SACRED BIOGRAPHY.

LECTURE I.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an help meet for him.-GEN. ii. 18.

THE holy scriptures always exhibit the most simple and the justest view of every subject which they treat. And what subject of importance to man do they not treat? The God who made us what we are, formed man after a model, destined him for a special situation, and to fulfil a specific purpose. His faculties, his relations, his duties, his demands, his delights, were all, from the beginning, present to the eye of his Creator; and corresponding arrangement and provision were made by Him, who seeth the end from the commencement, and who exactly adjusts all, according to number, weight, and measure.

The perfection of the works of God, is a beautiful and gradual progress toward perfection: from inanimate to vegetative, from vegetative to animal, from animal to rational nature; each approaching to, bordering upon each, but every one circumscribed by a boundary which it cannot pass, to disturb and confound the province of another. The scale of being, as to this globe, was complete when God had "created man in his own image." But social existence was not perfect till it pleased God to draw man out of solitude, by making him "an help meet for him." This simply, yet clearly,

unfolds woman's nature, station, duty, use and end. This raises her to her proper rank and importance, and instructs her how most effectually to support them; this forbids her to aspire after rule, for her Maker designed her as "an helper;" this secures for her affection and respect, for how is it possible to hate or despise what God and nature have rendered essential to our happiness? If the intention of the Creator, therefore, is attended to, the respective claims and duties of the sexes are settled in a moment, and an end is put to all unprofitable discussion of superiority and inferiority, of authority and subjection, in those whose destination, and whose duty it is, to be mutually helpful, attentive and affectionate.

The female character and conduct have frequently presented themselves in the course of the history of the Patriarchs. And indeed how can the life of man be separated from that of woman? their amiable qualities and praise-worthy actions have been occasionally pointed out, and unreservedly, though without adulation, commended: their faults and follies have been, with equal freedom, exposed and censured. But in the instances referred to, female conduct has undergone only an accidental and transient review, in detached fragments, and as supplementary to, or producing influence on, the conduct of man. The pencil of inspiration, however, having introduced persons of the gentler sex into its inimitable compositions; and these not always thrown into the back-ground or placed in the shade, but sometimes springing forward into the light, and glowing in all the brilliancy of colouring, I have been induced, with trembling steps, to follow the heavenly guide; and to follow up the fainter sketches of a Sarah, a Rebekah, a Rachel, a Miriam, with the more finished portraits "of Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth," "Ruth the Moabitess," and "Hannah," the mother of Samuel the prophet. In order to introduce these with greater advantage, I

mean to employ the present Lecture, in giving a general delineation of the female character, as it is represented in the passage now read, and as being the purpose and act of the great Lord of nature, "an help meet for man." Every creature was intended to yield help to man; the flower, with its beauty and fragrance; the tree, with its nutricious fruit; the animal tribes, with all their powers of ministering satisfaction to the senses or to the mind. Adam surveyed them all with delight, saw their several characters in their several forms, gave them names, observed and glorified his Creator's perfections displayed in himself, and in them. But still he was alone amidst all this multitude; the understanding was employed, but the heart wanted its object; the tongue could name all that the eye beheld, but there was no tender, sympathetic ear, to which it could say, "how fair, how lovely, how glorious is all this that we behold!" "For Adam there was not found an help meet for him." The want of nature is no sooner perceived by the great Parent of man, than it is supplied; the wish of reason is no sooner expressed than gratified. Paternal care and tenderness even outrun and prevent the calls of filial necessity. Adam has felt no void, uttered no complaint, but "The Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an help meet for him." And with God, execution certainly and instantaneously follows design. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh," Verse 21-24. How completely suitable an helper God provided for man in a state of sinless

perfection transcends imagination, much more description; all that is lovely in form, all that is graceful in manner, all that is exalted in mind, all that is pure in thought, all that is delicate in sentiment, all that is enchanting in conversation. This felicity was made subject to alteration; this harmony was not to continue perfect; but the original intention of the Creator was not to be defeated, no, but even in a state of degradation, difficulty and distress, as in a state of purity and peace, it was still the destination of Providence, that woman should be "an help meet" for man. In what important respects we are now to inquire.

The first and most obvious is, as his counsellor and coadjutor in bringing up their common offspring. Education, on the part of the mother, commences from the moment she has the prospect of being a mother; and the care of her own health is, thenceforth, the first duty which she owes to her child.* From that moment too she becomes in a peculiar sense "an help meet" for man, as being the depositary and guardian of their most precious joint concern. How greatly is her value now enhanced! Her existence is multiplied, her duration is extended. A man-child is at length born into the world; and what helper so meet for the glad father in rearing the tender babe, as the

*The instructions given to the wife of Manoah, and mother of Sampson the Nazarite (Jud. xiii. 4.) "Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing," are not merely arbitrary injunctions, adapted to a particular branch of political economy, and intended to serve local and temporary purposes; no, they are constitutions of nature, reason, and experience, which unite in recommending, to those who have the prospect of being mothers, a strict attention to diet, to exercise, to temper, to every thing which, affecting the frame of their own body or mind, may communicate an important, a lasting, perhaps indelible impression to the body or mind of their offspring. A proper regimen for themselves is, therefore, the first stage of education for their children. The neglect of it is frequently found productive of effects which no future culture is able to alter or rectify.