The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1902-05-01

I
If Solomon had been as prayerful at the
! beginning of his life as he was at his
| close. how much domestic infehcity 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 intatuatlon Tor
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 go and hear lee
turers malign Christianity and scott at the
most sacred things of the soul. A good
woman, over-persuaded by her husband.
may go once to hear such TRADE against
the Christian religion, not fully knowing
| what she is going to hear; but she Will
not go twice.
A woman, not Christian, but re-
specter of religion, said to me: II was
persuaded by my husband to go and hear
an infidel lecture once, but going home
l said to him: My dear husband, L
would not go again though my defamation
| should result in our enforcement forever.
And the woman was right. If after all
that Christ and Christianity have done
! for a woman, she can go 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 aid and for whole wear
| fumigated. 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 a bad woman and I'M
worthy of being your companion in life
charged with such stupendous solemnlty
and vicissitudes.
! What you want, o man, in a wife, is
not a butterfly of the sunshine not
giggling nonentity. not a painted doll.
not gossiping gadabout, not a mixture OF
artiicialties 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, but weep
when you weep. There will be wide, deep
graves in your path of life, and you will
both want steadying when you come to
the verge of them, l tell you When your
! fortune fails you will want some one to
talk of treasures in heaven, and not charge
/
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 has no reason for his
wifely choice except pretty face is like
man who should buy farm because of
the dahlias in the front dooryard. Beauty
is a talent, and when God gives it He in
tends it as benedction upon a woman's
face. When the good Princess of Wales
dsmounted 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 of
beauty in a human cOuntenauce. Explosion
of a kerosene lamp turns 1t into sacrlfca-
ton. and a scoundrel with one dash of
vitriol may dlspel 1t, or lime will drive
his chariot wheels across that bright face,
cutting II up in deep ruts and eullies. But
there is an eternal beauty on the face of
some women, whom a rough and ungal-
LIANT world may criticise as homey; and
though their features may contradict all
the laws of Lavater on physiognomy. yet
they have graces of soul that will keep
them attractive for time and glorious
through all eternity.
There are two or three circumstances
in which the plainest wife is queen of
beauty to her husband, whatever her
stature or profile BY financial panic or
betrayal of business partner, the man goes
down, and returning to his home that
in disgrace forever; I care not whether
| live or die. 1t is an agitated story he
is telling in the household that winter
night He says The furniture must
go, the house must go, the social
position must go" and from being
sought for obsequiously they must be
cold-shouldered everywhere. After he
ceases talking, and the wife has heard all
in silence, she says: els that all? Why.
you had nothing when I married you, and
you have only come back to where you
started If YOU think that my happiness
and that of the children depend on these
trappings YOU do not know me, though
is not dead, and the National Bank of
Heaven has not suspended payment, and
if you don't mind, l don't care a cent.
What little we need of food and raiment
the rest of our lives we can get and |
don't propose to sit down and NOPE and
groan. Mary. hand me that darning
needle. I declare 1 have forgotten to
set the rising for those cakes! And while
she is busy at It he hears her humming
Newton's old hymn. Tomorrow"
The husband looks up in amazement,
and says "Well, well, you are the great
est woman l ever saw. | thought You
would faint dead away when | told YOU"
And as he looks at her all the glores of
physiognomy in the Court of Louis Nv,
on the modern fashion plates, are tame as
compared with the superhuman splendors
of that woman's face. Joan of Are Mary
Antoinette, and La Belle Hamilton, the
enchantment of the Court of Charles II,
are nowhere.
There is another time when the plainest
wife is a queen of beauty to her husband.
Che hos dana tho EvOr1y Of life She has