4.-In answer to more than one correspondent as to woman's place in service and in the church, it is well to remember that Scripture gives us principles of conduct, not a code of laws. In the application, spirituality is always required, and there will always be room for those who are not so to dispute the application. The remedy is not to turn the Scripture precepts into a legal code, so as to be practically Independent of the guidance of the Spirit. We all naturally like, in such matters, sharply defined edges, and to be saved the trouble of that exercise of soul by which alone we have our "senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

As to the principle, there is not the least uncertainty for those whose hearts are subject to the Word; to those who are not so, it is hard to imagine what scripture would be decisive.

The two things by which the apostle determines the woman's place are, first, the circumstances of her creation, then of her fall.-"For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman, 'being deceived, was in the transgression." And this is the ground of what he enjoins, and with the full weight of apostolic authority.-"I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in subjection." This is in Timothy. In the epistle to the Corinthians he again appeals to creation.-"But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God."-"For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man; neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man …. Judge in yourselves:is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you . . . ?"

It is plain, surely, from all this, that it is what is becoming to the woman naturally that is insisted on. The daughters of Philip were prophetesses; women labored with Paul in the gospel; Priscilla, as well as Aquila, took Apollos and instructed him in the way of the Lord more perfectly:some would find difficulty in reconciling all this with what the apostle has insisted on as the woman's place. They ought to guard us only against too rigid an interpretation of his words. If Philip's daughters prophesied, they did it not in the assembly, we may be sure, but in a manner becoming female modesty and reserve. If women labored with Paul in the gospel, it was not public preaching, but more privately-in visitation, probably to houses where God had given them access; while Priscilla could instruct Apollos in what she herself had learned without setting up to be a teacher, or departing from the " subjection" which the apostle orders. No doubt there is difficulty in maintaining the true place in all this. Difficulties and clangers surround our path, but what is wanted is not more precise definitions, but to be before God; and that a woman should be a woman, which in these days she has assuredly temptation enough to forget. An unwomanly woman is one of those things as to which nature really most effectually teaches, although we may, of course, get dulled in this respect, as in all others, by habituation to it.

Here, as in other cases where Scripture does not sharply draw the line, there is need of watching against narrowness and readiness to form hasty judgment. It is easy for us to define another's duty, and to draw lines according to our taste, and to make Scripture responsible for mere cold criticism of what might be more devoted service than we have heart to understand. If un-womanliness is a real danger on the one side,-a danger we have no thought of diminishing,-there is, on the other hand, a danger of unmanliness which we must not forget. There is a plain word to wives to be subject to their husbands; but it is to the wives:there is no word to the husbands to enforce subjection. And while one would be very far from justifying the sadly out-of-place position often occupied by women in the present day, it is pertinent to ask, Was Deborah's judgeship a dishonor to the women, or to the men 'of Israel ? and if it were thus a sign, of what was it a sign ? Alas ! of what but of in subjection on their part to God ? Subjection to Him it is that brings every thing else right; and for the rest, patience, gentleness, and grace are signs of strength; as irritability and impatience- are of weakness only.