may add, that in these irritating encounters, deeds of the worst kind have ofter had their beginning. Whatever, therefore, you forget, let me conjure both of you to remember the mischief of frivolous disputes.

After all your care, perhaps, some occasional effects of your respective weaknesses will occur. Yet it is not a few eruptions of this sort that will throw you back in the cultivation of good nature, if you can learn to make due allowance for constitutional infirmity in each other. Attend, therefore, to this plain lesson. It will have its advantage in suppressing an unhappy temper in many instances. Where there is a readiness to make this wise and humane allowance, the heart will be no more alienated by a little sally of temper, than by a fit of epilepsy. The paroxysm, in either case, will call forth the compassion of the spectator.

Be it remembered, however, that we

must not be called upon too frequently for this allowance; and that it will hardly ever be granted, unless the tenor of life be such as forbids a severe construction of an occasional failure. It is indeed the tenor of life that preserves or destroys affection. It is not a few brilliant expressions of love, in the midst of constant unkindness, that will make us enjoy the marriage union; nor is it a few deviations from the line of duty that will render it unpleasant, while the general course of life is expressive of kindness and unquestionable affection. Make a point, therefore, of disciplining your own temper; and be assured that by so doing, the connection which you have formed will be more than tolerable: it will be pleasing. The recollection of it at some period distant from its commencement, will be grateful; notwithstanding there may some things occur to you, in this retrospect, which you I will wish had been otherwise.

Let me entreat you to bestow all the

pains on this point which it may require. What equivalent can be found for good nature? Let the husband be sober and industrious; let the wife be chaste and frugal: by these virtues you may be preserved from some of the miseries which wait on profligacy and extravagance; but while you escape these, what will your house be without good nature? Not a home! By a home, we understand a place in which the mind can settle; where it is too much at ease to be inclined to rove: a refuge to which we flee in the expectation of finding those calm pleasures, those soothing kindnesses, which are the sweetness of life.

All the admonitions, therefore, that I might detail on the article of temper, may be comprised in this short precept: Endeavor to make your house a home to each other. Absence will then be no gratification to either party. By the husband's attending to this precept, his return will be welcomed by those whom he left at home.

By the wife's observance of this maxim, the husband will return with a pleasure equal to that with which he is received. "The heart of her husband will safely trust in her." Over the door of his house he will see written, "SACRED TO PEACE;" and thither, in the assurance of enjoying that repose he cannot find in the world, he will hasten from its toils and vexations.

CHAPTER III.

Influence of Christian piety on the Happiness of Mar ried Life.-Conduct which the Holy Scriptures require in Married Persons towards each other.

I HAVE reserved the important subject now to be introduced, for the latter part of my address; for I wish above all things to leave the impression of this on your minds at our parting.

Whatever be our situation, there is one thing indispensably necessary to our enjoyment of the happiness it is capable of yielding: we must endeavor to acquit ourselves as the servants of God in that situation. Thereby we obtain his blessing in it; without which, no condition can long be either safe or comfortable. Let the situation be social or commercial; let it promise little or much; let the government of