The Russellville Democrat., 1888-01-26
w,ll ,orshov eet me ap and take me

village on the sea coast and insisted on paving ten dollars to the church, although he did not attend himself. When asked his reason, he said he had been in the habit of carrying cargoes of oysters and clans from that place, and he found since that church was built the people were more honest than they used to be, Tor before the church was built he often found the load when he came to count it a thousand clans short. Yes, godliness is profitable for both worlds. Most of the great, honest, permanent worldly successes are by those who reverence God and the Bible. But what I do say is that if man have nothing but social position and financial resources, a woman who puts her happi- ness bv marriage in his hand, re -enacts the folly of Abigail when she accepted disagreeable Naba., 'whose possessions were in Carmel, and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep audi one thousand goats"
 If tlTyre be good moral character, ac- companied by aiiiuent circumstances, I congratulate you. If not, let the morn ing lark fly clear of the Rocky Mountain eagle. The sacrifice of woman on the altar of social and financial expectation is cruel and stupendous. I sketch you scene you have more than once wit nessed:
 A comfortable home. with nothing more than ordinary surroundings, but an at- tractive daughter carefully and Chris tianly reared. From the out side world comes in man with nothing but money-unless you count profanity, and selfshness, and fond ness for champagne. and general reckless ness as q part of his possessions. He has his coat collar turned mp when there is no chill in the air, but because it gives him an air of abandon; and eye- glass, not be- couse he is near-sighted, but because it gives a classical appearance; and with an attire somewhat loud, cane thick enough to be the club Of Hercules and clutched at the naiddle, his conversa- ton interlarded with French phrases in- accurately pronounced, and q sweep of manner indicating that he was not born like most folks, but terrestrially landed. By arts learned of the devil hs insinuates himself into the affections of the daughter of that Christian home. All the kindred congratulate her on the almost supernatural prospects. Reports come in that the young man is fast in his habits; that he has broken several young hearts, and that he is mean and selfish and cruel. But all this is covered up with the fact that he has several houses in his own name. and has large deposits at the bank, and, more than all has a father worth many undred thousand dollars and very feeble in health, and may any day drop off, and this is the only son, and q round dollar held close to one's eye is large enough to shut out a great desert, and how much more will several bushels of dollars shut outt
 The marriage day comes and goes. The wedding ring was costly enough, and the orange blossoms fragrant enough, and the benedi ction solemn enough, and the wedding march stirring enough. And the audience shed tears of sympathetic glad ness, supposing that the craft containing the two has sailed off on placid lake, although God knows that they are launched on a dead sea, it's waters brack- ish with tears, and ghastly with faces of despair hoa ting to the sur face and then going down. There they are, the newly married pair in their new home. He turns out to be tyrant. Her will is nothing, his will every thing. Lavish of money for his own pleasure, he begrudges her the pennies he pinches out into her trembling palm. Instead of the kind words she left behind in her former home, now there are complaints, and fault-findings and curses. He IS the mas- 5 ter and she the slave. The worst villain on earth is the man who, having captured a woman from her fathers house, and after the oath of the marriage altar has been pronounced, says, by his manner, if not in words: q have you now in my power. What can you dc? My arm is stronger than yours. My voice is louder than yours. My fortune Is greater than yours. My name is mghtier like a dog. Now crawl away from me like q reptile. You are nothing but a woman, anyhow. Down, you miserable wretchp' Can halls of mosaic, can long lines of Etruscan bronze. or statuary by Palmer, and Powers, and Crawford, and Chantry, and Canova; can galleries rich from the pencil of Bierstadt, and Church, and Ken set, and Cole, and Cropsey; could yiolns played on by an Ole Bull, or pianos fin- gersd by Gottschalk, or solos warbled by a Sontag; could wardrobss like that of Marie Antoinette could jewels like those of a Eugonie make wife in such a companionship happy?
 . lets are the chains of lifelong servitude. There is sword over her every feast, not like that of Damocles sta ying suspended, but dropping through her lacerated heart. Her wardrobe is full of shrouds for deaths which she dies daily and she is buried alive, though buried under gorgeous upholstery. There is one word that sounds under the arches, and rolls along the corridors, and weeps in the falling fountains, and echoes in the shut ting of every door, and groans in every note of stringed and wind instrument: ''Woel Woew The oxen and sheep in olden time brought to the temple of Jupi- ter to be sacrificed used to be covered with ribbons and flowers, ribbons on the horns and flowers on the neck. But the floral and ribboned decorations did not make the stab of the butcher's knife less deathful, and all the chandeliers you hang over such woman, and all the robes with which you enwrap her, and all the the ribbons with which you adorn her, and all the bewitching charms with which you embark her footsteps, are the ribbons and flowers of @ horrible butchery.
 As ifto show how wretched a good wom- an may be in splended surroundings, we have two recent illustrations, two ducal palaces in Great Britain. They are the focus of the best things that are possible in art, in literature, in architecture, the accumulation of other estates until their wealth is beyond calculatio and their grandeur beyond description. One of the castles has a cabinet set with gems that cost S2,500, 900, and the walls of it bloom with Rembrandts and Ciaudes and Pous- sins and Guidos and Raphaels, and there are Southdown focks in summer grazing on it's lawns and Arab steeds prnncIng at thedoorways on tho first open day at Inc kennels" From the one castle tEe Duchess has removed with her children because she can no longer endure the orgies of her husband, the Duke, and in the other castle the Duchesss remains con- fronted by insults and abomnations in the presence of which do not think God or decent society requires a good woman to remain. Alas for these ducal country