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bloom of youthful vigour will, alike, fade before the noxious breath of sickness and disease. verdure of spring, and the gaiety of summer must be succeeded by less pleasing seasons; but each season, to a pious and well regulated mind, offers its appropriate charms. If the flowers of spring, and the fruits of summer cannot continue in unfading beauty and richness, so neither can the graces of beauty, and the loveliness of youth.

Behold, fond man!

See here thy pictur'd life! Pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding Winter comes at last,

And shuts the scene. Ah, whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes
Of happiness?

But it may be asked, are we then to woo poverty, and to wed deformity. By no means. We do not disparage rank, and wealth, and beauty, and outward grace; we allow them to be valuable, and even desirable blessings: but we pronounce them to be, of themselves, unconnected with those gifts and graces which no adversity can destroy, nor lapse of time corrupt, most unsatisfying blessings,

and miserable comforters. We are not such stoics as to exclude all reference to personal appearance, or, pecuniary circumstances; we give them their full weight in our decision; and that weight is, by no means, trifling-but, after all, we consider these things as of very inferior and secondary moment.

But unallayed

The sight still pauses on a beauteous maid.
Each glance still finds her lovelier than before,
Each gazing moment asks a moment more.
Yet then must intellectual graces move
The play of features, ere we quite approve;
Yet must chaste honour, ere those graces win,
Light up the glorious image from within.

Were we to live always, or even generally, in public were the ball room our residence, and the scene of our daily duties; were we to be happy, only in proportion as we secured public applause and admiration, then, indeed, we might be justified in our own conscience and in the opinion of the world, for expending all our care and concern on the dazzling pomps and vanities of life, and for making them the chief objects of our solicitude in our matrimonial alliances. But let us seriously enquire, how far does truth justify such a supposition? Do not the sober and important duties

which attach to us as Husbands, Wives, and Parents require that we should renounce, to a very considerable extent, the giddy pleasures, and the tumultuous joys, of public life? As rational beings, as heads of families, as men pledged to the performance of important and solemn duties, HOME ought to be the centre to which our thoughts, our affections, and our desires should ever turn. Home is the seat of man's truest pleasure, as it is the sphere of his most important duties. The qualities which shed their kindliest influence over the domestic circle,

Where all the tumult of a guilty world,

Tost by ungenerous passions, sinks away,

are those alone which should attract the esteem, and conciliate the regard, and secure the affection, of a rational, and sober minded man. He who desires a fellow traveller for a long and dangerous journey, where he hourly expects to meet with inconvenience, and difficulty; and in which the advice, and the sympathy of his associate is daily needed, will, assuredly, be careful to select a companion whose temper, tastes, and character are of that nature to afford him the consolation and the support his situation requires.

"Let us," says Gisborne, "consider the case of two persons, of unequal tempers and dissimilar habits, about to form an engagement for life, by which their whole future existence might be affected; what repugnance, on reflection, would they not mutually feel to such an engagement-especially if one of the parties was to be in a state of subordination to the other. How diversified, how strict, how persevering would be the enquiries of each respecting the other? Unless the dispositions, the temper, the habits, the genuine character, and the innermost principles were mutually known; what rational hope, what tolerable chance of happiness could subsist ?"

Nor is it only temper and accomplishments that are needful; far beyond these, in value and importance, are PRINCIPLES and HABITS. Without attention to these the fairest promise of happiness will infallibly be blighted, and every other bond of confidence be found brittle and delusive. On what solid ground can a woman anticipate happiness for life, when she confides her person, and her property to one on whom the laws of God have no influence? Are the proud, the covetous, the ambitious, the malignant, the censorious, the world

ly mind, the lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, likely to be the indulgent husband, the fond father, the kind master? Can he who habitually violates the precepts of the gospel, and lives in utter neglect of its authority, be reasonably expected to discharge the duties he owes to man, with more integrity than he manifests to Heaven? Let it also be remembered that he who is not under the habitual influence of christian principles, and conscientious as to its practical duties, is likely to have an unhappy and pernicious influence on the principles, conduct, and happiness of his wife. He who disowns, or neglects the duties of the station he now occupies, has no pledge to offer to his bride that he will more conscientiously respect the obligations of the new relations of life, into which he is about to enter.

Thus it is in life. An amiable temper, sound judgment, good sense, a well informed mind, correct taste, religious principles, united with the lighter accomplishments of a well educated mind, and blended with mildness of manner, and gentleness of heart, will be found the substantial qualities which cannot fail to win the affection, and

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