The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-17

juncture Witness Samson and this woman Of
Timnath. Witness Socrates, Decked of the his
torical Xantippe. Witness Job, whose wife had
nothing to prescribe for his carbuncies but allo-
pathic doses of profanity. Witness Anannias, a
liar who might perhaps have been cured by a
truthful spouse, yet marrying as great a liar as
himsef-Sapphira Witness 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 Ruskin, the great art essayist, and Freder-
lex w. Robertson, the great preacher. Witness
a thousand bells kindled on earth by unworthy
wives, termagants that scold like a March north
easter; female spendthrifts, that put their hus
bands into fraudulent schemes to get money
enough to meet the lavishment of domestic
expenditure; opium eating women-about
100000 Of them in the United States
who will have the drug though it should cause
the eternal damnation of the whole household;
heartless and oyerbearing. and Mandy PANTY
and unreasonable women, yet married, married,
perhaps, to good men. These are the women
who build the low clubhouses, where the hus-
bands and sons 60 because they can't stand it at
home On this sea of matriuony, where so many
have wrecked. am not right in advising Divine
pilotage?
Especially is devout duplication needed, be-
cause of the fact that society is so full of artii
are marrying. and no one but the Lord knows.
After the dress maker, and the milliner. and the
Jeweler. and the hair-adjuster, and the
dancing-master. and the cosmetic art have COM
pleted their work how is an unsophisticated man
to decipher the physiological hieroglyphics and
make accurate judgment of who it is to whom he
offers hand and hearth That is what makes so
many recreant husbands. They make an honor
able marriage contract. but the goods delivered
are so different from the sample by which they
they backed out They mistook Jezebel for
Longfellow's Evangeline. and Lucretia Borgia
for Martha Washington
Aye, as the Indian chief boasts of the scalps he
has taken, so there are in society 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 hon.
orable as the cyprians of the street. for these
advertise their infamy; while the former profess
heaven they mean hell There is so much coun-
terfeit womanhood abroad it is no wonder that
some cannot tell the genuine coin from the base.
DO you not realize you need divine guidance
when remind you that mistake is possible in this
important affair, and. if made, is irrevocables
The worst predicament possible is to be I'M
happily yoked together. You see it is impossi-
BILE to break the yoke. The more you pull apart
the more CALLING the yoke. The minister might
bring you up again, and in your presence read
the marriage ceremony backward; might put
you on the opposite side OF the altar from where
you were when you were united; might take the
ring off of the finger; might rend the wedding
veil asunder; might tear out the marriage-leaf
from the family Bible record but all that would
fail to unmarry you. 1t is better not to make
the mistake than to attenlpt its correction.
But men and women do not reveal all their
how are you to avoid making the fatal
blunder2 There is only one Being in the uni
verse who can tell you whom to choose, and that
is the Lord Of Paradise. He made Eve for
Adam. and Adam for Eve, and both for each
other Adam mad not q large group OF women
from whom to select his wife. but it is fortunate,
judging from some mistakes which she afterward
made. that it was Eve or nothing
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 occur be-
cause Eve was made out of rib from Adams
side Nobody knows which of the twenty
four ribs was taken for the nucleus If you
depend entirely upon yourself in the selection
bilities to one that you will select the
wrong rib. By the fate of Ahab, whose wife in
duced 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 willfuly 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 oe Bulwer,
the novelist, whose wife's temper was so incom
d
near London, and withdrew from her company,
leaving her with the one dozen dogs whom
she entertained as pets: by the fate of John
Milton, who married a termagant after he was
blind, and when some one called her rose, the
poet said. II am no judge of colors, but it may
be so, for feel the thorns daily" by the fate of
an Englishman whose wife was 80 determined
to dance on his grave that he was buried in the
sea, by the fate of a village minister whom
knew whose wife threw a cup of hot tea across the
table because they differed in sentiment-by all
these scenes of disquietude and domestic calam
ity we implore you to be cautious and prayerful
before you enter upon the connubial state, which
decides whether man shall have two heavens or
two hells, a heaven here and heaven forever, or
hell now and a hell hereafter.
BY the bliss of Pliny, whose wife, when her
husband was pleading in court, had messengers
coming and going to inform her what impression
he was making; by the Joy of Grotius whose
wife delivered him from prison under the pre-
tense of having books carried out lest they be
injurious to his health, she sending out her
husband unobserved in one of the book cases:
by the good fortune of Roland, in Louiss time,
whose wife translated and composed for her
husband. while Secretary Of the Interior-tal
ented, heroic. wonderful Madame Roland by
the happiness of many man who has made
intelligent choice of one capable of being prime
counselor and companion in brightness and in
grief-pray to Almighty God, morning, noon
and night, that at the right time, and in the
right way, He will send you good, honest, low
ing sympathetic wife; if she is not sent to
You. that you may be sent to her.
At this point let me warn you not to let
question of this Importance be settled by the
celebrated match makers in almost every com
munity. Depend upon your own judgment
dvnely illumned. These brokers in matri-
money are ever planning how they can unite i'm
pecunious innocence to an heiress or celibate
woman to millionaire or marquis, and that in
many cases makes life an unhappiness How
can any human being, who knows neither of the
two parties as God knows them. and who is ig-
norant of the future, give such direction as you
require at sucha crisis. Take the advice OF the
earthly match maker instead of the divine guild
ance, and you may some day be led to use the
words of Solomon, whose experience in home
life was as melancholy as it was multitudinous
One day his palace, with its great wide rooms
and great wide doors, and great wide hail. was
too small for hin, and the loud tongue of wom-
an belaboring him about some Of his negects,
and he reiterated to the house-to to get relief
from the lingual bombardment And while