how things ought to be done, they are apt at all times to be passing their judgment of the manner, instead of improving the matter of public instruction; not that it is possible to be wholly inattentive to this, but let it not carry you so much away, as to hinder your teaching others as humble Christians, as well as discoursing to them as able ministers. ARTICLE X. HOW TO CHOOSE A WIFE.* [From an English publication. ANONYMOUS.] I. In order to the right choice of a wife, it is essential that you form correct views on the importance, obligation, and consequences of marriage. Thousands plight their troth with the most reprehensible levity. With them marriage is a mere matter of course, a thing of merriment, a gala day. All thoughts of its essentially religious character, its perpetuity, its duties and its trials, are completely lost sight of. Some proceed to marriage and think far less of the consequences than they do of the garments they shall wear on their wedding-day. II. Never marry whom you can not always love. 66 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it," Eph. v. 25. Eschewing as we do everything like mawkish sentimentalism and morbid passion, we at the same time believe, that more domestic happiness proceeds from holy love, than from any other source. Learning, wealth, beauty, goodness, all are vain where love is not. Better a dinner of herbs with love, than the richest viands where the heart is cold. What is matrimonial love? A question often asked. It is not the love of existence, it is not the love of society, it is not the love of friendship. Poets sing of Cupid and his arrows; they say that he is a little god, that he is always young, always in a good humour, and they give him wings to fly with. This may do to eke out amorous verse, but it does not touch the question. The following, by Scott, is the best definition of matrimonial love with which we are acquainted: "True Love's the gift which God hath given, To man alone beneath the heaven. It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly; *This is a subject of the highest moment to the present and future welfare of candidates for the ministry-the choice of a wife. There is reason to fear that great numbers of young men set about this matter without much preparation in the way of instruction, judgment, or observation; and experience they can have none. The point is one which deserves much more attention than has yet been paid to it through the Press; while the Pulpit is not the place from which to discuss it. It liveth not in fierce desire, It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind." III. However excellent the lady of your choice may be, and however ardently you may love her, do not marry her, unless she loves you. "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands." Titus xi. 4. Some young men treat this point with indifference. "Marry," say they, and "love will come under such circumstances?" Look around you and appeal to facts. Those who have lived longer than you, and who have freely exercised their powers of observation, will tell you that they have known such marital instances, as those we now brand; but they can also say, in their conscience, on their honour, and from their hearts, that they never knew a coerced marriage prosperous. Never accept the hand if you cannot have the heart. If you marry one who has been dragged or driven to the altar, one who does not, cannot return your love, it will surely bring upon you the malediction of insulted heaven, and the secret scorn of a violated heart. Behold that wasting form, the ravages of consuming grief; oh! look into that fireless sunken eye; think of the icy coldness of that hand; trace the lines on those fevered cheeks, and read in these your gathering doom. IV. In the choice of a wife, excellence of moral and religious character must be the first great essential. Your own religious interests on earth are deeply involved in marriage. What comfort, what peace of mind, can the husband have where there is inconstancy, irreligion, and infidelity on the part of the wife? Marry an irreligious woman, and you will have no domestic resource to flee to in the hour of religious need. There will be none to admonish you when you neglect your religious duties. An irreligious wife cannot counsel you when you are under the influence of severe temptation, neither can she assist to resolve your doubts in cases of conscience. To all matters of religious experience the friend of your bosom will be a stranger and an alien. She cannot help you, she cannot sympathize with you, she cannot understand you. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor. xi. 14. Sad must be the condition of the husband whose griefs his spouse cannot relieve, and whose trials she cannot share. Many young men have great difficulty in maintaining their hold of religion, and in discharging its duties even when single. How will that difficulty be increased if they marry irreligious wives. If now you find it hard work to keep the commands of your Maker, if you now make such indifferent progress in religion, what will you do when united to one who has no religion, one who has never even sought it with success? Pause, young man, before you marry an irreligious wife. Men have been more than conquerors through the blood of the Lamb, and gone safe home to heaven, although their wives did not serve God. But are you equal to such a task? Can you roll the stone of Sisyphus? Let your own unfaithfulness answer the question. Let your meagre religious attainments answer it. Let the frequency with which you have gone astray from God and brought yourselves into condemnation, answer the question. You have no grace to spare. Be honest with yourself, and you will feel, that so far from needing one to hinder you in the way to heaven, you require one to assist you in your progress. V. Correct domestic habits belong to the class of essentials. Some females seem happiest when they are gadding about from house to house, and jaunting from one locality to another. Wherever there are friends to entertain them they are sure to go. The carrier's van, the gig, the omnibus, the carriage, the railway train, every kind of road, every mode of travelling, and every species of conveyance, is pressed into the service of their roving disposition. One feels half inclined to think them stray members of an Arab tribe. Forest rangers are very well in their way, but do not marry a ranger, as you would avoid perpetual motion. It is but little in domestic management and supervision that can be done by proxy; and when the wife is frequently abroad, things are sure to go wrong at home. A wife can have very little regard for her husband's purse who trusts servants with the exclusive management of all her household affairs. Covetousness is quite as great an evil in household management as extravagance. It abridges the necessaries of life, destroys domestic comfort, and even defeats its own purpose, because persons invariably pay dear for their determination to cheapen everything. A covetous housekeeper will look shy at your relatives, scare away every one of your visiting friends, and even destroy your own health by her slave-driving parsimony. Some females are everything you can desire except this one thing, they cannot keep your house in order. They are beautiful, wealthy, refined, amiable, and accomplished, but they cannot manage. Let none think that superiority in these things disqualifies for domestic duties. You will find as many slatternly wives and bad housekeepers among the vulgar and ordinary, as you will find among the accomplished and the refined. VI. Unanimity of opinion on all essential points. The unity of friendship and the union of marriage are two very different things. Men may differ on many vital subjects and still be excellent friends, but matrimonial happiness cannot co-exist with such difference. A wife is but another self. The idea of unity is essential to that of matrimony. Between man and wife there must be only one interest, and one aim. As the colours of the rainbow are graduated into each other, so must their two hearts be blended into one. In friendship, men may avoid coming into contact with each other's views on matters in which they broadly differ, but it is impossible to avoid such collision in married life. To join together a man and a woman, between whom there exist essential differences, is contrary to nature and reason. They must come into conflict. They must cross one another pointblank. He who has seen a place where two seas meet, may have an idea of the perpetual struggle and turbulence, consequent on the kind of marriage we now censure. In vain they strive to suppress their differences. A thousand circumstances, even the routine of daily life, is sure to bring them into antagonism. What happiness can there be, when one attends a Protestant place of worship, and the other waits on the altars of the Church of Rome; when one hates to live in town, and the other hates to live in the country; when one likes visiting, and the other can't endure strangers; when one insists on family worship, and the other thinks it needless; when one is anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, and the other is the enemy of knowledge; when one is anxious to be useful in society, and the other is steeped in selfishness; when one is all for saving, the other all for spending; when one says the children shall have a good education, and the other resolves they shall have none; when one would pursue a given line of conduct towards the children, and the other would proceed on its direct opposite? To bring together such a heterogeneous mass with any hope of peace or prosperity is monstrous. Cross purposes and diversities of interests, persons between whom there is hardly anything in common, are better kept apart. "Be of one mind," if you would "live in peace," is the apostolic injunction. VII. If you would be comfortable and happy in the married state, you must seek a bride of good temper, amiable disposition, and modest bearing. You have all read the passages in Solomon's Proverbs, about the miseries inflicted by a brawling woman. Permit us to refresh your memory by quoting them here. "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman, and in a wide house. Prov. xxv. 25. "It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman." Prov. xxi. 19. Such is inspired testimony, and all human experience confirms it. An irritable, fretful, peevish, scolding disposition, is a misery to its possessor, and it makes everybody miserable that it touches. There can be no peace where quarrelsome propensities are dominant. The house that echoes to these constant dissensions is more like a furious democratic debating society, than a happy home. We pity the husband who, with nerves already damaged by constant irritation, has still to endure the fiery assaults of his tormentor. Shakspeare speaks of Taming the Shrew, but the man that would attempt it in a confirmed case, must have nerves of iron and Van Amburg's eyes. "The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping." She magnifies every fault, and satirically expatiates on every infirmity. Her husband can neither look right, speak right, nor act right. Morning, noon, and night, the years round, is he taunted and provoked by her scolding temper. His only chance of quiet is to avoid her presence. Many a meek husband has been driven from his home, to the inn and the club, by a bad-tempered wife, till he has abandoned himself to her evil genius, and sunk into a confirmed profligate. Alas! for such a husband, "Still caring, despairing, Must be his bitter doom; His woes here shall close ne'er, A thoroughly sarcastic woman was never permanently loved. Affection for her may endure a short time, but the strongest love must wither under the influence of ceaseless ridicule. The female who is never happy except when making you miserable is unworthy of your heart. VIII. Marry your equals as nearly as you can. "Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony or true delight! On a winter's evening, by the fireside, we have all heard tales of wild romantic love. How queens have shared the lot of low-born peasants, and how kings have elevated village maidens to a throne. Matches of this kind are mere dreams of the imagination. Let not such legends exercise a deleterious influence upon you. If you aim at things beyond your reach, you only build castles in the air, and you will spend your life in reverie. If you follow every phantom of hope that glides before your fancy, you will try to touch the stars, and waste your days without accomplishing anything. Generally speaking, the one whose circumstances in life are similar to your own, is the one most fit to be your bride. You will frequently find your best wife in your own sphere of life. We do not say that it is impossible for unequals to be happy in married life. But instances in which unequal marriages have turned out well are rare indeed, and the odds are decidedly against their doing so. There are no rules without exceptions, but your safety will generally consist in the avoidance of both extremes. IX. While we would not have you attach yourself to deformity, we would, at the same time, caution you against marrying only for beauty. "He that loves a rosy cheek. Or a coral lip admires, |