Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-08-05
Talmage on Flirting.

Ia recent sermon in the Brooklyn tab
enacle, the celebrated DR.. Talmage said
81 shall this morning take it for granted
that your marriage is all right, and shall
90 on and advise you how to treat your
wife. My ambition is 10 tell you more
| plain truth than YOU have ever heard in
any three quarters of an hour in all your
| life. And first of all | charge you to real
ize the responsibility OF having taken her
away from the custody of her loving par
ents and from the homestead in which
she was sheltered. 1t is amazing that any
of Us have the subiimitv OF impudence to
ask such a transfer to a home that is not
yet constructed. How ought you to treat
her? My brother. you ought to treat her
well; you ought to treat her better than
any one in the universe, excepting God
Almighty. Her name should sound sweet
er than music to YOU, and her eyes,
though swollen with watching child sick
with the scarlet fever. should be brighter
to you than May morning. She has a
first mortgage on you. body. mind and
soul. Now, why don't you pay YOUR
debtse You believe in the force of con-
tract. If you promised kindness and
iaithfulness and have not fulfilled these
promises. then you have fraudulently in
duced one into conjugal partnership, and
should be Imprisoned tor obtaining goods
under false pretences and should be mulct-
ed for large amount OF damages. Oh,
fulfill your contracts! Men OF business
have lots of contracts, ami sometimes they
take them and read what the party of the
first part and the party of the second part
agree to do. Have you forgotten YOUR
contract? Then you had better take, buy
or borrow an Episcopal prayer book, and
read the marriage contract. The mar
riage relation is more sacred after bap-
tism of tears-tears over the lost, over
the grave.
before marriage when you came into the
were house you As full OF smiles and polite
ness as peach orchard in blossom week.
Now YOU come into the house and saw
I've lost money to-day You sit down
at the table, criticising the food, and snatch
up tae evening newspaper. The children
are awed at the domestic autocrat. Though
filled with healthful curiosity, they must
ask no questions :the wife r as au annoy-
ance in the kitchen until her nerves are
like spikes. My brother. you have no
appreciation of the tact that your children
will De soon grown up or in cemeteries
and you will have no opportunity to in
tiueuce them; the house in which you live
will go into other hands and you YOUR
self will be gone. Marriage is a bargain.
In some lands people purchase their wives
with cattle and sheep. 10 our land mar
rage is an atfectionate bargain in which a
man promises protection, support, COM
partnership and love. Are you fulfilling
all tina, bargain? will tell you what YOU
all know. Some men show more respect
to other wives than their own, and many
man there is who allows his wife to
carry scuttle of coal up stairs who will
clear room with one bound to pick up
another lady's pobket handkerchief.
Filtration is devilish. Why don't you put
1t in the bond, you domestic Shylock? WHY
don't you have it understood before Won
are pronounced husband and wife? A
married man who indulges in Irritation is
either fraud or rake. I care not how