and of human progress; but it is only an exaltation and extension of the first. It is the consummation of one age and the commencement of another; the revelation of a higher degree of Divine glory and of the means of human improvement, a carrying out of the great design, a crowning of the great work, of the incarnation. Redemption was not included in the fall, but the Lord's second advent was included in His first. There was nothing in the degradation of human nature to work out its restoration. The incarnation was an independent and gratuitous act of Divine mercy. But when the incarnation had once taken

place, the second advent grew out of the first. It was its complement, or rather its development-the unfolding of its inherent power and glory. The second followed the first as naturally as manhood and womanhood follow childhood and adolescence; or, as in the spiritual life, regeneration follows reformation. They are the two parts of one whole, the two stages of one Divine work of progression. The second stage may indeed be regarded as a new beginning; so much so, that He who sat upon the throne said, in reference, "Behold, I make all things new." But the newness here may be said to be the new in things old; the hidden essence and significance of things that had lain hid in them from the foundation of the world-and in the Word from the foundation of the Church. This was the starting-point in the advancement of the Church and the corresponding progress of the race, and may justly be numbered with those spiritual and religious epochs which institute the beginning of a new year. This may be called the Year of Sabbaths-the jubilee, the trumpet-sound of universal liberty, and the restoration of universal order.

But there is one other year of which the present season should remind us. All the general dispensations of Divine love and wisdom have been begun and carried on for the sake of individual salvation. Only in this are their benefits realized by us. The first month of our spiritual year is when we singly are delivered from the bondage of sin, and have commenced the life of righteousness; when the truth has made us free, and we walk in the dignity and strength of conscious liberty, "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," in which we must "stand fast, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Continuance in well-doing, and progressive holiness, as its result, are involved in the idea, and should be in the fact, of the new beginning. What the Lord said to Israel he still says to us, "This month shall be unto you the beginning [literally the head] of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you." And by this language

He teaches us that the first state is the beginning of all succeeding states, even to eternity, the head from which they descend, and which enters into them. This is the new beginning of which every new year should remind us. As Christians, the new year should lead us not merely to moralize, but to spiritualize. The revolving seasons tell us the natural truth that time is fleeting, and teach us the moral truth that we should work while it is called to-day, and make its periods starting-points on new and higher improvements. But the revolving seasons teach us a spiritual truth as a lesson of spiritual wisdom. Although in the natural world time is not a measure, it is a representative, of state. Years may go and years may come without finding us any further advanced in the life of heaven. But when we know that time is an outbirth and symbol of eternity, and that the periods of natural life correspond to states of spiritual life, we are led to reflect that time is only used for the purpose for which it was created, when we connect it, intellectually and practically, with eternity, and that the years that pass over us are only profitable monitors when they lead us to compare our states with our times, so as to "apply our hearts unto wisdom."

The beginning of the year with us is hardly so suggestive of a new state as the beginning which was instituted among the children of Israel. Our years end and begin about the time of the winter solstice, theirs began about the time of the vernal equinox. It was designated the month Abib, from its being the time of green ears and unripe fruit; thus representing the spring-time of the religious life, when love and faith have attained a state of equality in the mind, like that of vernal heat and light in nature, which makes the life fruitful and gives the promise of a rich harvest. The first day of our year is not without its sacred association, but it is one that it owes neither to nature nor to revelation, but to the traditions of the elders and the authority of the Church. The day which has been fixed upon for commemorating the Lord's birth makes the first day of our year commemorative of His circumcision, when "His name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb." This event has, however, but little connection with the idea of the new born year, and less to do with the manner in which it is kept, even where the first of the year is an high day. Indeed, all holy-days have a tendency to become holidays. Nor do we think that the two are incompatible. It is one of the errors of religionists that the delights of the natural affections is inconsistent with the joy of the

spiritual. Every completed state includes the satisfaction of both. The social enjoyments which characterise this season of the year, while they serve as recreations both of mind and body after a lengthened period of application and labour, tend to promote in the natural sphere that mutual love which religion requires should reign in the spiritual as an essential principle. Religion and pleasure are, indeed, considered by many as not only alien but antagonistic. One serious evil arises from this. It creates a false conscience, and leads people to steal as a sinful indulgence what they might take as an innocent enjoyment. The end of Divine providence is to unite the temporal and the eternal, and to harmonize the natural and spiritual affections of man. This, too, must be our end, if we would work together with the God of providence. All things in us must be made new. When the ends of life are new the whole life is renewed: sinful deeds and sinful pleasures have no part in such a life; but whatever helps to give us a sound mind in a sound body contributes to that great harmony which is the end of all the Divine operations.

Let the new year be to us a sign and an incentive—a sign of the new state after which we should constantly aspire, and an incentive to strive with renewed diligence to attain it.

THE NEW YEAR.

ANOTHER year its rapid course hath run.
In varying cycles Time moves on and e'er,
In secret silence all unheeded, pass

The fleeting moments of our numbered days.
As fade the lovely flowers, when Autumn drear,
With chilling blast returns, and one by one,
The verdant leaves fall silently away,
So sadly steal along Life's brightest hours,
And leave us to lament their transient stay.
Alas! how oft and eagerly we strive
To raise a foolish heap of sensual joys,

In vain to hide the rolling waves of Time
From our affrighted view. Frail mortal! why-
Oh why-thus seek to veil life's onward flow,
And bury in oblivion dark the vast

Momentous thought, that Time is not thine own,

To spend in fruitless pleasures, wanton mirth?
That 'tis but lent thee, that thou mayst improve
Each passing hour, which ne'er more shall return.
Why slight the gift of pure beneficence,
Nor grateful homage to the Giver yield?
Thy hopes, thy bliss, thy all of life, depend
Upon a virtuous use of mercies sent.

Awake! no longer waste in idle dreams

Thy priceless hours. See! how the former year
Hath glided by and left no trace behind;

Save, where our friends we held so dear have fled
From our embrace, and left a solemn void,-
Or where in memory's record we behold
The follies of the past,-and how, amid
The vastly strange vicissitudes of life,

A more than human hand hath led thee on,
And through a thousand dangers brought thee now
Into the presence of another year,

Another dawning morn of precious time—

Of golden hours, with richest blessings fraught.
Then let thy heart, with adoration filled,
Inspire thy lips with songs of thankful praise.
For all the past thy needful tribute pay,

And hail with joy the welcome bright New Year.

J. R.

WOMAN'S WORK.

THE number of women who seek to occupy fields of labour hitherto engrossed by the other sex, though comparatively small, is still large enough to give a practical value to subjects of thought that were formerly only matter of curious speculation.

Certain ladies, distinguished in art or literature, assert a right to have their efforts and achievements judged absolutely as "work;" and not relatively as "woman's work;" and some critics concede the right, doing thereby great injustice. Such pretensions and concessions appear to arise in ignorance, or forgetfulness, of limitations from which escape is wholly impossible. For humanity is divided into only two sexes, the male and the female. It includes no neuter gender, but simply man and woman. The full force, however, and meaning of

this fact only become apparent when it is known, or remembered, that the origin of sex is in the soul; whence its distinctions are propagated throughout the whole being;-through its spiritual, rational, and natural regions, till they reach the very outmost, the corporeal frame itself. Each, indeed, possesses similar faculties and powers;-will and understanding, liberty and rationality, affection and intelligence. Perception, reason, taste, imagination, and whatever else, under various names, mankind lays claim to, are shared by each; but the two sexes possess them differently; all being pervaded by a masculine quality in the one, and by a feminine quality in the other. It is not within the design of this paper to establish the nature of the distinction. It is assumed that it is understood and acknowledged by the reader. Briefly, it resolves itself into this;-that understanding and intellect predominate in the male, and will and affection in the female. The distinction, too, is as durable as it is complete; as undying as is man himself. Nor has progress in goodness or greatness, in excellence of any kind, a tendency to blur or efface it; and whenever existence is restored to its right order, here or hereafter, as they advance, the man continually becomes more manly, the woman more womanly, and that to eternity: thus, also, increasing and enlarging the capacity for union; a union dependent for its possibility on these differences, and for its perfection on their distinctness.

s;

Our performances in art, literature, or any other sphere of activity in which the mental powers, aided by manual dexterity, combine to produce some outward result, which it has become usual to call work, are the outcome or expression of the individual mind, such as it is and would be different, if that were different. If, then, there are no neutral souls there can be no neutral work; no absolute standard by which to test the excellence of the labours in which the two sexes may engage; but every specific production will be emphatically man's work, or woman's work; each being man or woman to the fingers' ends. The difference in the two are often, nay, generally obvious and very characteristic; and they would be always equally apparent were our perceptive faculties subtle enough to discriminate with the requisite nicety. The angels who are divested of a material covering, can trace in any work the whole mind and character of the worker; and so also could we, were not the acuteness of our powers dulled by acting through the organs of the body.

There can be no reason, originating in right feeling, why any woman should desire the fact to be other than it is. Female duties and