Smyrna times., 1875-12-29
n ISc e//UR1 f OWS.
Secret of Staying Married.

want to tell story in which l have
tried TO open this great secret of staving
married, in the light that comes by the
time one Tets round to the silver wedding.
as my wife and | did, last April. 1t is
about Young man who set out to seek a
wife, and who found one, as all Young
men 10 who set out in dead earnest: and
when they were married he knew verv
little about her, and she knew very little
about him beyond this: That they were
both born of a good, honest stock, and
raised in a good, wholesome way; and
she had to go home with him and live with
that person our new satirists are girding at
Sc unfairly mother-in-law. And what
would come out of it? They had no
idea the whole future was as yet in the
shadow, except for the light of love that
was in their hearts; and when they came
to be alone in their chamber, they kneIt
down and prayed this prayer: "Merci-
fully or'lain that we may grow old to-
together
1t was one of those weddings for which
some people predict leisurely repentance
love at first sight, followed by brief
courtship-and then the minister. friends.
congratulations, tears, laughter, a supper,
which they eat no doubt looking slyly at
each other, and half wondering whether
it could be possible that they were really
husband and wife,. as the man had said,
as long as they both should live. They
were both quite young; they did not
know much of the world they had lived
in, and nothing at all of the world they
were entering. Could he hold his own as
bread-winner, and she as bread-maker?
Could he keep a house over her head,
and could she make it bright and trim as a
man loves to see when he comes home
tired and wants to rest? Would he turn
out selfish in his home, or selfforgetful?
or she frivolous gossip, or wife that he
could trust like his own right hand?
Would the sunshine break out in his face
as he enters his own door and met the sun
shine breaking out on hers? Or, would
he save all his snarls until he had shut the
door and sat down to supper, and she give
him back his own with usury? There it
all lay before them, the vast untrodlen
possibility leading to heaven or to hell by
the time they came to their silver we'd
ding. There was but one wish in their
hearts, come what would, resting there.
as the lark in the spring rests in my old
homeland among the wild thyme, and
then it scared as the lark scars in singing
into heaven; and this was the burden of
their song, Mercifully ordain that we
maysgrow old together"
But this most touching cry would be of
no use if it did not stand through all the
time to come at once as a safeguard and
an inspiration: safeguard against some
things that prevent us from growing old
together, and an inspiration to some that
help Us. 1t was a natural longing Just
They felt sure they had been made for
each other, and while they knew that time
must turn the raven to white, furrow the
brow, blanch the bloom, bend them down
with its burdens, and touch all their facul-
ties with its wintry frosts, if they should
live, still they wanted the good God to
deal them out an even measure, together
This seems to me to be the binding word
together then as now, in the autumn as
in the spring, in taking as in giving, until
the silver chord was loosed and they were
borne away not far apart to the life to
TO come.
But looking first at the most outward
thing Of all, there was danger, if they
did not take care, that their prayer would
not and could not be answered. They
might both grow old-that must be as God
ordained; and they might live together
while life should last--that must be as
they ordained; but this day might be, for
all that. the end Of their equality in age.
If he was one Of those men we have
known. whose body and soul are given over
to business, while she was one of those
women who take life easy and run no
risks. he might be broxen-down old man
with great fortune, while she was still
Young enough to enjoy it; or if he has
secret vice, such as keeping ice-water on
the sideboard and sample-room in the
closet, or any other of those subtle and
dangerous devils that are always watching
for a chance TO drag man down, while
she held her life sweet and true, then long
before their silver wedding he might be in
his grave or be ft for very little out of it,
an old man in n;d-age, feeling the warning
finger of paralysis in his shoulder, or
the bolts Of inhammatory rheumatism in