Year: 1873

And when men and women are of mat
riageabe age, think it ought to be in
general true, that it is wholesome for them
to be married. 1t is not necessary that
they should remain single because they
stand in poverty; for two can live cheaper
than one, If they live as they ought to live.
If the young man is willing to seem poor
when he is poor; if the young woman, be-


ing poor, is willing to live poorly; if they
are willing to plant their lives together
like two seeds, and wait for their growth,
and look for their abundance by and by,
when they have fairly earned it, then it is
good thing for them to come early into this
partnership. For characters adapt them
selves to each other in the early periods of
life far more easily than they do afterward.
They who marry early are like vines grow
ing together, and twining round and round
each other; whereas, multitudes of those
who marry late in life stand side by side
like two iron columns, which, being sepa-
rated at the beginning, never come any
nearer each other. Many young men feel
that they cannot marry until they can sup
port wife; and by that they mean, until
they can support house; yea, until they
can live in house that BELTS them; until
they can make show; until they can live
as their kind of people, the class to which
they belong, live-for everybody belongs
to a class, set. When they can do these
things they will marry, but not before.
And the result is that they are corrupting
life in the very fountain. And when they
marry, they make great mistake if they
say, "We will not undertake TO keep house;
let us board. Then we can have all the
comforts of life; we will have all the APP
pearances provided for us; and we shall be
relieved from n thousand cares There is
no school which God ever opened, or per-
mitted to be opened which young people
can so i'll afford TO avoid as the school of
care and responsibility and labor in the
household, and young man and young
woman, marrying, no matter from what
source they came together, no matter how
high their fathers have stood, one of the
most wholesome things that they can do,
having married for love, and with discre-
ton, is TO be willing TO begin at the bottom,
and bear the burdens of household life so
that they shall have its education. l tell you
there are pleasures which many young
married people miss. / would not give up
the first two years Of my married life for
all have now. l live in a big house, with
a brown stone 'front.' and very fairly fur


nished; but, after all, among the choicest
experiences of my life were those which l
passed through in Indiana, when l hired
two chambers upstairs, when all my fur
niture was given TO me, and was second
hand at that; and when the very clothes
which had on my back had been worn by
Judge Brney before me. We were not
able to hire a servant. We had to serve
ourselves. 1t was study every day how
to get along with our small means-and it
was a study never to bo forgotten. l owe
many of the pleasures which have run
through my life to being willing to begin
where l had to begin, and to fight poverty
with love, and to overcome it, and to learn
how to live in service and helplulness, and
in all the thousand ingenuities which love
sweetens and makes more and more de-
lightful.-H. W. Beechcr.