The Bossier banner., 1886-02-11

been cured by a truthful spouse, yet mar
rying as great as himself-Sapphira. Wit
ness John Wesley, one of the best men
that ever lived, united to one of the most
outrageous and scandalous of women, who
sat in City Road Chapel making mouths
at him while he preached. Witness the
once connubial wretchedness of John Rus
kin, the great art essayist, and Frederick
w. Robertson, the great preacher. Wit
ness thousand hells on earth kindled by
unworthy wives, termagants that scold
like March north easter; female spend
thrifts, that put their husbands into frau
dulent schemes to get money enough to
meet the Iavishment of domestic expendi-
ture; opium -eating women-about 4OO,000
of them in the United States-who will
have the drug though it should cause the
eternal damnation of the whole household; !;
heartless and overbearing, and namby-
pamby and unreasonable women, yet
married; married perhaps to good men.
These are the women who build the low
club-h houses, where the husbands and sons
go because they can't stand it at home. On
this sea Of matrimony, where so many have
wrecked, am not right in advising Divine
pilotage?
Especially is devout supplication needed
because of the fact that society is so full of
artifcialities that men are deceived as to
whom they are marrying, and no one but
the Lord knows. After the dressmaker,
and the milliner, and the jeweler, and the
hair adj juster, and the dancing master, and
the cosmetic art, have completed their
work, how is an unsophsticated man to
decipher the physiological hieroglyphics,
and to make accurate judgment Of who it
is to whom he offers hand and heart. That
is what makes so many recreant husbands.
They make an honorable marriage con-
tract, but the goods delivered are so differ
ent from the sample by which they bar
gained. They were simply swindled, and
they backed out. They mistook Jezebel
for Longfellow's Eyangeline, and Lucretia
Borgia for Martha Washington.
Aye: as the Indian chief boasts of the
scalps he has taken, so there are in society
to-day many coquettes who boast of the
| masculine hearts they have captured.
And these women, though they may
live amid richest upholstery, are not
so honorable as the cyprians of
the street, for these advertise their in
fanny, while the former profess heaven
while they mean hell. There is so much
| counterfeit womanhood abroad it is no
! wonder that some can not tell the genuine
| coin from the base. Do you not realizs
| you need Divine guidance when remind
| you that mistake is possible in this i'm
| portant affair, and, if made, is ire
vocable.
| There is in all the world some one who
was made for you, as certainly as Eve was
made for Adam. All sorts of mistakes oc-
| cur because Eve was made out of rib
from Adams side, Nobody knows which
of his ribs was taken for the nucleus. II
you depend entirely upon yourself in the
| selection of a wife. there are twenty three
possibilities to one that you will select the
wrong rib. BY the fate of Ahab, whose
wife induced him to steal: by the fate OF
Macbeth, whose wife pushed him into
! massacre; by the fate of James Ferguson
the philosopher, whose wife entered the
room while he was lecturing and willfully
upset his astronomical apparatus, so that
he turned to the audience and said LA
| dies and gentlemen, / have the misfortune
to be married to this woman;" by the
fate of Bulwer, the novelist, whose wife's
temper was so incompatible that he fur
nished her beautiful house near London
and withdrew from her company, leaving
her with the one dozen dogs whom she en-
tertained as pets; by the fate of John Mil
ton, who married termag gant after he wa.
blind, and when some one called her ross
the poet said: ST am no judge of colors
but it may be SO, for 1 feel the thorn!
daily" by the fate of an Engiishman
whose wife was so determined to dane.
on his grave that he was buried in the sea
by the fate of a village minister whom
knew, whose wife threw
cup of hot tea across the table because they
differed in sentiment-by all these scene
of disquietu6e and domestic calamity, w
implore you to be cautious and prayerfu
before you enter upon the connubial state
which decides whether a man shall hav
two heavens or two hells, a heaven her
and heaven forever, or hell now and
hell hereafter.
By the bliss of Pliny, whose wife, whel
her husband was pleading in court, ha
messengers coming and going to inform
her what impression he was making; b,
| the joy of Grotius, whose wife delvere,
him from prison under the pretense of hav
ing books carried out lest they be iniuriou
to his health, she sending out her husban'
unobserved in one of the bookcases; by tn
good fortune of Roland, in Louis time
whose wife translated and composed fo
her husband, while Secretary of the Int
rior-talented, heroic, wonderful Nine. Ro
land; by the happiness of many a ma
who has made intelligent choice of one ca
pable of being prime counselor and com
panion in brightness and in grief-pray t
Almighty God, morning, noon and night
that at the right time and in the right wa
he will send you good, honest, loving
sympathetic wife; OF if she is not sent t
you, that you may be sent to her.
II you have this prayful spirit you vii
surely avoid all female scoffers at tn
Christian religion: aud there are quite
number OF them in all communities
1t must be told that, though th
| only influence that keeps woma
from being e,timated and treate
as slave aye, as brut
and beast of BURDENS Christianity
since where it is not dominant she is S
treated, yet there are women who will 8