Wornan's Work in the Glusreh. By John M. Ludlow. (Alexander
Straban.)—The subjeot of this work has been handled so frequently of Lite that it is only fair to the author to say that it was mostly written twelve years ago, and was- preeeded by- a paper on the same subject which appeared in Mac Edinburgh • Review of May, 1848. More recently Mr. Ludlow Wrote two papers for Good Words, which incurred the censure of the Free Church Presbytery of Strathbogie, N.R.,,for their Romania- ing tendencies—to which reverend body with grim pleasantry he now dedicates this fuller expression of his views. We need hardly say that Mr. Ludlow's book in no way justifies the apprehensions of the watchful shepherds of Strathbogie. He has wisely given the subject a historical rather than a social treatment, and after carefully distinguishing between -what he considers the three Apostolic classes of women—the deaconesses, the Church-widows, and Church-virgins—he shows how they became eventually merged into one under the influence of the ascetic principle, and how the idea of the holiness of celibacy finally destroyed the female diaconate by secluding religious women from the world behind the walls of the nunnery. Mr. Ludlow would revive the order- of female deacons by eliminating the monastic notion altogether, and especially insists on the necessity of placing the deaconesses' institutes under the guidance of a married man. There can, we think, be no doubt that bodies of devout ladies organized something on the principle of the Ittignines in Belgium would in great cities or populous districts be the greatest assistance to the clergy. But in rural parishes the parson's wife now commonly discharges the functions of the deaconess, and we should certainly doubt the expediency of reviving anything in the nature of an ordination of female deacons. After a lapse of twelve centuries a ceremony will not bear resuscitation, though a principle may, if it is suffered to take a thoroughly modern form. In style and freedom from digression this little book is quite a model.
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