this attractive being will be your kind friend; your counsellor; the welcome soother of your cares and anxieties; the generous and charitable judge of your infirmities; the inspirer of honorable ambition; your fellow laborer in joint interests; the ornament of your life; the gracious, considerate, faithful, gentle companion who will make your own virtuous home, the place to which you refer all earthly happiness? Who that is in love' has leisure, or inclination to think of such trifles as these?

355. There is no reason why the passion of love should be wrapped up in mystery, nor any, why the mind should be stained in considering its nature. It would prevent much, and complicated misery in the world, if all young persons understood it truly. There are in every human being, germs, each one of which may be made to come forth, and may be so cultivated, as to produce the most odious vices, or the most serene and heavenly virtues. Or, to take another illustration, every propensity of the heart is like a drop of water, which rises on the very summit of the highest land; it may flow to the East, and find itself, (with all that joins it on the way,) in one sea, or West, and find itself in another, as distant and different, as East and West. The propensity to love, is one of the best in our nature; but, it may run into the worst of afflictions. It seems to be a principle of nature, that the ruin of the highest and best, is the deepest and worst of ruins. The human mind in its greatest natural force, and best and purest cultivation, brings its possessor into an affinity with angels. The same mind, gradually depraved and debased, and driven to raving and malicious madness, is a horrible example of what is fancied to be diabolical. So is it with love. In its true use, it is, what is thought to be the happiness of heaven; in its perversions, who can find words to tell what it is? Ask the physician whose vocation it is, not to heal the wounds which nature makes, but to find remedies for the punishments which she inflicts. Look into the public hospitals, and mad-houses. Nay, look within the curtains,

whose outside emblems of grandeur and dignity tell for whose use they were intended, and see, who and what inhabit there!

356. There is in every human heart a fund of kindness, tenderness, and affection, which makes itself known to be there in due time. It demands to be applied. This is the trying and perilous moment in youthful life. There is some one, somewhere, who will take that fund, and give its full equivalent. The external senses, and the heart, are in search of that one. Happy will it be for the searcher, if he will take reason as a monitor to keep the senses, and the heart in order. But reason is commonly regarded, not as a kind and faithful friend whose duty it is to whisper, 'begin nothing, of which you have not well considered the end, but as a withered scowling matron, who, being utterly dead to the impulses of youth, denies that there ought to be any youthful impulse. If there has been no preparation for this eventful period, if the mind has not been enriched with the teachings of rational prudence; if the eye has not been taught to distinguish between the real and the seeming; if the ear has not learned to discriminate the meaning of sounds; if life as a whole, if the consequences of irrevocable deeds be not thought of, there is peril; and the pure drop from the fountain may flow into any sea, but that of happiness. Surely, when one is subjected to the force of any passion, there is peril. He is like one descending an inclined plane of ice on the Alps; the further he goes, the faster he goes, and the nearer is he to the abyss below. Such an one cannot (as an amiable and eminent statesman of our country said on another occasion) drop so much fire into a barrel of gunpowder, as will inflame an ounce or two ounces, at his pleasure, and no more. He should know that one spark, however small, will inflame the whole. We pray leave to remind the amiable and virtuous young, of one very curious principle of our nature, which comes into effective action at this sensitive moment. The imagination asserts its dangerous empire; it throws a

misty medium before the eyes; it steals away the common prudence of the ear; it disorders the natural sensibility of the touch. It takes its seduced subject into lonely contemplations; and there it dresses out the common qualities of the beloved object, with unreal, and unnatural beauty. One begins then, to hear of angels, divinities, and loveliness that are not, and never were of this earth. Who, and what, is the object of this adoration ? No one, and nothing that really exists, but a fascinating creature of the brain. That creature is what is married. The realities of married life soon show, under what a sad delusion the parties have acted. The disappointment is proportioned to the extravagance of fancy.

357. In whatever variety of modes, the purposes of life may have been mistaken, or perverted, it is probable that they have been so, in no one thing so much as in marriage. There are fewer marriages than there might be, and ought to be, to say nothing of the motives on which some are contracted. This may be referred, it is believed, to the mistaken estimate which is made of riches, and modes of living. The sacrifice which is made to fashionable opinion, is a very costly one. It would be unjustifiable to attempt to maintain, that the elegant products of art, are not to be esteemed and used, and the production of them encouraged; and equally so to decry, the luxurious products of the land, or the All are proper in their respective places. All are to be consumed by those who can buy them, and who desire to reward directly, or indirectly (provided always that they duly reverence nature in the use) the labor that brings them forth. But such things are unduly valued. They are made to be the first objects in life, when in fact they hardly deserve to be called secondary. The married must have a place to live in; it must be convenient and comfortable; they must have garments and food; and they must have the means of supplying certain necessary and pleasurable wants. There must be ease, and independence, within their walls. Inde

sea.

pendence does not mean wealth; but that magnanimity which produces cheerful, thankful satisfaction, for having, and having the right to have, a home, in which one finds full exercise for all the kind affections of the heart, with the means of gratifying them. All beyond these things are sought, and obtained, and used, for whom? To conform to opinions which have very small claim to be rational, but which have a powerful influence in the world. There must be a certain state of things, because, 'every body does so.' There must be one or more apartments furnished in the proper style, to be opened and used some two or three times in a year, to please persons with whom one has slight connexion. It may be erroneous to say to please such persons, for it is far from being certain that this effect is produced; it is to please one's-self, in doing what fashion dictates, whether that be convenient or inconvenient, wise or foolish.

358. Will it be doubted that a young, well-educated, industrious couple, who are sincerely and affectionately attached, on a sober examination, and conviction of each other's worth, and suitableness to each other, may be happy, with means far short of the fashionable standard? Presuming that such a couple are wise enough to take life for the real and substantial good that it can produce, and as a whole, it would do them great injustice to suppose that they could not find that good in a small, simple, cheerful, tranquil mansion. It would be doing the friends of such a couple the like injustice to suppose, that they could not visit them, and be satisfied to see them happy, through such means. It may be added, that such a state of things conforms to the laws of nature. If such a couple desire a more enlarged state of things, they will carn it by frugality, and industry. What one has earned is sweet to him; and he who sees something before him which he may strive for, and attain to, is impelled, by the same laws, to honorable exertion. But he who has no more to aspire to, must, like Macedonia's mad-. man,' weep that there is no more. These are very

homely but very healthy truths; yet, there is not the shadow of hope that they will change the thoughts of one belle or beau, in the whole United States. So far, therefore, as depends on these unpretending efforts to improve the world, it will continue to be, in the opinion of very many, a detestable state of being.'

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In whatsoever circumstances, and with whatever motives marriages occur, the parties are married; and the question which they have to propose, and solve is, in what way they can secure to themselves the greatest good during their union.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Domestic Duties, continued.

359. Husband. It must be assumed, that the parties to a marriage act, according to their own will and pleasure, in entering into it; and that they expect to promote their own welfare by such measure. They were, or might have been informed, of each others suitableness. Both knew, or might have known, that new circumstances, and unexpected events, might change or destroy qualities, and bring dormant, or newly acquired ones, into operation. Both agreed, each with the other, to bear, and forbear, and to make the best of the matter, however it might prove to be. Each one solemnly promised, that the contract should be kept, if it reasonably could be, although the other might fail to perform. Let us suppose, that there were no mistakes in the beginning, as to the qualities, and conduct of the wife; and that she is, in all respects, and under all circumstances, such an one as has been before suggested. Can the exercise of power over a dependant female, in a manner which not only deprives her of the benefits promised in connubial life, but which makes her a daily, and hourly sufferer, be reconciled with the law that commands one to pro