that the progress of human civilization has only kept pace with the progress of female education. If this be true, we can scarcely estimate too highly the advantages that would result to our own country, from a more thorough system of female education. Much has been done, within the last fifty years, to elevate the standard of female education. If the list of studies, taught in our female academies now, be compared with the requisitions of that period, they will be found to be vastly superior. President Dwight, in remarking upon this subject, in his day, says: "It is owing to the innate good sense of the women of this country, that they are not absolute idiots. I would not give a farthing to have a daughter of mine go to many of the schools of our country. Observe the state of our schools for females, and compare them with the colleges for males. The end kept in view, in the education of males, is to make them useful; in that of females, to make them admired. Men will pay any sum to have their daughters taught to manage their feet in dancing, to daub over a few pictures, to play a few tunes upon the piano, to be admired by a few silly young men.' "I cannot speak of this subject," adds the venerable President, "without indignation." Though many institutions have been established, within the last half century, for the education of girls, and great efforts have been made to elevate the standard of scholarship, still not a tithe of what ought to be done, and what the best good of society requires to be done, has yet been accomplished. The romantic ideas of the dark ages have not wholly disappeared. The chivalrous notion still prevails, in refined society, that men need knowledge, but women, accomplishments, for success in life. Consequently, boys, in a course of education, are confined to the severe discipline of the languages and mathematics, while girls, after obtaining a superficial knowledge of the elementary branches of an English education, are confined to music, drawing, and other similar accomplishments, accompanied, perhaps, with a slight smattering of French. I would, by no means object to the cultivation of those elegant branches of female education, but I would not have them substituted for that intellectual training, without which even these are worthless.

The question here occurs: What is the best course of discipline for female minds? I answer, precisely that which

is best for the development of any mind. Females have the same mental powers as the males, and these require the same discipline in order to their complete, symmetrical development. To meet the difficulties of life, the female needs the same acumen of intellect, the same maturity of judgment and refinement of taste, as the male, and whatever is valuable as a mental discipline for the one, is equally so for the other. There is no way to acquire intellectual strength, but by vigorous intellectual exercise. The mind can be matured only by hard study, patient and protracted study, discriminating study, incessant study. Mind expandst only by patient thought. This cannot be secured by attention to mere accomplishments. A severer discipline is needed, if women would have strong minds, cultivated minds, mature minds; if they would acquire an intellectual strength and soundness of judgment, which will enable them to meet with fortitude the stern realities of life. If females are confined to the merely ornamental branches of education, they are, by that very process, doomed to everlasting mediocrity, if not to inferiority. Whatever is essential to the education of the male mind, is equally essential to the development of the female mind. But, says an objector, would you fit females for the pulpit, the bar, and the halls of legislation? By no means. I would only prepare them for the faithful and intelligent discharge of those duties which the God of nature has assigned to them. In their own appropriate sphere they will find abundant use for all the acumen, all the sound judgment and cultivated taste, which the most thorough mental discipline can give. It does not follow, because profound learning in the dark ages, and to a considerable extent, even in the present era of light, has been the exclusive possession of professional men, that none but professional men ought to be educated. It is time that "the benefit of the clergy" should be extended even to women, and that distinction in learning should no longer be the peculiar privilege of “learned clerks."

A well cultivated, well stored mind, is an inestimable treasure in any station of life. It is as useful, and as necessary in the domestic circle as in the public walks of life. The only right which I would claim for woman in our country, is the right to be thoroughly educated. That doctrine. which teaches the identity of the duties and rights of the

SECOND SERIES, VOL. VIII. NO. I.

8

sexes, seems to me subversive of the first principles of human society, violating the express laws of nature and revelation. Rights and duties are relative terms. Our rights and duties in a great measure, grow out of the relations in which God has placed us. The duties of the mother can never become the duties of the father; nor the duties of the sister those of the brother. Neither can the rights of the mother become those of the father. The father and mother sustain unchangeable and inalienable relations to their children. The duties and rights resulting from these relations are peculiar and immutable, not interchangeable and reciprocal. It is impossible, from the very constitution of the sexes, that it should be otherwise. It is evident that the same God who ordained that woman should be "the mother of all living," ordained that she should be the nurse, the teacher and guide of her infant offspring. Her most important duties, therefore, must be domestic, connected with the home of her children. She cannot engage in those public duties which require long absence from home, much less in those long, protracted investigations, which belong to the secluded scholar.

It is our duty "to glorify God in our bodies and spirits which are his." It is woman's duty to honor God according to the lows of her being. Her appropriate duties are plainly indicated by her organization. The remarks of Mr. Lieber on this point are pertinent:* "She is framed and constituted more delicately, and in consequence of this marked difference of organization, has advantages and disadvantages, compared with the male sex, differences which are of elementary and last importance for the obtaining of those ends for which man and mankind are planted on this globe, and from which, likewise, different positions, callings, duties and spheres of activity result The woman is fitter for all those actions, which must be impelled chiefly by affection; hence, she is more fit to foster and educate the young, and to nurture in turn their hearts with affection; she is more disposed to cling to a protector, and far readier to bring sacrifices; she graces society, and-sentiment, being one of the spheres in which she is most active, and chastity, her first

* Lieber's Pol. Ethics 2: 250.

virtue and honor-she is the chief agent in infusing delicacy, gentleness, taste, decorum and correctness of morals, so far as they depend upon continency, into society at large."

The sphere of duties and influence here presented is sufficiently enlarged and important for the exercise of the mightiest intellect. If, however, ladies are qualified by native talent and education to control the public mind, let them employ the pen. I think facts will warrant the assertion, that no individual in Great Britain, during the reign of George III., exerted so extensive, and so salutary a moral influence upon all classes of citizens, from the king to the meanest beggar in the realm, as Hannah More. She is a lady of whom her sex may justly be proud. The world has produced very few of the other sex, who might not bow with respectful deference before her splendid genius. I close my remarks with a quotation from her pen. "But they little understand the true interests of woman, who would lift her from the appointed duties of her allotted station, to fill, with fantastic dignity, a loftier, but less appropriate niche. Nor do they understand her true happiness, who seek to annihilate distinctions, from which she derives advantage, and to attempt innovations, which would depreciate her real value. The most elaborate definition of ideal rights, and the most hardy measures for attaining them, are of less value in the eyes of a truly amiable woman, than that meek and quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price.” *

* H. More's Works, vol. 6, p. 104.

ARTICLE VI.

AZAZEL, OR THE LEVITICAL SCAPE-GOAT;

A Critical Exposition of Leviticus 16: 5-10.

By George Bush, Professor of Hebrew in the New York, City University.

If there be any thing calculated to diminish the pleasure or damp the ardor of the Biblical expositor in his researches, it is the stern necessity under which he sometimes finds himself placed, of putting new interpretations upon familiar texts. The deeper he penetrates into the mine of Scriptural wealth, and the wider the excavation which he makes on either hand, the greater is the probability of his here and there undermining the adjacent surface and causing it occasionally to fall in. But this will be little to be regretted if the chasms thus made only open new avenues to treasures below vastly more precious than any which had lain above. Still it is always more or less painful to an ingenuous mind to disturb, in any degree, a "throned opinion," even though that opinion be founded in error, and he be able to substitute in place of it an irrefragable truth. Knowing with what fond tenacity men cling to their ancient and accredited forms of belief, he does not like rudely to assail them, and it is only a very rampant spirit of innovation that can take delight in breaking up the time-hallowed associations with which certain phrases and sentences of holy writ uniformily come before the mind. Yet it is certain that this result is in many cases absolutely inevitable. It is the invariable law of human progress, whether in the department of nature or revelation, that as the light breaks forth upon our previous darkness, new modifications should come over established ideas. It would therefore be the height of injustice to ascribe, in all cases, to a rage of novelty in those who suggest them the new interpretations which an advanced state of science or philology, or a more extended and critical inter-collation of passages, may force upon their convictions. It is to be remembered that they too have known what it is to be wedded to favorite interpretations, and can tell of the struggle which it cost them to give them up. But they yielded to the force of evidence,