Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-02-01
" and kindne.s and rightaon.nes..

~ aud kindness and righteousness.
o woman, you have more need to pause
before making such an important promise
than man, because If you make mistake II
is worse for you. If a man blunder about
promise of marriage or 60 on to an uDfortu
nate marriage, he can spend his evenings
away, and can go to the club or the Repub
lican or Democratic headquarters, aud alb.
sorb his mind in city or State or national
elections. or make himself stupid or drink
himself drunk. But there is no place OF
regular retreat for you. o woman. aod you
could not take narcotics or intoxicants and
keep your respectablility. Before you prom
ise pray and think and study and advis
There will never again in your earthly u
history be time when you so much need
God.
It seems to me that the world ought to
cast out from business credits and from
good neighborhood tboss who boast of the
number of hearts they have won, as the
Indian boasts Of the number of scalps he
has taken. If. a man will lie to a woman
and woman will lie to a man about so i'm
portaut matter as that of lifstime's vel
fare. they will lie about bill of goods and
lie about fnauces and lie about anything.
Society to day is brimful Of gsllants and
| uldu mtulDeFb duu carpet kOi8utS auu CO
quettes and those most God. .fersakeu of all
wretches- -flirts. And they 60 about draw
ing rooms and the parlors of watering
places simpsring snd bowing and scrapinR
and whispering aud then return to the
club.roorns II they be men. or tn their ape.
cisl gatherings if they be women. to chatter
and giggle over what was said to them in
c o n fl d ence. Coudign punishment iC
| apt to come upon them and they getO
paid in their own coin. could point you
to a score whom society has let drop very
| hard in return for their bAss traffic in hu
man hearts. As TO such men they walk
around in their celibacy, after their hair is
streaked with gray, and pretending they
are naturally short-sighted when their eyes
are so old in sin that they need the spec-
taces of a septuagenariau. an eyeglass
about No s, and think they are bewitch
| ing in their stride and overpowering in
their glances. although they are simply
laughing stocks tor all mankind. And if
these base dealers in human hearts be
females, they are left after awhile severely
alone, striving in very desperation of
agony of cosmetics to get back to the at
tractiveness they had when they used to
brsg how many masculine affections they
had slaughtered. Forssken of God and
honest men and good women. are sure to
be all such masculine and female triflers
with human and yet immortal affections.
o man, o woman, b wing plighted your
troth. stick TO it'll
And here my idea widens and I have to
say not only to those who have made mis-
take in solemn promise of marriage, but co
those who have already at the altar been
pronounced one when they are two, or in
n f OF nd d 1isli
are neither one nor two, but dozen-make
the best you can of An awful mistake. And
here lot me answer letters that come from
every State of the American Union, and
from across the seq, and are coming year
after year from men and women who are
terrfically allianced and tied together in a
hard knot, very hard knot. The letters
rud something like this: ''What ought TO
do, my husband is a drunkard ?" MY
wife is a gadabout and will not stay at
home" my companion is ignorant and
hates books and revel in them" II like
music and piano sets my husband crazv."
''I am fond of social life and my companion
is recluse. 81 am trying to be good and
nv lifelong associate is very bad. What
shall do?'' Ny answer ia, there are GER
tain good reasons for divorcement. The
Bible recognizes them. Good society recog-
nizes them. But it must be the very last
resort, and only after all reasonable at
tempts at reclamation and adjustment have
proved dead failure. When such attempts
fail it is generally because of meddlesome
outsiders, and women tell the wronged wife
how she ought to stand on her rights, and
men tell the wropged husband how he
ought to stand on his rights. And let hus-
band and wife in an unhappy marriage re-
latiop stand punctiliously on their rights,
and there will be no readjustment, and only
one thing will be suIe to them and that is a
hell on earth.
If you are unhappily married. in most
cases advise you. make the best you can
of an awfully bad bargain. Do not project
your peculiarities more than is necessary
Perhaps YOU may have some faults of your
own which the other party in the marital
alliance may have to suffer. You are in
the same yoke. If you pull aside the yoke
will only twist your neck. Better pull
abe ID. The world is full. of people who
made mistakes about many things, aud
among other things about betrO,hal and
marriage, and yet have been tolersbly hap
py and very useful in the strength of God
and by the grace promised in every time OF
need if those who seek it conquer the dis
advantageous circu instances. l am &C.
quainted with lovely women married to
cuntemptible men and genial men yoked
with termagants inspired of the devil
And yet, under these disadvantages my
friends are useful and happy. God helps
people in other kinds of martyrdom and to
sing 10 the fame. and be will help you in
yonr lifelong misfortune.
Remember the patience of job What a
wife he had /! At time when he was one
| lOto Of
was destroyed by a tornado, and, more than
all, bereavement had come and the poor
man needed all wise counsel, she advises
him to go to cursipg and swearing. She
wanted him to poultice his boils with bias
phemy. But be lived right on through his
marital disadvantages, recovered his health
and his fortune and raised splendid fami-
", and the closing paragraph of the book
of Job has such jubilance that l wonder
people do not oftener read it:
| so the Lord blessed the latter end of
job more than his beginning. for he had
fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand
camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and
thousand she asses. He had also seven
sons and three daughters and he called
the name of the first Jernima, and the
name of the second Kezia, and the name of
the third Kerenhappuch. And in al the
| land were no women found so fair as the
daughters of Job and their father gave
them Inheritance among their brethren
| After this lived Job hundred and forty
years, and saw his sons and his sons sons,
even f"nr generations. So Job died, being
old and full Of days..
Now, my badly-married friend of either
sex. if job could stand it by the help of
God, then you can stand it bv the same d.
vine reinforcement. You have other re-
Iations, o woman, besides the wifely rela-
| tion. If yOu are mother, train up your
children for God and heaven. If you are a
member ut a church. help move on its enter
prises. You can get so much of the grace
of Gid in your heart that all YOUR home
trials will seem insignificant. How little
rce does ie make what your unrght-
eous husband calls you if God calls you his
child and you are an heiress of whole king
dnms beyond the skys
1mmerse yourself in some kind of outside
usefulness, somet thing that will enlist your
prayers. your sympathes, your hand, your
needle, your voice. Ges your heart on fire
with love To God and the diseuthrallnent of
! the human race, and the troubles of your
home will be blotted out in the glory of
your ccnsecrated life. cry out to you, o
woman, As Pau' exclaims in his letter to the
| 4 W. rrwntI IT.nrC Ht I IL -. r