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and my Sabbath bonnet." In vain her son told her that she would look sweeter in her little gray shawl and her bonny white cap. She shook her head and said positively, "I tell you if ever I go in that man's office, I go in silk." The advantage of a black gown is very great for those who cannot afford many dresses, because other colors are remembered; but one does not recall very much about a decent black dress beyond the fact that it served its turn well.

However, I did not mean to take up all this chapter in talking of such things as dress and furnishing when one is thinking of marriage. When you really consider it, there is nothing so revolutionary in the world as the coming together of two people brought up in different families and under different influences, to make a new home of their own. John has been accustomed all his life to the way his people look at everything; his father, his mother, his brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins all have their own ideas about life. Mary, on the other hand, has come from a different set of people, with different traditions, and her people have their ways, their friendships, their modes of looking at life, which have insensibly passed into her blood. John and Mary must start out for themselves, and they will form together a new household, and their family life is to be a thing by itself and quite independent of what either has known before. So it is just as well for John to make up his mind that his wife, dear and lovely as she will be, is not going to be his mother over again; and Mary may as well remember that her John, though in her eyes perfect, will not be precisely like her own father.

For the first year the two will do well to keep entirely clear of relations in their family life. It is never a good plan for young people, if it can be helped, to form a part of another family, nor should they, except where there is some imperative reason for it, bring in fathers or mothers or other relatives as an integral part of their home. There are exceptional reasons sometimes why a widowed mother or a father otherwise to be left solitary, must come into the new home; but the ideal thing is for a husband and wife to begin quite by themselves. Then there is nobody to notice when they have little tiffs, nobody to take the part of either. Occasionally, asperities which would be like little fires easily fanned into a flame, die of themselves if the two are alone.

Before marriage both parties should think very seriously of the fact that they cannot live any more only for pleasure. There must be on both sides self-denial. In return for the self-denial, there will come a great and hallowed joy in life, but self-denial there must be. Before taking a step which is irrevocable, both man and woman should always count the cost and decide whether or not they are willing to give it. Marriage is in its best estate a service in which there is perfect freedom; but it is the freedom which exists within well-ordered bounds of law and order.

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A particular part of fitness for happy marriage is religious faith. I once heard a good minister observe that if a woman married a man whose principles were not established and who was not a professing Christian, it was usually in her power to win him to the side of Christ; but that so far as his observation went, a man seldom got the better of the case who married a heathen girl. A Christian man united to a woman who is indifferent or averse to religion, or skeptical, or who holds erroneous views on the most vital of all subjects, will probably lose very much of the spirituality of life and fall away from his own faith. Husband and wife, to gain the highest there is in marriage, should be agreed on the one great subject; and, therefore, before the time comes when they clasp hands and walk together, it is well for them each to say to the other, we will walk before the Lord in unity. As a rule it is not well for people of broadly opposing faiths to marry. A Romanist and a Protestant do not harmonize; the Methodist and the Presbyterian may easily sink their differences, the one agreeing to give something up for the sake of the other. Whatever the form of religious faith, it will be well for the two who are about to marry to take into account the fact that from the hour of their union they are no longer two, but one. They should agree, therefore, to attend the same church, and from the very beginning, they should make up their minds to enter upon church life and to take upon themselves certain duties with reference to Christ's work in the world. If the husband be already established in church work where he is accomplishing good it seems most fitting that the wife should accompany him, rather than that he should leave his work and go with her; but there is no arbitrary rule in a matter of this kind. Usually, it is to be settled by common sense and kindliness and mutual helpfulness and sacrifice.

In thinking of marriage, each should determine that he or she will begin with no secrets. I have sometimes been asked whether in case of some sin in the past, or some wrongdoing, it would be right to bury that and start in on the new life without any confession or revelation of that which is a grief in the past of one or the other. My answer always is that there can be no happiness which is not founded upon perfect truth and candor. Fortunately and happily, few well-brought up people have any skeleton in their closets, and there are no troubles and trials in the past which ought to be revealed, so far as their own persons are concerned; but wherever there is anything in relation to any member of the family, to anything which has to do at all with the well-being and the good name of either, let there be no reserves. Confidence is a stepping-stone to happiness. From the outset, let the two who have joined their hands know all that there is to be known each of the other. There will then be no danger of disagreeable secrets and revelations in days to come. It is of the greatest importance, and young people should remember this, that all

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through youth the life should be held up to a stern and rigid standard of purity, so that from the very first these two, who out of all the world have chosen each other, may feel assured there is no sin to interpose a barrier between them.

By this I do not mean that a person with an exaggerated sense of duty, and, perhaps, too sensitive a conscience should go over the whole chapter of life that is passed, and think of every little smile and word and innocent flirtation, as if it had been a grave transgression. It is only that in things of grave importance and interest, which have affected the life, there should be no reserves.

This obligation to candor is a duty equally laid upon man and upon woman. When thinking of marriage you are considering a sacrament.

I overheard the other day a bit of conversation between two young men in a public conveyance which interested me very much. They were not talking in low tones, but took the whole car into their confidence. Said one to the other, "I have not arrived at the point where I am willing to surrender my independence. I know a great many nice girls who are fine to have for friends and for helping on a good time; but I have not yet met a girl of whom I could be fond enough to think of spending my whole life with her; always seeing her cn the opposite side of the table; going about with her and not having the chance of going with any other girl." His companion remarked, “Oh, well, there is plenty of time yet. You are young, and when you meet the right one you will throw all your theories overboard." "Well," said the other, "Whatever I do, I will I think that is one of the most trying things a this I quite agreed with the speaker, as I have

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It is worth while to reflect that constancy is an essential part of married happiness; that the man or woman who is married can no longer rove from flower to flower, a bee in search of honey; but that from the time of selection the partner for life is to be the one who receives all the honor, all the reverence and all of the exclusive affection. Ruskin says:

"We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the superiority' of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things. Each has what the other has not; each completes the other, and is completed by the other; they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both depends on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give.

"Now their separate characters are briefly these: The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war and for conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not for battle-and her intellect

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