This movement completely changed the moral type of Christianity; benevolence and charity, its primary virtues— those whose inculcation so strongly marks the progress of the early Church-were superseded by chastity. Not the chastity' of prenuptial continence, and an unsullied marriage-bed, but that which results from a destruction of the whole sensual side of humanity-the "chastity of impotence," the result of selfimposed restraint. Its effects were most disastrous. Those qualities that constitute the noblest type of man were deemed insignificant when compared with those of the filthy, naked, unwashed bodies of the saints of the Desert. Religion, from being a source of hope, a fund of consolation, was covered with the gloomiest hues. The domestic relations of those who participated in it, as well as those of the multitude they influenced, were completely deranged, and the amount of unhappiness and absolute misery thus engendered is incalculable. Patriotism, frugality, industry, and all the train of civic virtues were, for the time, almost completely overwhelmed, and ultimately were so injured, that different times and different influences were necessary for their resuscitation.

Following asceticism, we have monachism. In the one case, men fled to the field, and led a life of solitude; in the other, they immersed themselves in monasteries. There is one single redeeming trait to the latter; that is, that while they undoubtedly erased and destroyed many, yet they certainly saved some of the literary treasures of antiquity.

The peculiar virtues developed by the circumstances of the times were few, and their nature was such as to have but little influence in counteracting the prevailing vices. From Constantine to Charlemagne, the Christian empire steadily pursued a retrograde course; with the advent of the latter, Mr. Lecky closes his history. The remaining chapter is devoted to a review of the position held by women during the many years in which he has sketched the progress and retrogression of morals.

The relation of the sexes in past ages, as at the present time, is a question of great complexity. The extreme delicacy of the matters treated of, the exceptional influences of climate and race upon the chastity of nations, the difficulty of securing

reliable authorities, all tend to obscure and mystify this most important subject.

It is obvious that in the earliest ages of man, as among the savage tribes of the present day, when his habits were nomadic, hunting his livelihood, and wars by no means infrequent, woman must have occupied an extremely degraded position. Her inferior strength and greater frailty, incapacitating her for most of the employments necessary for such an existence, rendered her tolerable only as a slave and the minister of her master's passions.

Even at this time an institution resembling marriage prevailed, for no people ever existed that held their women entirely in common. The first traces of an attempt to elevate her position are seen in the cessation of the custom of purchasing wives, and the construction of the family on the basis of monogamy. Polygamy represents the sensual side of humanity; monogamy is the result of the development of more enlightened qualities. From the earliest times, the latter system was in vogue in ancient Greece. Considered from a utilitarian point of view, the arguments in its favor are very strong. Nature, by making the number of males and females nearly equal, indicates it as natural. In no other way can woman become the equal of man, and in no other way can the government of the family be so happily sustained.

The legendary period of Grecian history produced many striking examples of womanly virtue. Conjugal tenderness, unwearied fidelity, heroic love, filial piety, subdued and saintly resignation, are depicted in Grecian poems, with a truthfulness never surpassed. The female figures of that period of antiquity stand forth as prominently as the male ones, and are surrounded by an almost equal reverence. Yet, from erroneous physiological notions, the custom of purchase-money, and the system of concubinage, her position was a degraded

one.

With the advent of the historical period, the position of woman underwent a peculiar change. Her legal relations were improved; her moral condition deteriorated. The virtuous woman was doomed to seclusion, and the prominent female figures of history were taken from among the cour

tesans.

The causes that produced this change cannot all be appre ciated at the present day, yet, some are sufficiently apparent. The Fathers of the Christian Church were disposed to regard the sexual passion as the "original sin," and the results of history coincide with theological teachings in showing that the natural force of this appetite is far greater than the well-being of man requires. In no country has marriage been customary with the first advent of this passion, and everywhere men have been found who could not, or would not, be satisfied with the limited gratification that state afforded. On the other hand, every man was desirous of protecting his own immediate family from pollution:

Under these circumstances there has arisen in society a figure which is certainly the most mournful, and in some respects the most awful, upon which the eye of the moralist can dwell. That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits, with a cold heart, the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instruinent of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed, for the most part, to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every age as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and the sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few, who in the pride of their untempted chastity think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and of despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame. She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people (p. 299).

These considerations somewhat elucidate the problem. In Greek civilization, legislators and moralists endeavored to meet it by the cordial recognition of two distinct orders of womanhood—the wife, whose first duty was fidelity to her husband, and who lived in absolute seclusion; the hertæra, or mistress, who subsisted by her fugitive attachments.

Some important advances are apparent in Roman civilization. The tragedies of Lucretia and of Virginia display a delicacy of honor, and a sense of the supreme excellence of unsullied purity, never surpassed in the writings of Christian nations. The two chief religious orders of the state were of a nature to inculcate chastity in its most attractive form. The

Vestals, composed of virgins whose purity was guarded by the most terrific penalties, and the Flamens, who were necessarily married men, and retained office during the lives of their wives, were religious ministers of the greatest value to the commonwealth. Law and public opinion combined in making matrimonial purity most strict. For five hundred and twenty years there was no such thing as a divorce in Rome. The courtesan class was regarded with much contempt; female virtue was highly respected, and shone conspicuously in Roman biographies of every age. The name of Roman matron was an appellation of honor. She presided at her husband's table, and socially was his equal.

Under the Cæsars all this was changed. Increased wealth and luxury brought an inundation of Eastern customs and Eastern morals. The conspicuous virtue of chastity was replaced by the worst forms of its opposite vice. Coincidently with the most unblushing forms of debauchery the legal status of woman was elevated, and, although the whole female mind speedily became tainted, yet the marriage relation was improved in many respects, and the wife became legally the equal of the husband. The same strange sight reappears here that was apparent in Grecian history—the improvement of the legal relations of woman was accompanied by an increase in her depravity.

Several attempts were made by legislators and moralists to check the profligacy of the times, but without much success. Christianity upon its first appearance gave its aid to this tendency, and, by the fiery zeal of its legislation, and the much more effectual example and teaching of its followers, did much to abate it. The ascetic and monastic movements were without much effect either for good or evil in this respect. The triumph of the barbarians, by bringing into the midst of this dissolute society domestic customs far more pure, did not a little to aid Christianity in effecting a vast change in the moral tone of the world. "The vice we are considering was probably more rare; it certainly assumed less extravagant forms, and it was screened from observation with a new modesty. The theory of morals had become clearer and the practice was somewhat improved. The extreme grossness of literature had

disappeared, and the more glaring violations of marriage were always censured and often repressed. The penitential system, and the exhortations of the pulpit, diffused abroad an immeasurably higher sense of the importance of purity than pagan antiquity had known. St. Gregory the Great, following in the steps of some pagan philosophers, strenuously urged upon mothers this duty of themselves suckling their children; and many minute and stringent precepts were made against extravagances of dress and manners. The religious institutions of Greece and Asia Minor, which had almost consecrated prostitution, were forever abolished, and the courtesan sank into a lower stage of degradation" (p. 364).

The Fathers also taught the reciprocal obligations of chastity. They insisted upon the fundamental truth that the same act can never be venial for a man to demand, and infamous for a woman to accord. Partly by raising marriage into a sacrament, and representing it in some mystical but not very definable sense as an image of the union of Christ with His church, a feeling was fostered that a lifelong union of one man and one woman is under all circumstances the single form of intercourse between the sexes that is not illegitimate.

In estimating Mr. Lecky's book as a whole, we unhesitatingly accord to it a high value. The style in which it is written is clear and concise, the conclusions are fairly drawn, and the evidence is always placed before the reader. Some who read it will differ from him on many points, yet there are few who will arise from its perusal with the impression that the author has ever concealed facts of importance that would gainsay his conclusions, or perverted evidence that would invalidate his position. The handsome dress in which it appears makes it an attractive book for the library, and its typographical execution is a credit to the house that has brought it before the American public.

THE interesting examinations which the eclipse of last summer enabled scientific men to make into the composition of the sun will attach an additional interest to the timely work of Professor Roscoe.' Although the whole science of spectrum

'Spectrum Analysis. Six Lectures, delivered in 1868, before the Society of Apothecaries of London. By Henry E. Roscoe, B. A., Ph. D.,