St. Landry democrat., 1886-01-23

prayer before they decided upon
matrimonial association, people
laughed. And some Of them have lived to
laugh ON the other side of their mouth.
The need of Divine direction I argue from
the fact that so many men, and some of
them strong and wise, have wrecked their
lives at this juncture. Witness Samson
and this woman of Timnath. Witness
Socrates, pecked of the historical Kan
tippe. Witness Job, whose wife had moth
ing to prescribe for his carbuncles but ailo-
pathic doses of profanity. Witness
Ananias, liar, who might perhaps have
been cured by 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. W.T.
ness thousand bells on earth kindled by
unworthy wives, termagants that scold
like March northeastern; female spend
thrifts, that put their husbands into frau
dulent schemes to get money enough to
meet the lavishment of domestic expendi-
ture; opium eating women-about 400,OO0
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 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 duplication needed
because of the fact that society is so full of
artificialities 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 adiuster, and the dancing master, and
the cosmetic art, have completed their
work, how is an unsophisticated 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
emit from the sample by which they bar
gained. They were simply swindled, and
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 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 realize
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. If
you depend entirely upon yourself in the
selection of 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,
-; mil
room while he was 1ecturing 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 termagant after he was
blind, and when some one called her rose
the poet said: 81 am no Judge of colors,
but it may be so, for I feel the thorns
daily" by the fate of an Englishman,
whose wife was SO determined to dance
on his grave that he was buried in the sea;
by the fate of 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 calamity, 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 bells, 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 pretense of hav-