antiquity should compare what he reads of a Dorcas, of the mother of Mark, of Lydia,

Priscilla, Phoebe, Lois, or Eunice, with what he knows of the noble women of Greece and

Rome at that period.

Of course, against all this may be set the permission of polygamy, which undoubtedly

was in force at the time of our Lord, and the ease with which divorce might be obtained.

In reference to both these, however, it must be remembered that they were temporary

concessions to "the hardness" of the people's heart. For, not only must the

circumstances of the times and the moral state of the Jewish and of neighbouring

nations be taken into account, but there were progressive stages of spiritual

development. If these had not been taken into account, the religion of the Old

Testament would have been unnatural and an impossibility. Suffice it, that "from the

beginning it was not so," nor yet intended to be so in the end--the intermediate period

thus marking the gradual progress from the perfectness of the idea to the perfectness of

its realisation. Moreover, it is impossible to read the Old, and still more the New

Testament without gathering from it the conviction, that polygamy was not the rule but

the rare exception, so far as the people generally were concerned. Although the practice

in reference to divorce was certainly more lax, even the Rabbis surrounded it with so

many safeguards that, in point of fact, it must in many cases have been difficult of

accomplishment. In general, the whole tendency of the Mosaic legislation, and even

more explicitly that of later Rabbinical ordinances, was in the direction of recognising

the rights of woman, with a scrupulousness which reached down even to the Jewish

slave, and a delicacy that guarded her most sensitive feelings. Indeed, we feel warranted

in saying, that in cases of dispute the law generally lent to her side. Of divorce we shall

have to speak in the sequel. But what the religious views and feelings both about it and

monogamy were at the time of Malachi, appears from the pathetic description of the altar

of God as covered with the tears of "the wife of youth," "the wife of thy covenant," "thy

companion," who had been "put away" or "treacherously dealt" with (Mal 2:13 to end).

The whole is so beautifully paraphrased by the Rabbis that we subjoin it:

"If death hath snatched from thee the wife of youth,

It is as if the sacred city were,

And e'en the Temple, in thy pilgrim days,

Defiled, laid low, and levelled with the dust.

The man who harshly sends from him

His first-woo'd wife, the loving wife of youth,

For him the very altar of the Lord

Sheds forth its tears of bitter agony."

Where the social intercourse between the sexes was nearly as unrestricted as among

ourselves, so far as consistent with Eastern manners, it would, of course, be natural for a

young man to make personal choice of his bride. Of this Scripture affords abundant

evidence. But, at any rate, the woman had, in case of betrothal or marriage, to give her

own free and expressed consent, without which a union was invalid. Minors --in the

case of girls up to twelve years and one day--might be betrothed or given away by their

father. In that case, however, they had afterwards the right of insisting upon divorce. Of

course, it is not intended to convey that woman attained her full position till under the

New Testament. But this is only to repeat what may be said of almost every social state

and relationship. Yet it is most marked how deeply the spirit of the Old Testament, which

is essentially that of the New also, had in this respect also penetrated the life of Israel.

St. Paul's warning (2 Cor 6:14) against being "unequally yoked together," which is an

allegorical application of Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:10, finds to some extent a

counterpart in mystical Rabbinical writings, where the la s t-mentioned passages is

expressly applied to spiritually unequal marriages. The admonition of 1 Corinthians 7:39

to marry "only in the Lord," recalls many similar Rabbinical warnings, from which we

select the most striking. Men, we are told (Yalkut on Deu 21:15), are wont to marry for

one of four reasons--for passion, wealth, honour, or the glory of God. As for the first-

named class of marriages, their issue must be expected to be "stubborn and rebellious"