News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-02-09

that right which is in the sight of
God, and ought to be in the sight of man,
an everlasting wrong. What American
society needs to be taught is that bethrothal
is an act so solemn and tremendous that all
men and women must stand back tromi it
until they are sure that it is right, and
sure that it is best, and sure that
no retreat will be desired. Before that
promise of lifetime companionship any
amount of romance that you wish, any
ardor of friendship. any coming and going.
But espousal is gate, a golden gate, which
one should not pass. unless he or she expects
never to return. Engagement is the porch
Of which marriage is the castle, and you have
no right in the porch if you do not mean to
pass into the castle.
The trouble has always been that this
whole subject of alliance has been relegated
to the realms OF frivolity and joke, and con-
sidered not worth a sermon or even a serious
paragraph. And so the massacre of human
lives has gone on and the devil has had it his
own cruel way, and what is nightly needed
is that pulpit and platform and printing
press all speak word of unmistakable and
thunderous protest on this subject of in
finite Importance. We put clear out into thin
peCsy and light reading the marital engage
meI1GS Of Petrarch and his Laura, Dante and
his Beatrice, Chaucer and his Philippa,
Lorenzo de Medici and his Lucretia, Spenser
and his ROsalind, Waller and his Saochar
issa, not realizing that it was the STYLE of
their engagement that decided their happi.
ness or wretChedneSS. their virtue or their
prohigacy. All the literary and military
and religious glory of Queen Elizabeth's
reign cannot blot out from one of the
most conspicuous pages of history her in
famous behavior toward Seymour and
Philip and Melville and Leicester and
others. All the ecclesiastical robes that Dean
Swift ever ruSted through consecrated
places cannot hide from intelligent p ople of
all ages the fact that by promises of mar
which hn la tba
heart of Jane Warin5 after an engagement
or seven years and the heart of Stella after
an engagement of fourteen years, and the
poetic stanzas he dedicated to their excel
lences only make the more immortal his own
rerfidY.
But suppose I should make a mistake
says some man or woman, ''and 1 find it out
after the engagement and before the mar
riage!" My answer is, You have no excuse
for making mistake on this subject. There
are many ways of finding out all about the
character and preferences and dislikes and
habits of man or woman, that if you have
not brain enough to form a right Judgment
in regard to him or her, you are not SO fit q
candidate for the matrimonial altar as you
are for an idiot asylum. Notice what society
your especial friend prefers, whether he is
industrious or lazy, whether she is neat or
S'atternly, what books are read what was
the style of ancestry, noble or depraved, and
if there be any unsolved mystery about the
person under consideration postpone all
promise until the mystery is solved
Jackson's Hollow, Brooklyn, was a part of
the city not built on for many years, and
every time | crossed it | said to myself or to
others, why is not this land built on? |
found out afterward that the title to the
land was in controversy and no one wanted
to build there until that question was de-
cided. Afterwari l understood the title was
settled, and now buildings are going up all
over it. Do not build your happiness for this
world on a character, masculine or feminiue,
that has not a settled and undisputed title to
honor and truth, and sobriety and kindness
and Righteousness.
Oh, woman, you have more need to pause
before making such an important promise
than man, because if yOu make q mistake it
Is worse for you. If a man blunder about
promise of marriage, or go on to an unfortu-
nate marriage, he can spend his evenings
away, and can go to the club or the Republi
can or Democratic headquarters, and absorb
his mind in city or State or national elections
or smoke himself stupid, or drink himself
drunk. But there is no place Of regular re-
treat for you, oh woman, and you could not
take narcotics or intoxicants and keep your
respectability. Before you promise, pray
and think and study ami advise. There will
mover again in your earthly history be q
time when you SO much need God.
1t seems to me that the world ought to
cast out from business credits and from good
neighbOrhOOds those VINO boast Of the number
of hearts they have won. as the Indian
boasts of the number of ScalpS he has taken.
If man will lie to a woman and woman
will lie to man about 50 important mat
ter as that of lifetime'S welfare, they will
lie about bill of goods and lie about finances
and lie about anything. Society to-day is
brimful of galiantS, and man milliners and
carpet knights, aud coluettes and those most
God fOrsaken of all wretches-hrts. And
they go about drawing rooms and the parlors
of watering places, simpering and bowiug,
and scraping and whispering, and then re-
turn to the club rooms if they be men, or to
their special gatherings if they be women, to
chatter and giggle over what was said to
them in confidence. Con1ign punishment is
AIT to come upon them, and they get paid in
their own coin. l could point you to a score
whom society has let drop very hard in re-
turn for their base traffic in human 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 tat they need the spectacles of a sep,
tuagenarian, an eyeglaSS about No. s, and
think they are hewitchng in their stride and
OverpOwerng in their glances, although they
are simply lau ching stocks for all mankind.
And if these base dealers in human hearts be
females, they are left after a while severely
a one, striving i'll very desperation and
agony of cosmetics to get back to the at
tractiveness they had when they used to brag
how many masculine affections they had
slaughtered. ForSaken of God and honesJ
men and good women are sure to be all such
masculine and female trifiers with human
and yet immortal affections. Oh man, oh
woman, having pIghted your troth, stick
to it
And here my idea widens, and have to
say not only to those who have made a mis-
take in solemn promise of marriage, but to
those who have already at the altar been pro-
nOunced one when they are two, or i'll diver
tv of tastes and likes and dislikes are
neither one nor two but a dozen-make the
best you can of an awful mistake And here
let me answer letters that come from every
State of the American Union, and from
across the sea, and are coming year aft
year from men AMI women who are terrifi =
ally alianced and tied tOg tber in a hard
knot a very hard knot. The letters run
something like this: ''What ought | to do.
my husband is a drunkard. > My vile is
gad-about and will not stay at home
MY companion is ignorant and hates books
and ] revel in them Il Ike music and
piano sets my husband crazy" II am fonC
of social life and my companion IS recuse.
Il am trying to be gool and my lifelong as
sociate is very bad What shall l doF My
answer is, there are certain good reasons Tor
enforcement. The Bible recognizes them.
Good society recognizes them. But 1T must
be the very last resort and only after al
reasonable attempts at reclamation and ad-
iustment have proved a 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 wronged husband
how he ought to stand on his rights. And
let husband and wife in an unhappy mar
riage relation stand punctiliously on Their
rights. and there will be no readlustment,
and only one thing will be sure to them, and
that is hell on earth.
If YOU are unhappily married, in most
poS | make the
of an awfuIly bad bargain. Do not project
your peculiarities more than is necessary.
Perhaps You NAV have some faults of your
own whi' the other party i'll the marital al
lance may have to suffer. You are in the
same yoke. If you pull aside the yoke will
only twist your neck. Better pull ahead.
The world is full of people who made mis-
takes about many things, and among
other things about betrothal and mar
riage, and yet have been tolerably
happy and very useful. In the strength
of God, and by the grace promised
in every time of need for those who seek 1t,
conquer the diSadvantageOus circumstances;
| am acquainted with lovely women married
to contemplate 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 IN the
name, and he will help you in your lifelong
misfortune.
Remember the patience of Job. What
wife he had! At time when he was one
great blotch of eruptiOns and his properly
was destroyed by a tornado, and, more than
all, bereavement ha come and the poor man
needed all wise counsel she advises MN 10
go to curSinG and swearing. Shs wdhucu
him to poutice his boils with baspheiny;
But he lived right on through his mariIaI
disadvantages. recovered his health and for
+rua oD1 roiSad a sOlenli1 family, and the