and other States show that illegitimate births are rapidly increasing, although as yet far behind the profligate rates of European countries.

The decay of the family is not now, never has been, nor ever will be, witnessed in the higher exemplifications of Christian life. Never have there been purer, sweeter, holier, happier Christian families than at present. But this is because the complemental, blending individualities at the center and foundation of each have been true to the healthful, sinless impulses of physical nature; true to the mind and will of the All-Father as revealed in his "word written;" and true to the calmly and honestly understood facts of natural science. All deviations from the family ideal are due to depravity, ignorance, and wickedness. There is enough, and more than enough, of these baleful factors in American society to make the public spirited, pious, and patriotic tremble for the future. Fearless, temperate, thorough discussion of the whole subject is needed. Here we can barely touch its surface. The whole science of political economy is more or less involved in it. So are the rights, duties, privileges, responsibilities, and eternities of men, women, and children.

Suggested methods of incarnating the highest Christian conception of the family are the lines along which scientific` thought naturally runs in seeking a remedy for rampant evils, and in striving to reach the highest ultimate possibilities of organized society.

The doctrines of our Lord and his apostles, inculcating chastity and the sacredness of marriage, concordant as they are with deductions cautiously drawn from sociological facts, should be thoroughly studied and rigorously applied in ethical, legislative, and administrative form. Christ re-established the original order of the relation of the sexes as the order under the dispensation of grace. "And they twain shall be one flesh : so then they are no more twain, but one flesh." Mark x, 8. In all his associations with women he exhibited the most respectful sympathy, the most delicate consideration, and the highest appreciation of intellectual and moral character. His most philosophical address, excepting that to Nicodemus, was made to the woman of Samaria, and was understood by her better than the "master in Israel" apprehended the one made

to him. All law touching the family institution should be instinct with the spirit of Christ, and worthy of his example. Equality of rights-supremely enjoyed by the husband in the sphere of activities allotted to him, by the wife in that falling to her, and conjointly in matters common to both-will then be assured. Equity demands it. The contribution of the average wife to the family is fully commensurate with that of the average husband. Expediency demands it. Such equality would repress the tendencies in each that need repression, and would nourish those that need nutrition. Imperiousness and coarseness would be replaced by gentlemanly refinement; timidity and distrust. by self-respecting confidence and courage. The most symmetrical and accomplished of women would then accept housekeeping and motherhood as not only the natural but the most desirable occupation of the sex. Husband and wife should be equal, blending partners in a firm which is the cell-unit of the body politic, the negative and positive poles of the same indivisible molecule.

Woman's responsibilities should be carefully correlated with woman's rights. Now they have a right to their earnings and property, but have no duties to discharge in providing for themselves or their children." * Enlargement of woman's rights, unaccompanied by corresponding enlargement of woman's responsibilities, has increased the number of divorces, and to that extent has added force to the disintegrating elements at work in the republic. Chivalric legislation is wise above what is written. It is foolish. It ignores the nature and fitness of things. It concedes rights without imposing correlative duties, and bestows privileges without exacting their proper uses. Housewives, not technical "ladies;" bees, not butterflies; matrons who appreciate duty and responsibility as highly as right and privilege, are what Christian society desiderates in families.

Equal rights in children and to their earnings is a dictate of nature, and should be a maxim of law. Is there aught but injustice and cruelty in the statutes which refuse this equality to the wife? Equal rights in directing the policy of the family is none the less the demand of righteous wisdom. That he is the only one whose habits, and tastes, and even eccentricities *Thwing's The Family, p. 120.

should be consulted may be the law of the land, but it is not the law of love, nor of the golden rule. The intelligent and wise exercise of parental authority-equally of the mother in her sphere as of the father in his-is another very special need of the family. Children trained in habits of purity, respect for the rights of others, and filial obedience, develop into the best spouses, parents, and citizens. Questions of personal right in wedlock, too delicate for handling in the pages of a religious review, force themselves into notice. Suffice it to say, that Christian marital intercourse is sensible, chaste, continent, religious; and that out of it spring other beings, well-born and originated under psychical and moral conditions most propitious to success in all temporal and eternal relations. Parents owe more to children than children to parents. They are responsible for the being of their children, and ought to enforce prompt and implicit obedience to regulations necessary for the formation of noble, rounded, perfect character; and should do it in a manner that commands absolute confidence and love. In order to the due fulfillment of parental duty, and as a matter of simple right, justice requires that husband and wife should be equals in the ownership of the family estate. The marriage settlements common in England, and other devices for promoting the unity and perpetuity of the family, should not in America stop short of this measure of equity.

How to adjust the individual rights of husband and wife to the highest Christian conception of the family is the serious. and critical problem now pressing for solution. It must be accomplished by clear, clean good sense, rather than by chivalrous sentiment. The religious and moral elements of marriage must be brought conspicuously into view. Due notice, and publicity should be given to its celebration. Opportunity should be given for examining objections to the union. "Marriages contracted in haste are most prolific in separations." National uniformity of law concerning marriage and divorce seems to be one of the necessities of the times. The State laws governing divorce are now as various as the sizes and names of the respective commonwealths.* The amendment, by incorpo

*Judge Noah Davis, in the North American Review, vol. cxxxix, No. 1, pp. 39, 40, presents the following impressive illustration of the evils of differing State laws on marriage and divorce: "A. is married in New York, where he has resided

rating three words, of the Constitution of the United States, would bring order out of this "confusion worse confounded." "Congress shall have power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, marriage and divorce, throughout the United States," is a provision that, if in the organic law as thus written, would aid in the production of uniformity, check excesses in divorce, and conserve the family institution. To effect such an amendment, and to establish the family and the nation on the sure foundation of reason and righteousness, is the appropriate and special work of the Church of Christ.

for years, and has a family, and is the owner of real and other estate. He desires divorce and goes to Indiana, where that thing is cheap and easy. Upon comply. ing with some local rule, and with no actual notice to his wife, he gets a decree of divorce, and presently is married in that State to another wife, who brings him other children. He again acquires new estates; but, tiring of his second wife, he deserts her and goes to California, where in a brief space he is again divorced, and then marries again, forming a new family and acquiring new real and personal estates. In a few years his fickle taste changes again, and he returns to New York, where he finds his first wife has obtained a valid divorce for his adulterous marriage in Indiana, which sets her free and forbids his marrying again during her life-time. He then slips into an Eastern State, takes a residence, acquires real property there, and after a period gets judicially freed from his California bonds. He returns to New York, takes some new affinity, crosses the New Jersey line, and in an hour is back in New York, enjoying so much of his estate as the courts have not adjudged to his first wife, and gives new children to the world. . . . He dies intestate. Now, what is the legal status and condition of the various citizens he has given to our common country? and what can the States of their birth or domicile do for them? A few words will show how diffi cult and important these questions are. The first wife's children are doubtless legitimate and heirs to his estate every-where. The Indiana wife's children are legitimate there, but probably illegitimate every-where else. The California children are legitimate there and in New York (that marriage having taken place after his first wife had obtained her divorce), but illegitimate in Indiana and elsewhere'; while the second crop of New Yorkers are legitimate in the Eastern States and New York, and illegitimate in Indiana and California. There is real and personal property in each of these States. There are four widows, each entitled to dower and distribution somewhere, and to some extent, and a large number of surely innocent children, whose legitimacy and property are at stake. All these legal embarrassments spring from want of uniformity of laws on a subject which should admit of no more diversity than the question of citizenship itself."

ART. V.-HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

THERE is in Colorado a grave aloof from other graves and "far from the madding crowd" of the living. Where our eastern mountain front breaks rapidly down from Pike's Peak upon Cheyenne, to re-appear far south in the Greenhorn and the Spanish Peaks-there, 10,000 feet above the sea and 4,000 above the plain, is our first tomb of genius. One said to Emerson, "Is not Helen Hunt our greatest female poet?" His reply was: "Is it not better to omit the word 'female?"" The winner of such words from the great critic, himself an oracular poet, has a right of presentation at any literary gathering in the State of her affection, her choice for home and burial.

And what is it to be a poet? What is poetry? Such questions are fitting, and some answer would be a fair preliminary to a direct and personal inquiry after Mrs. Jackson's merits. If one of us be squarely asked, "What is poetry?" he instantly feels that in his own personal self the question is too wide for him. It is really beyond his own conceits and far beyond his actual experiences. His mind seems wrapped in a mist, luminous, indeed, yet a mist not transparent. He can talk of it, but to say just what it is, he finds not. For answer we must look to the broad convictions of the human race. One finds that critics agree (and as singers in chorus we must sing with the director's wand or keep silent) in saying that poetry is a representation of life. "Life" means whatever men perceive, feel, think, or do. This representation must be in language, not in color, form, or sound. When one called the Milan cathedral "a poem in stone," he took the same freedom in speech as he who called another cathedral "frozen music" that is, stating a felt incoherency, such stuff as dreams are made of. This language, too, must be in verse or rhythm. Prose is prorsus, straight on, like Anthony's talk. We may call some prose "poetical," in the sense of lively; or we may call some poetry "prosy," in the sense of dull; but prose-poetry is something hybrid and monstrous, away from good taste and good sense.

But there may be a representation of life in verse or rhythm