The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-05-31
Beecher on Early Marriages.

life. do young men need the inspiration
of virtuous love, and the sympathy of
companion in their self-denying toll, as
when they first enter the battle for their
own support Early marriages IRE per-
mancnt moraltics, and deferred marriages
are temptations to wickedness. And yet
every year it becomes more and more
difficult, concurrent with the reigning
ideas of society, for young men to enter
upon that matrimonial state which is the
proper guard of their virtue, as well as
the source of their courage and enter
prise. The battle of life is almost always
at the beginning. There it is that man
needs wedlock. But "a wicked and ridc-
ulous public sentiment puts man who is
in society, out of it, for that matter, large
y on the ground of condition, and not Of
disposition and character. The man that
has means wherewith he can visibly live
amply is in good society, as "a general
rule. The man that has virtue and ster-
ling manliness, but has nothing withal
external to show, is not usually consider
ed good society. Ambitious young men
will not, therefore, marry until they can
meet their expenses; but that is deierr-
ing for years and years the indispensable
virtue. Society is bad where two cannot
live cheaper than one and young men
are under very bad influences who, when
in the very morning Of life, and better
fitted than at any later period to grow
together with one who is their equal and
mate are debarred from marrying, through
scores Of years, from mere prudential
considerations, and the heart and life are
sacrificed to the pocket. They are tempt
ed to substitute ambition for love, when
at last, over the ashes and expiring en-
bers of their early romance, they select
their wife. 1t is said that men who wait
till they are forty or forty-fvc years Of
age select prudently. Alas for the wife
who was not first sweetheart Pru-
dencc is good, but is prudence servant or
queen?
Prudence is good, but what is pru-
dence? 1t is the dry calculation of the
head leagued with the pocket Is there
no prudence in taste, nor prudence in the
aspiration Of generous love? Is there
no prudence in the faith by which, band
ed, two young persons to 90 down into
the struggle of life, saying, " Come veal,
come woe, come storm, come calm love
is a match for circumstances, and we will
be all in all to each other !" Woe be to
that society in which the manners and
customs of the times extend beyond the
period of romance and affection of the
wedding You have adjourned it ont of
Eden into the wilderness. The girl, next
infected (and even women falD with the
public spirit, too often waits to be wooed
by those who can place her again. in the
very beginning of her welded life, where
she was when she was broken off as
branch from the parental tree. But 4
graft should always be willing to he
graft, and wait till it can make its own
top by legitimate growing And woe is
the day when every girl says" will
not marry until my husband in the begin
ming hos mnch as my father has at the
end of his life" For shc-who is she ?
Who was it that Jupiter won in Il shower
of gold Whoever it was, that is the
type She whose heart is wen by abun-
dance she who is bought into matrimo-
ny by house and land She who marries
for gentcel wcalth-she it is that Jupiter
seduced by gold For all wcdlock is
adultcrous in which it is not the heart that
inspires marriage. Noble is that young
spirit, which, seeing and choosing, and
silently biding her choice, is won and
chosen, and giving herself freely, roman
tically, if you WILL God be thanked for
the romance) goes down to her husbands
nothingness and poverty, that he and She
may, with willing hands, from the bottom
build up their estate. Blessed is the wo-
man who sees that in going down sic is
going up, and that it is the losing Of life
that saves it, Blessed is the woman who
carries with her into married life all that
she learned in the refinement Of her faith
er's family; who proves that she is wo-
man in this that gentleness and praise
and abundance, and luxury even, minis
tered to the better parts of her nature,
and prepared her to 90 forth and minister
earnestly and permanently in the midst
of difficulties. Thousands there are now
who, when once they are called, and know
their master love, 90 chceriully out with
the young man, and take part and lot
with him. Oh, that young men would
trust them more and prove them better
and see if it is not so. How noble thing
it is to see the cultured, the polished, and
the refined, 90 down to the very begin
ming of things, led by love, fed by love,
and at last rewarded by love.
Live together alone, if you have to 90
into the desert for it and feed on the
herbs Abhor Sodom and Gomorrah--
or boarding houses, Men sometimes
speak of the meagor and pinched fare.
These are unworthy Of notice. 1t is not
these 1t is that men learn sclt-indul-
gence there. Men learn there not to be
householders. And all that various dis
cipline, all that ministration of care, and
all that drill of contrvance, all social in
dependence, all that subtle atmosphere
indescribable and unanal yzable, which be-
longs to the solitary household they miss.
No man and woman can make husband
and wife, father and mother, and house
holders on the pattern of their fathers, who
begin and continue their married life in
this hot-bed style of existence. And yet
they are unwilling to take the house they
fain would live in, because furni,re is 50
dear, and virtue is cheap because socie.
ty requires certain amount of appear
ance, you know because it would not dc
to 90 to the outskirts Of the town. A
log cabin is better for young married
people than the Fifth Avenue Hotel would
be, if they had the whole of it for moth
ing What you get for nothing is least
valuable to you of anything. What You
earn is all value. Under these influences
the whole of lie is written in the wrong
/. key. Men having started on the false