and taking the man at his own word, which he uttered when, in the solemn act of matrimony, he said, "with all my worldly goods I thee endow," may invest the wife with a joint proprietorship, and a right of appropriation, it is in such a case as this. But still, we must not sacrifice general principles to special cases; and, therefore, I say to every female in such circumstances, obtain, if you can, a separate and fixed allowance for charitable distribution; but if even this be not possible, obtain one for general personal expenses, and by a most rigid frugality, save all you can from dress and decoration, for the hallowed purpose of relieving the miseries of your fellow creatures. 6. MUTUAL SYMPATHY is required. Sickness may call for this, and females seem both formed and inclined by nature to yield it. "Oh woman, in our hours of ease, By the light, quivering aspen made, Unwilling, and, indeed, unable to subscribe to the former part of this description, I do most readily assent to the truth of the latter. If we could do without her, and be happy in health, what are we in sickness without her presence and her tender offices? Can we smooth, as woman can, the pillow on which the sick man lays his head? No. We cannot administer the medicine or the food as she can. There is a softness in her touch, a lightness in her step, a skill in her arrangements, a sympathy looking down upon us from her beaming eye, which ours wants. Many a female, by her devoted and kind attentions in a season of sickness, has drawn back to herself that cold and alienated heart, which neither her chams could hold, nor her claims recover. I entreat you, therefore, married females, to put forth all your power to soothe and please in the season of your husband's sickness. Let him see you willing to make any sacrifices of pleasure, ease, or sleep, to minister to his comfort. Let there be a tenderness in your manner, a wakeful attention and sympathy in your look, a something that seems to say, your only comfort in his affliction is to employ your selves in alleviating it. Hearken with patience and kindness to the tale of his lighter, and even of his imaginary woes. A cold, heartless, awkward, unsympathising woman, is an exception from the general rule, and therefore the severer libel upon her sex. Nor is this sympathy exclusively the duty of the wife; but belongs equally to the husband. He cannot, it is true, perform the same offices for her, which she can discharge for him; but much he can do, and all he can he should do. Her sicknesses are generally more numerous and heavy than his; she is likely, therefore, to make more frequent calls upon his tender interest and attention. Many of her ailments are the consequence of becoming his wife: she was, perhaps, in full vigour, till she became a mother, and from that time never had a moment's perfect ease or strength again. That event, which sent into his heart the joys of a parent, dismissed from her frame the comforts of health. And shall he look with discontent, and indifference, and insensibility, upon that delicate flower, which, before he transplanted it to his garden, glowed in beauty and in fragrance to the admiration of every spectator? Shall he now cease to regard it with any pleasure, or sympathy, and seem as if he wished it gone, to make room for another, forgetting that it was he that sent the worm to the root, and caused its head to droop, and its colours to fade? Husbands, I call upon you for all the skill and tenderness of love, on behalf of your wives, if they are weak and sickly. Watch by their couch, talk with them, pray with them, wake with them. In all their afflictions, be you afflicted. Never listen heedlessly to their complaints; and, oh, by all that is sacred in conjugal affection, I implore you never, by your cold neglect, or petulant expressions, or discontented look, to call up in their imaginations, unusually sensitive at such a season, the phantom of a fear, that the disease which has destroyed their health, has done the same for your affection. Oh, spare their bosom the agonizing pangs of supposing, that they are living to be a burden to your disappointed heart. The cruelty of that man wants a name, and I know of none sufficiently emphatic, who denies his sympathy to a suffering woman, whose only sympat sin is a broken constitution, and whose calamity is the result of her marriage. Such a man does the work of a murderer, without his punishment, and, in some instances, without his reproach; but not always without his design or his remorse. But sympathy should be exercised by man and wife, not only in reference to their sicknesses, but to all their afflictions, whether personal or relative; all their sorrows should be common : like two strings in unison, the chord of grief should never be struck in the heart of one, without causing a corresponding vibration in the heart of the other; or, like the surface of the lake answering to the heaven, it should be impossible for calmness and sunshine to be upon one, while the other is agitated and cloudy: heart should answer to heart, and face to face. Such are the duties common to both; the obligations peculiarly enjoined upon each, will be the subject of the next chapter. CHAPTER III. THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church."-EPHESIANS, V. 22-32. OBSERVE the sublime and transcendently interesting fact, which stands amidst the duties of domestic life, as stated by the apostle, in the language quoted above, like the sun in the centre of the planets, illuminating, For impelling, and uniting them all. Every part of this most comprehensive and beautiful passage is inimitably striking. The design of the whole is to magnify Christ's love to the church in order to this, the moral condition of the church, previous to the transforming work of redeeming grace, is supposed to be that of loathsome impurity; yet notwithstanding this, he exercises the tenderest compassion for her welfare, and is not repelled by excessive defilement. To effect her redemption, he does not merely employ the operations of his power and of his wisdom, but surrendered himself into the hands of divine justice, that, as a sacrifice of atonement, he might ransom the object of his regard, at the price of his blood; thus manifesting an affection stronger than death, and "which many waters could not quench." The ultimate design of this act of mysterious humiliation, is to render her in some measure worthy of his regard, and meet for that indissoluble union with himself, into which, as his illustrious bride, she was about to be received. this purpose, the efficient influences of the Holy Ghost were to be poured upon her mind, that, in the cordial reception of the truth, she might be purified from iniquity, have the germ of every virtue implanted in her heart, and the robe of righteousness spread over her frame; till, at length, under the dispensations of his providence, the means of his grace, and the sanctifying agency of his Spirit, the last spot of moral defilement might be effaced, the last wrinkle of spiritual decay removed, and, like the "king's daughter, all glorious within, and with her clothing of wrought gold," she might be presented, covered with the beauties of holiness, to the Lord Jesus, in that day, "when he shall come to be admired in his saints, and glorified in all them that believe." Behold, what manner of love is this! And it is this most amazing, this unparalleled act of mercy, that is employed by the apostle, as the motive of all Christian conduct. He knew nothing of moral philosophy, if by this expression be meant the abstract principles of ethics. He left as he found them, the grounds of moral obligations, but he did not enforce virtue by a mere reference to our relations to God as creatures, but by a reference to our relation to Christ, as redeemed sinners. He fetched his motives to good works from the cross; he made the power of that to be felt, not only on the conscience, as supplying the means of pardon, but upon the heart, as furnishing the most cogent, and, at the same time, the most insinuating argument for sanctification: he not only irradiates the gloom of despondency, or melts the stubborn obstinacy of unbelief, or stays the reckless progress of despair, by inspiring a feeling of hope, no; but by the death of a crucified Saviour, and an exhibition of his most unbounded compassion, he attacks the vices of the depraved heart, and inculcates all the virtues of a renewed mind. The doctrine of the cross is the substance of Christian truth, and the great support of Christian morals; and the apostle's mind and heart were full of it. Does he enforce humility? It is thus: "Let the mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus." An unreserved devotedness to God? It is thus: "Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your body and with your spirit, which are his." Brotherly love? It is thus: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." A forgiving temper? It is thus: "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Benevolence to the poor? It is thus: "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be made rich."* And who but an apostle would have thought of enforcing conjugal affection by a reference to the love of Christ to his church? And he has done this; and has thus represented redeeming love as a kind of holy atmosphere, surrounding the Christian on all sides, accompanying him every where, sustaining his spiritual existence, the very element in which his religion lives, moves, and has its being. And this, indeed, is religion; not a name, not *Phil. ii. 5. 1 Cor. vi. 20. 1 John, iv. 10, 11. Ephes. iv. 32. 2 Cor. viii. 9. |