LOVE vs. KNOWLEDGE. In a manner analogous to the specific gravity of solids, as regulated by the so-called law of gravitation, souls are attracted toward and repelled from each other: a gradation and association of minds, in accordance with a universal law of affectional, intellectual, or moral refinement. When two persons of opposite sex approach, an observer of nature can easily discover the quality or source of that power which draws them into each other's presence. If the attraction be Intellectual, they naturally approximate, boldly and promptly and gladly, "face to face" as it were: a dignified pleasure illumines each countenance, their tongues fail not to greet with appropriate speech; and, perhaps, as in some parts of Europe, the gentleman prints a kiss on the lady's brow. This is the natural expression of intellectual respect and fraternal love. But when the attraction is Affectional, and no critical eye rests upon them, the manifestations are very different. Such, when actuated by pure and unadulterated love, approach with a fawn-like timidity. In this, when the spiritual love predominates, youth and maturity are alike: both, without thinking, are gentle, gay, and graceful. The eye and features, all radiant and expressive, not the tongue, enunciate the soul's lifethoughts. Love one human being purely and warmly, it is affirmed, and you will love all. The heart, in this pure paradise, like the wandering sun, sees nothing, from the dew-drop to the ocean, but a mirror, which it warms and fills. Intellectual lovers naturally "shake hands;" but the affectionally attracted blend lip and life. With the latter, at first meeting, all speech is impertinent as it is impossible. There is something within not high, when lovers can meet and greet with only hand and tongue, and be satisfied. Manifestations of the anterior brain differ always from the posterior; because Wisdom and Love are different.

You are admonished so to live, that love in you shall arise

superior to the blood, out of which it is developed. Cleanliness and regard to health greatly augment your capacity for joy. Blood-love is proper only to animals. It has but one sense · when that is gratified, all is over. Man, on the contrary, when not degraded in his attractions to the blood-kingdom, experiences his highest joy in love's endearments. The unweariable delights of spiritual embrace-the kiss, that seal of affiliated life are wholly unknown to the animal world. Animals have only limited periods in which to indulge the blood-love; but man, if true to nature, can surrender himself at all seasons to the joys of virtuous affection.

The greatest, direst curse a parent can bring upon a child, is -the incapacity to inspire love in others. Extremists and inversionists, when they marry, sometimes bring this desolating blight upon a child! Oh! think of it—a person so ill-disposed as to inspire only disgust; perhaps, even in the parent's mind! You remember how Shakspere makes King Richard reflect upon and curse his hereditary deformity. I have seen noble natures literally dying for the want of love. They had inherited, from the blood-love of the progenitors, unlovely forms and unattractive traits of mind. There was nothing to inspire love in others toward them. Many a man has quit society-because too awkward to compete with others in securing affectionate regard-and pursued, instead, the ways of wickedness and misanthropy.

The word hath been spoken: life without love is worse than death! How vain and void, and flat and fruitless, appear all those splendid accidents of existence for which men struggle, without this essential and pervading charm! What a world without a sun! without this transcendent sympathy, riches and rank, and even power and fame, are at best but jewels set in a Coronet of lead! Then, let the word pass round and round the world: "" Prepare ye to love one another.”

LECTURE IX.

THOUGHTS CONCERNING WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WRONGS.

INNUMERABLE words have been coined to express man's admiration of Woman! Poets have industriously ransacked the sequestered and picturesque departments of the literary universe for thoughts and comparisons-telling woman that she is an angel, a seraph, a divinity-until she either becomes in her own estimation the plaything of fancy, "the crowning creature among countless flowers," or else, from a sort of latent consciousness, perhaps, that she is not all the poets tell her she is, acquires a skepticism in regard to man's power to perceive or his disposition to express the simple truth concerning her.

The world is furnished from age to age with the results of three classes of minds: the genius, the man of talent, and the extremist; the first writes poetry, the second prose, and the last verses. The first sees angels everywhere; the latter, not seeing, is forced to manufacture them. It seldom happens, however, that these seers or creators do justice to woman. They extol her too much, and exaggerate. Yet it is my conviction that the glory of beauty and greatness of soul, which are woman's as well as man's by inheritance, have never been truly seen nor sung on earth. True poets, be it remembered, always see pertaining to woman's soul a magic power--in her hand a mysterious sceptre—an influence over man, which he was never known fully to elude or withstand.

But I have no time to trace out and criticise poetic specula

tions. In regard to woman's rights and wrongs, I shall not say as much as would be necessary in case she had no "persuasive voice" to explain her constitution, to expound the nature and scope of her attractions, to reveal her qualifications for various social and political positions; to stand eloquently and firmly forth in the advocacy of her rights and liberties, whether in or out of marriage. My stand point, in this discourse, will be from the external plane of cause and effect. I am impressed to affirm, to begin with, that woman's constitution in general subjects her to far less danger in conjugal love, per se, than man is exposed to and yet, as society is now constructed, there is none more afflicted by conjugal misdirections than woman. But I can not bring before the reader the philosophy of reform in this department, without first considering how far woman's condition compels her to infringe upon the true marriage relation.

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Woman is man's equal; or, rather, man is woman's equal; but not in the same spheres. There will ever remain a physiological and a psychological difference between them— giving, however, no reason for any antagonism of interests; no foundation for the dogma of woman's inferiority or man's supremacy.

A man, compared with a woman, is altogether masculine; and a woman, compared with a man, is altogether feminine. The woman-soul fills the woman-body; the man-soul fills the man-body. Each is an independent organization, adapted to stand alone on the earth; yet more is each adapted to experience that metempsychosis of life and individuality, known as the change or exchange of soul which occurs in real marriage. The twain are like the two halves of a globe-the southern and northern hemispheres-designed by organization to meet, to coalesce, to unite life to life, and form a world. Yet, physically and spiritually, there is a radical or essential difference between them, imparting dissimilar attractions, without separating their interest, fitting each for different positions and different occupa

tions; without necessarily generating the first element of conflict, or sanctioning the subjection of the one by the accidental prowess conceded by custom to the other.

From America to China, among all races, from pole to pole, there is a uniform difference between the male and the female. Her bones are smaller than man's. Her muscles are less enduring. Her limbs are more symmetrical; and less adapted to labor. Yet, in some countries, woman is not less active or energetic than man, in the performance of certain physical occupations.

Physically, as just affirmed, she is less strong than man, less in the size and weight of organism, less capable of breasting the gigantic labors of field and forest; therefore, she has universally been, and continues to be, the chief victim to that theological doctrine which teaches that "might makes right." The ignorance and superstition of dim centuries have exerted a deplorable influence upon the woman-nature. She has suffered every species of injustice and wrong on the iniquitous theory, that the strong has a right to oppress the weak-"keep all you get, and get all you can❞—the theory of all kings, tyrants, and religious chieftains. Men, being the strongest physically, have made laws for the government of woman to suit themselves. This is peculiarly illustrated in certain countries, where the man-made laws grant several wives to one man, but deny the reverse liberty to woman. But long centuries of suffering and slavery have at last divulged to woman her powers, and the sources of her sorrows; and not less have they revealed to her her self-sovereignty, and her constitutional, natural, equal right to the pursuit of happiness.

Even in a military direction, history demonstrates that there have been bold and vigorous women. On the battle-field, amid tumult and carnage, she has fought with heroic enthusiasm; more courageous than man, and less selfish in her motives.