happily, and indispensably occupied in domestic service: the evil, thus viewed, assumes manageable dimensions, and only a residual half-million remain to be practically dealt with. As an immediate result of the removal of five hundred thousand women from the mother country, where they are redundant, to the colonies, where they are sorely needed, all who remain at home will rise in value, will be more sought, will be better rewarded. The number who compete for the few functions and the limited work at the disposal of women being so much reduced, the competition will be less cruelly severe, and the pay less ruinously beaten down. As the redundancy at home diminishes, and the value is thereby increased, men will not be able to obtain women's companionship and women's care so cheaply on illicit terins. As soon as the ideas of both sexes in the middle and upper ranks, on the question of the income and the articles which refinement and elegance require, are rectified, as soon, that is, as these exigencies are reduced from what is purely factitious to what is indisputably real,- thousands who now condemn themselves and those they love to single life will find that they can marry without foregoing any luxury or comfort which is essential to ladylike and cultivated and enjoyable existence. Finally, as soon as, owing to stricter principles, purer tastes, or improved social condition, or such combination of all these as the previous movements spoken of must gradually tend to produce, — the vast majority of men find themselves compelled either to live without all that woman can bestow, or to purchase it in the recognized mode, as soon, to speak plainly, as their sole choice lies between marriage and a life of real and not nominal celibacy, the apparent redundance of women complained of now will vanish as by magic, if, indeed, it be not replaced by a deficiency. We are satisfied that IF the gulf could be practically bridged over, so that women went where they are clamored for; and IF we were contented with the actualities instead of the empty and unreal and unrewarding shadows of luxury and refinement; and IF men were necessitated either to

marry or be chaste,—all of which things it is a discreditable incapacity in us not to be able to accomplish,- so far from there being too many women for the work that must be done, and that only women can do well, there would be too few. The work would be seeking for the women, instead of, as now, the women seeking for the work. We are disordered, we are suffering, we are astray, because we have gone wrong; and our philanthropists are laboring, not to make us go backward and go right, but to make it easier and smoother to persist in wrong.

CONVO

TRUTH VERSUS EDIFICATION.

ONVOCATION has recently* come to a decision of some importance, as far as importance can be said to attach to any decision of that anomalous and self-surviving body. The Lower House suggested and strongly urged the appointment of a committee "to report on" Dr. Colenso's book; and the Upper House, in a crowded assembly of five members presided over by the Primate, in an evil hour, conceded the request. Three circumstances, however, gave a peculiar significance to this resolution. The Bishop of Oxford was opportunely absent, being opportunely ill. The resolution was adopted by a majority of one, three Bishops voting in its favor, and two against it. And the three "ayes" were the Bishops of Lincoln, St. Asaph, and Llandaff, while the two "noes' were the Bishops of London and St. David's. These two eminent dissentients pointed out certain objections to the course proposed, and certain difficulties in which its adoption might involve them. They intimated that good seldom arose out of authoritative condemnations of argumentative works; that such condemnations and prosecutions were generally urged by inconsiderate and unknowing juniors, or by gray-headed men as inconsiderate and unknowing as the young; and that to denounce a book which they did not propose to answer, and a man whom they might officially be called upon to judge, was scarcely wise, and certainly not decorous.

This ground, indeed, had been boldly and plainly taken by a member of the Lower House on a previous day. He pointed out the very obvious consideration that the only

effectual means of counteracting the mischief said to be wrought or menaced by the book whose publication they all deplored, was to reply to it; to show where it was wrong, and to prove that it was wrong. And it is the more clear that this course is obligatory upon some one, because while it may be assumed, and is confidently believed by those who have been most startled and shocked, that many of the propositions in the inculpated volume are untenable and may easily be refuted, it is equally certain that some of them are true and cannot be gainsaid; and the religious world are anxiously desirous to be told by some competent and accredited instructor which of the Bishop of Natal's statements are correct, and which are erroneous. It is obvious that a condemnation of the book, however severe, however unanimous, however high the authority from which it may proceed, will afford no satisfaction on this the essential-point to sincere and pious inquirers.

We fully understand the reluctance of those prudent and learned members of the Episcopate who voted against the appointment of the committee in question, to undertake, or to allow any of their authorized brethren to undertake, the task of dealing with Dr. Colenso's work. They know well-though the great body of the clergy who constitute the Lower House may probably be ignorant that any honest, effectual, and competent reply must commence by concessions which would startle the generality of English churches almost as much as the obnoxious book itself, and might unsettle their faith far more; because, though they would be less extensive, and would refer to points less vital, they would be as new to the masses, would come from a higher authority, and, once made, could not be recalled. This is the real difficulty that stands in the way of any attempt to meet Dr. Colenso's biblical criticism on the part of our ecclesiastical dignitaries and "accredited teachers." It may well be that all that is truly noxious and dangerous in the Bishop's book could be satisfactorily and conclusively refuted by an unfettered layman whom piety and learning should

combine to qualify; but the very position in which he would place his battery would raise suspicions and accusations of treachery from the churches whose battle he was going to fight, and the first shot he fired would strike even greater dismay into the hearts of his own camp than into the ranks of the enemy.

We can understand also the disinclination of fair and qualified divines, like Dr. Tait and Dr. Thirlwall, to anathematize a work which, mischievous and erroneous as they might deem it as a whole, yet contains some corrections of old errors and misconceptions such as they would themselves be glad to see generally accepted, and some wholesome views, usually denied or neglected, which they themselves have long entertained. We approve, therefore, both their prudence and their loyalty; and we regret that it should have been reserved for a layman, who has drunk too deep at the fountains of all literature and of some sciences not to know where truth lies, so to imitate one of the most ordinary and most indefensible proceedings of the ecclesiastical mind, as to denounce a book which he not only does not attempt to refute, but which he does not even profess to believe is, in its main propositions and substantial essence, capable of refutation.

A recent number of Macmillan's Magazine contains an article from the pen of Mr. Arnold, strongly condemning, not the conclusions of Bishop Colenso's book, but the publication of that book. The article in question, like everything that proceeds from the same source, is eminently characteristic, able, polished, and interesting; but it maintains a thesis so questionable, and is based upon fallacies so transparent and assumptions so inaccurate, that we are filled with surprise at so practised a disputant venturing to take up a position so unsafe.

The opinion of Mr. Arnold—which he appears to hold as firmly as any Catholic divine, and which he certainly broaches as nakedly as any Pagan philosopher-is, that the distinction between esoteric and exoteric views and knowledge is as obligatory as that between the divine and the * The Bishop and the Philosopher. By MATTHEW Arnold.