The Nicodemus cyclone. [volume] (Nicodemus, Graham County, Kan.) 1887-1888, 1888-01-27

uSeu at Ln6 time OF engagement and extra
ordinary circumstances where the promise is
not binding, but in nine hundred and ninety
nine cases out of a thousand engagement is
as binding as marriage.
ROBERT BURNS EXAMPLE
Robert Burns with all his faults we'll knew the
force OF marital engagement In obedience to
some rustic idea he, standing On one side Of
the brook AYR. and Mary Campbell on the
other, they bathed their hands in the water
and then put them on the boards of Bible,
making their pledge of fidelity. On the cover
OF the Old Testament of that book to this day
IN Robert Burns handwriting may be found
the words: 'Ieviticus, xix, -: 'Ye shall
not swear by my name falsely, | am the
Lord" And on the cover of the New Tesla
ment 1n his own handwriting: Matthew, v,
50! Thou shalt not forswear myself, but
shalt perform unto the Lord thine Oaths.' p"
suppose the ship captain offers his services
to take ship out to sea- After he gets lit
tie way he comes alongside of a vessel with a
more beautiful flag, and which has perhaps
richer cargo and is bound for more attract
i've port. Suppose he rings a bell for the en-
| Eineer to slow up and the wheel stops Now
| see the captain being lowered over the side
| OF the vessel into small boat and he crosses
| to the gayer and wealthier craft, and climbs
up the sides, and is seen walking the bridge
OF the other ship. | pick up his resigned
| speaking trumpet and | shout through it:
Captain, what does this mean! Did you not
| promise to take this ship to Southampton,
England?' 'Yes" SAYS the captain, but |
have changed my mind, and l have found l
can do better, and | am going to take charge
| here. | shall send back to you all the letters
l got while managing that ship and every
thing got from your ship, and it will be all
| right"
EsPoUsAL A GOLDEN GATE.
| You tell me that the worst fate for such a
| captain as that is too good for him. But it is
| just what man or woman does who promises
to take one through the voyage of life across
the ocean Of earthly existence and then
breaks the promise. The sending back of all
the letters and rings and necklaces and keep
sakes can not make 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 betrothal
is an act so solemn and tremendous that all
men and women must stand back from it IN
I'll they are sure that it is right, and sure that
1t Is best and sure that no retreat will be de-
slred. Before that promise of lifetime COM
panIOnship any amount of romance that you
wish, any ard0r of friendship, any coming aud
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
realm of frivoity and joke, aud considered
graph. 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 a word of unmistakable and thun-
derous protest on this subject of infinite i'm
pOrtance.
NO EXCUSE FOR MISTAKES.
We put clear out into thin pOeSV and light
reading the marital engagements of Petrarch
and his Laura, Dante and his Beatrice, Chau-
Ger aud his Philippa, Lorenzo de Medici aud
his Lucretia Spencer and his Rosalind, Waller
and his Saccharissa, not realizing that it was
the style of their engagement that decided
their happiness or WretChness, their virtue
or their profgacy. All the literary and mill
tary and religious glory of Queen Elizabeth's
reign can not blot out from one of the most
conspicuous pages of history her infamous
behavior toward Seymour and Philip and
Melville and Leicester aud others. All the
ecclesiastical robes that Dean Swift ever
rustled through cOnsecrated places can not
hide from intelligent people of all ages the
TACT that by promises of marriage which he
never fulfilled he broke the heart of Jane
Waring after an engagement of seven years,
and the heart of Stella after an engagement
OF fourteen years, and the poetic stanzas he
dedicated to their eXcellences only make the
more immortal his own peridy.
"But suppose l should make mistake"
says some man or woman, ''and | find it out
My answer is, you have no excuse for making
a mistake on this subject. There are so 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 right judgment in regard to
him or her, you are not so tit a 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 slatternlv, what
rn na1 hat tIac ri
noble or depraved, and if there be any UNI
solved mystery about the person under con-
sideratiOn, postpone all promise until the
mystery is solved.
A MOST MOAIENTOUs TINE.
jackson hollow, Brooklyn, was 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 onl | found out
afterward that the title to the land was in
controversy, and no one wanted to build there
until that question was decided. Afterward |
understood the title was settled, and now
buildings are going up all over it. Do not
build your happiness for this world on a char
acter, masculine or feminine, that has not a
settled and undisputed title to honor and
truth and sObriety and kindness and right
eOusness.
o, woman, you have more need to pause be-
fore making such an important promise than
man, because if you make mistake it is
worse for YOU If man blunder about pro-
mise OF marriage or go on 10 an unfortunate
marri re, he can spend his evenings away,
and can 90 TO the club or the republican 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 retreat for you, o.
woman and you could not take narcotics or
intoxicants and keep your responsibility
Before you promise pray and think
and study and advise. There will never
again in your earthly history be a time when
YOU so much need God
1t seems to me that the world ought to cast
out from business credits and from good
neighbOrh0Od those 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 woman and a woman win
lie to q man about so important a matter at
that Of a lifetime's welfare, they will lie abOus
a bill of goods and lie about finances and lie
about anything
TOO MANY FLIRTs NOW.
Society to-day is brim full of galants and
man milliners and carpet knights and
cOquettes aud those most GoifOrSaken of all
wretches, 1lirts. And they go about drawing
rooms and the parl0rs Of watering places
smpering aud bowling and scrapinc and
whispering, and then return to the club rooms
If they be men or 10 their special gatherings
If they be women, to chatter and giggle over
~ha+ - 4har,, -. 4