raging flood in rapturous triumph. Thus I have been left like the lonely oak that bends to the sweeping tempest of the mountain's top. The unbidden tear of lonely grief sometimes escapes my eye, but the cheering prospect of meeting all my kindred dear,' 'When a few more griefs I've tasted, dispels my gloom, and makes my sorrows light, My friend Edward is now on Zion's walls, a faithful and successful minister of the gospel. Not only his own kindred, but hundreds more of his spiritual children will doubtless greet him home to rest. [Ladies Repository, Cincinnati.] CHRIST WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET ST. JOHN, viii. 1-15. O BLESSED Jesus, when I see thee bending, Love, lowliness, and might, in zeal all blending, Conscious thou art of that dread hour impending, Of thy sad life, thine own are dear to thee- The day too is at hand, when far ascending Thy human brow the crown of God shall wear. Meek Jesus! to my soul thy spirit lending, Daily my pilgrimage, as homeward wending Philadelphia. O blessed name of servant! comprehending G. W. B. MARRIAGE. BY REV. H. WINSLOW. THE matrimonial covenant is an ordinance from Heaven. Immediately after the creation of man, the Lord God said, " It is not good that man should be alone; I will make for him a help-mate." This domestic constitution is a distinguishing characteristic of Christianity, and is essential to the elevation and happiness of our race. Every young man should, therefore, if possible, contemplate being married. It is a Christian duty, as well as a privilege, to have a companion to share with you the responsibilities, interests and enjoyments of life. If a man is in circumstances to be married, he is usually less useful to society, and perhaps always less happy, for remaining in the single state. That he "may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing," he must have a wife. When a man lives single beyond the proper time for being married, there is a prevalent suspicion among the other sex that he is addicted to vice. I do not know but this judgment is a little severe-for there are some bachelors of unquestionable virtue. But that there is a foundation for a general suspicion of this sort, will hardly be questioned; and the vicious tendency of celibacy in communities, is very generally known and acknowledged. The time for marrying, after the period indicated by nature has arrived, must of course vary somewhat with circumstances. As a general rule, early marriages are desirable; but then they should be under one or two conditions-either that of property inherited, or already acquired, adequate to the usual expense, or that of simplicity and frugality in the style of living, sufficient to reduce the expense within the present earnings. The latter is always the best. It is the happiest and most virtuous state of society, in which the husband and wife set out early together, make their property together, and with perfect sympathy of soul graduate all their expenses, plans, calculations and desires, with reference to their present means and to their future common interests. Nothing delights me more than to enter a neat little tenement of the young couple, who, within perhaps two or three years, without any resources but their own knowledge and industry, have joined heart and hand, engaged to share together the responsibilities, duties, interests, trials and pleasures of life. The industrious wife is cheerfully employing her own hands in domestic duties, putting her house in order, or mending her husband's clothes, or preparing the dinner, while perhaps the little darling sits prattling upon the floor or lies sleeping in the cradle --and everything seems preparing to welcome the happiest of husbands and the best of fathers, when he shall come from his toil to enjoy the sweets of his little paradise. This is the true domestic pleasure, the "only bliss that survived the fall." Health, contentment, love, abundance and bright prospects, are all there. But it has become a prevailing sentiment, that a man must acquire his fortune before he marries; that the wife must have no sympathy nor share with him in the pursuit of it, in which most of the pleasure truly consists; and that young married people must set out with as large and expensive an establishment, as is becoming those who have been wedded for twenty years. This is very unhappy. It fills the community with bachelors, who are waiting to make their fortunes, endangering virtue, and promoting vice; it mistakes the true economy and design of the domestic institution; and it promotes idleness and inefficiency among females, who are expecting to be taken up by a fortune, and passively sustained without any care or concern on their part and thus many a modern wife becomes, as a gentleman once remarked, not a "help-mate," but a "help-eat." There is another unpleasant evil attending this, especially as it bears pretty severely on the fair sex. When bachelors have made their fortunes, and become some forty or fifty years old, they do not usually take wives of their own age, but they then abandon those with whom they have hitherto associated-requite all the pleasures which their society has afforded them with utter neglect; they then select for their companions the young and blooming, and thus leave to their fate a numerous class of worthy maidens. Great disparity in matrimony is an evil in many particulars: and what is more unnatural than to see a young miss wedded to a man old enough to be her father? He ought to have sense enough to know, that unless she is an eccentric character, she never married him for love; and she ought also to know that in consenting to marry him, she in all probability consented to make herself a wretched slave-to put herself in the power of a man who had already expended his first and warmest love upon others: and who by his superior age, his matured habits of pleasing himself and of having his own way, and the self-importance which property gives, was well qualified to act the part of the tyrant rather than that of the husband. If a young man has property, he may of course marry at a suitable age, and adopt the style of living which is justified by his means. But if he be destitute of property, he has three alternatives, and he can take his choice between them. Selecting a prudent, industrious person for his wife, he may marry young, and live in a style of simplicity adapted to his income; or he can wait till he has acquired a property, so as to be able to support a family in the more modern and fashionable style; or he can marry at any rate, launch fearlessly out into all the expenses of a fashionable establishment, and run his chance of bringing his wife and children to want. The first is the best, the second is the next, and the third is bad enough. LINES, BY MR. BECKFORD. LIKE the low murmur of the secret stream, In the recesses of the forest vale, On the wild mountain, on the verdant sod, When the faint sickness of a wounded heart Creeps in, cold shuddering through my sinking frame, I turn to Thee-that holy peace impart Which soothes the invokers of thy holy name. O! all-pervading Spirit! sacred beam! Grant me through obvious clouds one transient gleam [From the Banner of the Cross.] THE INQUIRY. TELL me, ye winged winds, The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low, Tell me, thou mighty deep, Whose billows round me play, And friendship never dies? The loud waves, roaring in perpetual flow, And thou, serenest moon, Dost look upon the world Tell me, in all thy round, Hast thou not seen some spot Where miserable man Might find a happier lot? Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in wo; Tell me, my sacred soul, O, tell me, hope and faith, Is there no resting-place Is there no happy spot Where mortals may be blessed, And weariness a rest? Faith, Hope, and Love, best boons to mortals given, Wav'd their bright wings, and whispered "Yes, in heaven!" |