Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1902-05-01

| ago, When Martin Farqu har upper, the
English poet, urged men to prayer before
they decided upon matrim onial 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
wrecked their lives at this juncture. Wit
ness Samson and this woman of Timnath!
| Witness Socrates, pecked of the historical
Aantippe! Witness Job, whose wife had
| nothing to prescribe for his carbuncles
| but allopathic doses of profanity! Witness
Ananias, liar, who might perhaps have
been cured by q truthful spouse, yet mar
| ryiag as great liar as himself-Sapphira!
Witness 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! Wit
Joan Ruskin, the great art essayist, and
Frederick w. Robertson, the great preach
er. Witness a thousand hells on earth
klndled by unworthy wives, termagants
that scold like March northeastern; fe-
male spendthrlfts, that put their hus-
bands into fraudulent schemes to get
money enough to meet the lavishment of
| domestic expenditure; opium using wo-
men-about four thousand of them in the
| United States-who will have the drug,
though it should cause the eternal damna-
ton of the whole household; heartless and
overbearlng, and namby- -pamby and un-
reasonable women, yet married-married
perhaps to good men! These are the wo-
men who build the low club houses, where
the. husbands and sons go because they
can't stand it at home. On this sea Of
matrlmony, where SO many have wrecked
an l not right in advising divine pilotage?
Especially is devout supplication needed
! because of the fact that society is so full
of artifcialities that men are deceived as
! to whom they are marrying, and one
| but the Lord knows. After the dress
maker, and the milliner, and the jewe,er,
and the hair-adjuster, and the dancing
master,s and the cosmetic art have com
p,eted their work, how is an unsophisti-
Gated man to decipher the physiological
hieroglyphics, and make accurate judg-
ment of who it is to whom he offers hand
and heart? That is what makes so many
able marriage contract, but the goods de-
| llvered are so different from the sample
by which they bargained. They were
swindled, and they backed out. They
mistook Jezebel for Longfellow's Evange.
llne,, and Lucretia Borgia for Martha
! Washington.
Aye, as the Indian chief boasts of the
scalps he has taken, so there are in society
to-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 cypriaans Of the street, for. these
advertise their infamy, while the former
profess heaven while they mean he'll.
There IS SO much counterfeit woman
! hood abroad it is no wonder that some
cannot tell the genuine coin from the base
DO you; not realize you need divine guild
ance when remind you that mistake is
possible in this important affair, and, if
| made is irrevOca hle9
The worst predicament possible is to be
unhappliy yoked together. You see it is
impossible to break the yoke The more
You pull apart, the more CALLING the yoke.
Inc m minister might bring you, up again,
and and In your presence read the mar
rlage ceremony backward, might put you
on the opposite sides of the altar from
| where you were when you were united
might take the ring off of the finger, might
rend the wedding veil asunder, might tear
out the marriage leaf from the family Bible
record, but that would fail to unmarry
you. It is better not to make the mis-
| take than to attempt its correction. But
men and women do not reveal all their
! characteristics till after marriage, and
| how are you to avoid committing the fatal
blunder? There is only one Being in the
universe who can tell you whom to choose,
| and that is the Lord of Paradise. He
made Eve for Adam, and Adam for Eve,
and both for each other. Adam had not
2 large group of women from whom to
select his wife, but it is fortunate, judg-
ing from some mistakes which she after
| ward made, that it was Eve or nothing.
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
occur because Eve was made out of rib
from Adams side. Nobody knows which
of his twenty-four ribs was taken for the
nucleus: If you depend entirely upon
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, the philosopher, whose wife
and willfully upset his astronomical ap-
paratus, so that he turned to the audience
and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, [ have
the misfortune to be married to this
woman" by the fate of Bulwer, the
novelist, whose wife's temper was so in
tiful house near London and withdrew
from her company, leaving her with the
dozen dogs whom she entertained as pets;
by the fate of John Milton, who married
termagant after he was blind, and when
some one called her a rose, the poet said:
Il am no judge of flowers, but it may be
SO, for I feel the thorns daily" by the
fate of an Engishman whose wife was SO
determined to dance on his grave that he
was buried in the sea; by the fate of
village minister whom I knew, whose wife
threw cup Of hot tea across the table
because they differed in sentiment-by all
I 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 a
! man shall have two heavens or two hells,
a heaven here and heaven forever, or
hell now and 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 pretence of
having books carried out lest they be in
furious to his health, she sending out her
husband unobserved in one of the book
cases; by the good fortune of Roland, in
Louis time, whose wife translated and
| composed for her husband while Secretary
of the Interior-tslented, heroic, won
derful Madame Roland; by the happiness
Of many a man who has made intelligent
V.l1 of