ere that gospel came, such has been evident. It was as striking in ancient Greece and Rome, as it has been in India, in the islands of the Pacific, or in any other modern missionary field. Nay, to come nearer home, it is sufficiently prominent in the difference of treatment received by woman in our own land, from those who live out the principles of the Bible, and those who reject its doc

trines, and cast its commands behind their back. Let any one just look over the circle of his own acquaintance, or round about him in the locality in which he dwells, and see whether those who are true Christians-believers of the Bible, and practisers of its precepts--or those who are not, treat woman best; and it may be left to his common sense, from such alone, to conclude whether the Bible be or be not the friend of woman.-The Association.

Our Open Page.

EGOMET'S REPLY TO THE CHAIRMAN.

See No. 11, p. 171.

Sir, Will you favour me with a very small part of your open page for the purpose of replying to "The Chairman" anent my report of "Mr. Cooper's lecture" and in the first place, I emphatically deny that the account given is a "curiosity of incorrectness." It is correct in every particular if looked at with the eye of discerning honesty.

I said that the Investigator was the "most prominent publication" from the fact of its being recommended in a very prominent manner by the chairman. Although he denies this and says that it was another book which he recommended. I distinctly adhere to my statement that the "Investigator" was the book mentioned, and I am further satisfied that I am correct in this matter from the fact that until then I was not aware that Mr. Cooper was editor of that publication. The "chairman" might mean some other book, I am not responsible for any mistake of that sort. I stated what I heard and what every one must have heard that paid any attention. I was at the lecture on the Monday night, and what I said of numbers was tolerably correct, there were a few additions during the course of the evening. I did not of course count them, I only made a rough guess, and on this subject I am prepared to submit to the more correct knowledge of the "chairman" as he had the the best means of knowing; the number of twopences being a demonstration both complete and satisfactory. The slightly elevated pulpit or platform is not worth noticing. I know nothing positively about its peculiar construction. I only have to say that Mr. Cooper appeared to me just like a man in a pulpit which was too high for him, as it was with great difficulty you could catch a glance of his head above it.

The chairman did not recommend them to purchase the "Investigator." Of the correctness of that statement I am so perfectly convinced that I would make affidavit before any one at any time.

The "chairman" says "there was applause both before Egomet came in and after he left, now I can see no contradiction here, as I only gave a report of what transpired during the time I was present, and I again repeat that it was the tamest lecture to which I ever listened. It seemed scarcely to draw the least attention, and certainly during the whole of its delivery never elicited more than a very small laugh. Egomet has no objection to listen to a lecture in silence, yet he thinks that a lecturer would be a little gratified by an occasional recognition of its beauties, and further he thinks the "chairman" will agree with him when he says that an evident want of attention in the audience is a sure indication of want of power in the lecturer.

I think the "chairman" has mistaken some other person for Egomet, he speaks very knowingly of his whereabouts and yet he makes a great mistake, as I did not sit with the back of the audience to me. I sat nearly in the centre and had a good opportunity of beholding in the countenances of those who were about me the indifference with which they listened to the lecture. I did not in the least wish to throw contempt on any one when I described the audience as