women, books" literature, and the sweeter influence of virtuous women; what can these do for society, or rather what can they not do?

the sweet influence of a wholesome

The structure of society is interwoven with the influence and position of woman. Her's is the irresistible power to mould character, develop virtuous sentiments, and to enfranchise the soul from the bondage of gross and ignoble ideas. Over youth her's is the ascendant influence, and the virtues of manhood are the outgrowth of her teachings.

It is not necessary that her voice should mingle in the wrangling and clamors of the halls of legislation that she should deal blows on the battle field that her wits should play at thrust and parry with the loudmouthed disputants of the forum. It is her right to be mistress of social life, without climbing to power by ignoble steps. It is her right to punish without wielding the sword and the axe, and to reward with an approbation which is better than the smile of kings. No false principle of honor, no mistaken idea of social dignity, could long out-live that approbation. The history of social life is the history of women.

We say then, again, books, women, books these are the fountains which are to purify and invigorate society to obliterate the arbitrary distinctions of social rank, and to make the social system a republic, open only to individual worth. We yearn for this third republic to correspond to the republic of letters, and to that political system which is our pride and boast. The trinity of republics will be complete when society shall

bow to the undivided sovereignty of intellect and virtue.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

Our readers probably remember a kind of quadrangular duel which came off last summer [1852] between the New York Observer, Henry James, Horace Greeley, and Stephen Pearl Andrews. The Observer took Mr. James to task for certain alleged heresies on the subject of marriage and divorce, to which that gentleman replied in sundry caustic and able articles in the Tribune. Mr. Andrews appeared in the controversy as a volunteer, and succeeded in obtaining some notoriety and a good many hard blows. For failing to attract the attention of Mr. James, who was intent upon dispatching his enemy of the Observer, the gauntlet which he had so unceremoniously thrown into the ring, was picked up by the editor of the Tribune. Whereupon a brief but spirited passage at arms ensued between the two; Andrews apparently finding himself no match for the affluence of disparaging epithets showered upon him by his unscrupulous adversary soon retired from the contest. So, at least, it appeared then. But a small pamphlet, which has lately appeared, containing a republication of the controversy, indicates that Mr. Andrews was silenced, not discomfited. Said pam

phlet of which ten thousand copies have been published-complains that Mr. Andrews was unfairly treated; and contains those of his letters which were rejected by the Tribune.

So much for the combatants. As to the various opinions and theories advanced in the controversy, we have a word to say. The subject is important, and has already excited a large share of public attention.

The New York Observer, being a stiff presbyterian newspaper, advocates the orthodox and commonly received notions on the subject with considerable zeal and some ability. Horace Greeley, although a lover of Fourier and an advocate of socialism, is on this point strictly conservative, and professes to shudder at a system which is one of the cardinal tenets in the creed of his master in France. Henry James, a brilliant idealist, and a logician of no mean power, advocates a greater latitude of divorce. He contends that two persons should not be compelled to live together, "when they hold the reciprocal relation of dog and cat," and that the law should on the application of both parties grant a divorce, provided the state is guarantied against the charge of their offspring.

He

Mr. Andrews goes the whole figure, and is as radical as the most ardent lover of Fourier could desire. regards marriage as a mummery-a mere mockerya kind of legalized prostitution and advocates the largest liberty which passion or caprice may ask for. He loudly and unblushingly contends for the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes on the ground that the law has no right to interfere with that individual sovereignity which allows a man to do as he pleases, provided he will take the consequences. He argues that man and woman should only be compelled to live

together during the continuance of affection which is another name for passion or caprice, and says:

"Indeed, it may be stated as the growing public sentiment of Christendom already, that the man and woman who do not love have no right, before God, to live together as man and wife, no matter how solemn the marriage service which may have been mumbled over them. This is the negative statement of a grand truth, already arrived at and becoming daily louder and more peremptory in its utterance. How long, think you, it will be before the converse, or positive side of the same truth will be affirmed, namely, that the man and woman who do love, can live together in purity without any mummery at all that it is love that sanctifies — not the blessings of the church?

Such is my doctrine. Such is the horrid heresy of which I am guilty. And such, say what you will, is the eternal, inexpugnable truth of God and nature. Batter at it till your bones ache, and you can never successfully assail it. Sooner or later you must come to it, and whether it shall be sooner or later is hardly left to your option. The progress of opinion, the great growth of the world in this age, is sweeping all men, with the strength of an ocean current, to the acceptance of universal freedom freedom to feel and act,

as well as freedom to think - to the acceptance, in fine, of the sovereignty of every individual, to be exercised at his own cost. If our remaining institutions are found to be adverse to this freedom, so that bad results follow from its acceptance, then our remaining institutions are

wrong, and the remedy is to be sought in still farther and more radical changes."

Mr. Andrews tells us in another part of his pamphlet that every woman has a right to choose the father of her own child, meaning that she has the right to choose as many fathers for her children as she desires. But we do not dare to make further quotations. Specious and adroit as Mr. Andrews is in the use of words, he leaves no doubt as to his real meaning; that meaning is, that no man need to restrain his passions from any sense of duty to society or fear of God. He aims to destroy the most cherished relations of life. The purity of woman, the majesty of law, the sacredness of religion, must yield to the selfishness of the individual. Fortunately such monstrous opinions can do no harm. They shock the moral sense of the most depraved; no man so wicked as to wish to live in such a pandemonium, none so utterly debased as not to shrink back from such shadows of hell. The poison contains its own antidote.

Mr. James belongs to a class which entertains little confidence in the potency of the law, but cherishes a profound faith in the goodness of humanity. He consequently contends that the unhappy relations in which many married people find themselves, are entirely curable by enlarging the grounds of divorce. He can not believe with his notions of "the inward sweetness and humanity" of men and women age secures conjugal fidelity."

that "legal bondThere is a show of

truth in this; and yet we can't but believe that Mr.

James would be one of the first to shudder at the prac