speare. The authentic data for a correct portrait of Shakespeare are not abundant; but such as they are, they do not warrant this fancy sketch-which resembles neither the Droeshout, the Chandos, the Jansen, nor the Felton portrait, nor the Stratford bust, nor the cast after death. The artist seems to have used the common Parian head with which crockery-stores insult the finest skull of all time, and to have invigorated the brow, eyes, and mouth into the look of a man of intense outward activity rather than of inward fecundity—a Knight Templar who would have handled a rapier more dexterously than a pen. Lord Bacon is here totally unrecognizable at first; and even after one detects in his hand the Novum Organum, one cannot discern in his face anything betokening either the greatest or the meanest of mankind. And Columbus, as he here looks, is as much a piece of guess-work as if he had been meant for Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.

On the whole, we prefer many other designs by this artist to the generally preferred "Era of the Reformation.” Let us add that these candid criticisms on one of the most famous works of art produced during the present century are put forth in a spirit of profound respect for the genius, character, and career of Wilhelm von Kaulbach; who by universal acclaim is one of "the choice and master spirits of this age;" and who falls short only of that superior greatness which God has given to no modern artist in equal measure with Ghiberti and Angelo, or with Raphael and Titian.

THE CHURCHWOMAN'S BALLOT.

I

N years gone by, the chief offender against the negro was the church. "The American church," said Albert Barnes (while the conflict was raging), "is the bulwark of American slavery.”" Let us be thankful that the American church, which did so much to rivet the negro's chain at first, did so much to break it at last. But the same American church that once bound the negro, still binds woman. Mr. Barnes's proverb might be re-stated thus: The church is at this day the chief bulwark of woman's bondage. Let us be thankful, for every sign witnessed among our churches, of the sundering of woman's yoke of oppression.

The woman question, like the negro question, must be fought inch by inch through the church before it can come to victory in the State. The church to-day offers a more hopeful battle-ground than the State for fighting the question to a speedy triumph. Church suffrage and State suffrage are identical in principle. Win one, and you have won the other. The church and the State are like the calf and the ox of the fable. Begin by carrying the calf, and you will have strength to carry the ox; but, haply, if you undertake the ox first, you may afterward need to wait awhile for breath to carry even the calf. Of course, we do not mean that the agitation of the woman question should not go forward in the State at the same time as in the church: there should be a " continu

ous firing all along the line;" but we earnestly advocate (as a consideration too greatly overlooked) the equal importance of carrying forward this noblest, purest, and grandest of public questions just as vigorously in the church as in the State. Woman never forgets that she is a member of the church, and seldom remembers that she is a citizen of the State. She can always be more easily reached through the church than through the State. The chief obstacle to woman's suffrage is woman herself. Permit her to vote in the church, which she is already willing to do, and you have thereby half taught her to vote in the State, which she is yet half unwilling to do. Every movement toward woman's suffrage in the church is prophetic of woman's suffrage in the State.

Church suffrage for women lately gave rise to an animated debate between two opposing parties in a Congregational church in Chicago; a debate which derives an added significance from the fact that its two opposing leaders were two colleague professors in the same theological seminary.

In this controversy it was argued that " Female suffrage stands opposed to all the authorities of Congregationalism for 250 years; "" a statement which, if true, would sooner or later bring Congregationalism itself into disrepute and decay. But such a statement never was, and never will be, true. Congregationalism is a system which, if faithful to its own genius, requires not only that each individual church, but also that each individual church member, shall stand on a common equality with all other Congregational churches and all other Congregational church members. Now two-thirds of all the Congregational church members of the United States are women. To deny female suffrage in a Congregational church is to

put the government of a majority into the hands of a minority-a proceeding which flagrantly violates the Congregational polity. But even if the tables should be turned, and a majority of church members should happen to be men instead of women, every woman would still (according to the principles of Congregationalism) be sacredly entitled to every church prerogative of man. A Congregational church that denies suffrage to any of its members, male or female, few or many, repudiates the essential features of the Congregational polity. Nay, more: Congregationalism the simplest of all church polities—makes it not only the right, but also the duty, of every church member to exercise all those church functions which are summed up in church suffrage.

What would be thought of a proposition to deny to woman the right to church membership? But to adinit woman to church membership, and then to deny her the suffrage which accompanies such membership, is practically to say that woman is unworthy of a full, but only of a partial, footing in the church. And yet women are the best part of every church. If any class, in any church, ought to be denied suffrage, it should not be women, but men. A church without women would soon degenerate into a mere monastery, or a theological seminary.

Prof. Samuel C. Bartlett's argument that woman's suffrage in the church is opposed to Congregationalism is as futile as Stephen A. Douglas's argument that negro suffrage in the State was opposed to the Declaration of Independence. Female suffrage does not stand "opposed to all the authorities of Congregationalism." On the contrary, properly speaking, the "chief authorities of Congregationalism" are the majorities in each of the many individual Congregational churches. These

majorities, in almost every case, are women. Female suffrage, so far from being opposed to "the chief authorities of Congregationalism," represents the very chiefest of these "chief authorities."

Prof. Joseph Haven, who bore the lance for woman's suffrage against Prof. Bartlett, is one of the ablest thinkers of the West. The very fact that such a man--studious, contemplative, and retiring-shrinking from public controversy, and given to the cloister-should have stepped before the public in championship of female suffrage, is an evidence that the most just, sound, and philosophic minds of this country are no longer debating, but have already decided, the question of the rightful equality of men and women in church and State. Prof. Haven's argument was conclusive with the church to which it was addressed. He overthrew Prof. Bartlett as gallantly as one knight unhorses another. The final vote was an overwhelming majority in favor of an equal church franchise for all classes of church members. This was a just decision. Any other would have shown a lack of faith by Congregationalists in their own congregational polity -a system which, when unwarped from its true idea, aims to secure an equitable Christian democracy.

St. John was called the "woman of the apostles." The more a man's moral and spiritual nature is like a woman's, the better fitted he is to teach religion to a worldly-minded generation. "Woman," says George William Curtis, "is the conscience of the race." We respectfully submit, that as woman is the strong pillar of the church, it is time that she had a vote in the church meetings.

APRIL 2, 1868.