The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-05-09

that IA many cases makes life an unhappl.
ness. How can any human being, who
knows neither of the two parties ne God
knows them, and who Is ignorant Of the
future, give such directions as you re-
quire at such a crisisy
Take the advice of the earthly match
maker instead of the divine guidance. and
you may some day be led 10 use the words
Of Solomon, whose experience in home life
was as melancholy as Il was multitudinous.
One day his palace, with It's great wide
rooms and great wide doors and great
wide hall, was too small for him and the
loud tongue of a woman belaboring him
about some OF his neglects, and be re-
treated 10 the housetop 10 get relief from
the fungal bombardment. And while there
he saw a poor man on one corner OF the
roof with a mattress for his only furni-
ture, and the open sky his only covering
And Solomon envies him and cries out.
fIt is better TO dwell In the corner of the
housetop than with a brawling woman in
b wide house" And one day during the
rainy season the water leaked through
the root OF the palace and began 10 drop
hn pail or pan set there to catch IL. And
lat one side of him all day long the water
went drop! drop DROP while on the
other side a female companion quarreling
about this, and quarrelng about that; the
acrimonious and petulant words falling on
his ear in eeaseless pelting-drop! drop!
drop! and he seized his pen and wrote:
"A continual dropping in a very rainy
day and 4 contentious woman are alike"
If Solomon had been as prayerful at the
beginning of his life as he was at his
close, how much domestic infeicity he
would have avoided?
But prayer about this will amount to
nothing unless you pray soon enough
Wait until you are fascinated and the
equilibrium of your soul is disturbed by
magnetic and exquisite presence, and then
you will answer your own prayers, and
you will mistake your own infatuation for
the voice of God
If you have this prayerful spirit you will
surely avoid all female scoffers at the
Christian religion; and there are quite a
number of them in all communities. 1t
must be told that though the only in
huence that keeps woman from being
estimated and treated as a slave-aye. as
brute and beast of BURDENS Christi
anity, since where it is not dominant she
is so treated: yet there are women who
will so far forget themselves and forget
their God that they will 60 and hear lee
turers malign Christianity and scotf at the
most sacred things of the soul. A good
woman, over-persuaded by her husband,
may go once to hear such a TRADE against
the Christian religion, not fully knowing
what she IS going to hear; but she viii
not go twice
A woman, not a Christian, but a re-
specter of religion, said to me: Il was
persuaded by my husband to go and hear
an intidel lecture once, but going home
/ said to him: "My dear husband 1
would not 90 again though my declination
should result in our enforcement forever"
And the woman was right. If alter all
that Christ and Christianity have done
for woman, she can 90 again and again
to hear such assaults. she is an awful crea-
ture, and you had better not come near
such a reeking leDress. She needs to be
washed, and for three weeks to be soaked
in carbolic acid, and for a whole year
fumieated. before she is fit for decent
society. While it is not demanded that a
woman be a Christian before marriage,
she must have regard for the Christian re-
ligion or she is bad woman and I'M
worthy of being your companion in life
charged with such stupendous so.emnity
and vicissitudes
What you want, o mani in a wife. is
not a butterfly of the sunshine, not a
giggling nonentity, not a painted doll.
not a gossiping gadabout, not a mixture of
artihcialites which leave you in doubt as
to where the humbug ends and the woman
begins, but an earnest SOUL one that can
not only laugh when YOU laugh, hut weep
when you weep. There will be wide deem
graves in your path of life, and YOU will
both want steadying when you come to
the verge Of them, / tell you When your
fortune fails you will want some one to
talk of treasures in heaven. and not charge
upon you with bitter, ''I told you So"
AS far as | can analyze it, sincerity and
earnestness are the foundation of all
worthy wifehood. Get that, and you get
ALL Fail to get that, and you get moth
ing but what you will wish you never had
got.
Don't make the mistake that the man
of the text made in letting his eve settle
the question in which coolest Judgment
directed by divine wisdom are all-im
portant. He who Aas no reason for his
wifely choice except a pretty face is like
a man who should buy a farm because OF
the dablias in the front dooryard Beauty
is talent, and when God gives it He in
tends it as a benediction upon a woman's
face When the good Princess of Wales
dismounted from the rail train last sum
mer, and [ saw her radiant face. could
understand what they told me the day
before, that, when at the great military
| hospital where are now the wounded and
the sick from the Egyptian and other
wars, the Princess passed through. all the
sick were cheered at her coming, and those
who could be reused neither by doctor nor
nurse from their stupor. would get up on
their elbows to look at her, and wan and
wasted lips prayed an audible prayer:
God bless the Princess of Wales Doesn't
she look beautiful
But how uncertain is the tarrying ol
beauty in human countenauce! Explosion
of kerosene lamp turns it into sacrfca
ton, and a scoundrel with one dash Of
vitriol may dispel it, or Time will drive
his chariot wheels across that bright face
cutting it up in deep ruts and gullies But
there is an eternal beauty on the face o
some women, whom rough and ungal
liant world may criticise as homelv; anC
though their features NAV contradict al
the laws of Lavater on physiognomy. We
they have graces of soul that will keeI
them attractive for time and glorious
Ill oAo