maximum of some of them, any man who proposes marriage to a worthy woman ought to be answered with an emphatic "No!"

THE WEDDING.

"There are smiles and tears in that gathering band,
Where the heart is pledged with a trembling hand,
What trying thoughts in the bosom swell,

As the bride bids parents and home farewell!
Kneel down by the side of the tearful fair,

And strengthen the perilous hour with prayer."

Many people choose to be married in the presence of just as few witnesses as the law allows. Their natural timidity, or restricted purse, renders retirement and simplicity coveted blessings. All this is right and proper enough. Whatever pleases the two principals in the marriage partnership ought to be satisfactory to others.

Yet society takes a deep interest in weddings, and is able to contribute to them an unfailing pleasure. Notwithstanding their frequency, "the cases are not rare in which society so transforms itself into the personality of a young couple that, as though it had their very eyes, it looks upon their particular wedding with as much interest as if it had never seen a wedding before, and, for the time being, never cared about seeing another.

"This deep interest which society takes in the nuptials of young people deserves to be cherished and appreciated. There is no handsomer, no more agreeable way of doing this than to have the alliance formed in the midst of suitable display and imposing ceremonies, and to extend to society a hearty invitation to witness it.

"This is particularly true of Christian people. The church, and the performance of the marriage ceremonial within its walls, affords them an opportunity of investing the occasion with elements of unspeakable impressiveness. Let a young man whose intelligence and refinement, whose ability and enterprise in business are beautified with the adornments of faith in Christ and love to the Church, propose to take to himself a companion acknowledged in every respect to be worthy of him; let him surround the occasion not only with the ordinary sanctions of religion, but also with the

cheerful and holy associations of the house of God; let him attend it with such reasonable display as his circumstances may justify and refined taste would approve; let him, then, with the good sense and the generosity befitting the event, assure his friends and brethren, near and remote, of a hearty welcome as witnesses of the scene; and the cordiality with which his kindness shall be appreciated, the large and full measure of joyful sympathy that shall surround him, will make an impression that both he and all who witness it will long delight to remember."

One of the most pleasant weddings we ever attended was in the modest future home of the contracting couple. They and their friends had quietly and tastefully fitted it up for the occasion. The invited guests assembled, the bridegroom, bride and attendants entered, the ceremony was performed, the congratulations of cheerful words and appropriate offerings were extended, refreshments were served, and the new house was thus happily dedicated by the very event of marriage. To such an arrangement the words of Rogers are appropriate:

"Across the threshold led,

And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasure, and his cares dividing."

THE MARRIAGE STATE.

Marriage is a holy and honorable estate. It was instituted by God in the time of man's innocency, and signifies the mystical unior between Christ and his Church. "When two young people love each other and marry," says James Freeman Clarke, "they restore the picture of the Apostolic Church. They are of one heart and one soul. Neither do they say that anything they possess is their own, but they have all things in common. Their mutual trust in each other, their entire confidence in each other, draws out all that is best in both. Love is the angel who rolls away the stone from the grave in which we bury our better nature,

and it comes forth. Love makes all things new-makes a new heaven and a new earth-makes all cares light, all pain easy. It is the one enchantment of human life which realizes Fortunio's purse and Aladdin's palace, and turns the 'Arabian Nights' into mere prose by comparison."

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Some of Washington Irving's speculations on matrimony are couched in elegant phraseology. "I have seen," he says, young and beautiful woman, pride of gay circles, married, as the world says, well. Some have moved into costly houses, and their friends have all come and looked at their furniture and their splendid arrangement for happiness, and they have gone away and committed them to their sunny hopes cheerfully and without fear. It is natural to be sanguine for them, as the young are sometimes carried away by similar feelings. I love to get, unobserved, into a corner, and watch the bride in her white attire, and, with her smiling face and her soft eyes meeting me in their pride of life, weave a waking dream of future happiness, and persuade myself that it will be true. I think how they will sit upon the luxurious sofa as the twilight falls, and build gay hopes and murmur in low tones the now not forbidden tenderness; and how thrillingly the allowed kiss and beautiful endearments of wedded life will make even their parting joyous, and how gladly come back from the crowded and empty mirth of the gay to each other's quiet company. I picture to myself that young creature who blushes even now at his hesitating caress, listening eagerly for his footsteps as the night steals on, wishing he would come; and when he enters at last, and with an affection as undying as his pulse folds her to his bosom, I can feel the tide that goes flowing through the heart, and gaze with him on the graceful form as she moves about for the kind offices of affection, soothing all his unquiet cares, and making him forget even himself in her young and unshadowed beauty. I go forward for years, and see her luxuriant hair put soberly away from her brow, and her girlish graces resigned into dignity, and loveliness chastened with the gentle meekness of maternal affection. Her husband looks on her with a proud eye, and shows her the same fervent love and delicate attentions which first won her; and her fair children are

grown about them, and they go on full of honor and untroubled years, and are remembered when they die."

Theodore Parker suggested that marriage is not simply the ceremony of an hour. "Men and women, and especially young people, do not know that it takes years to marry completely two hearts, even of the most loving and well sorted. But nature allows no sudden change. We slope very gradually from the cradle to the summit of life. Marriage is gradual, a fraction of us at a time.

"A happy wedlock is a long falling in love. I know young persons think love belongs only to brown hair and plump, round, crimson cheeks. So it does for its beginning, just as Mount Washington begins at Boston Bay. But the golden marriage is a part of love which the bridal-day knows nothing of."

Mrs. Mary B. Dodge's lines on "Maturity" beautifully illustrate this thought:

"When spring is young, and violets bloom,

And rills go laughing on their way,

When hearts keep more of sun than gloom,
And life is just an April day,
Then girl and boy, in tender troth-
Daisies beneath them, stars above-
Believe to them alone, to both,

Is given the perfect flower of love,

"What time the summer lifts its rose,

That flushes with the pulse of June,
And down the vale the message goes
Of wedding-bells in blissful tune,
The pair, grown happier with the days,
Look back and see 'twas only seed,
That spring-tide love which won their praise,
Since now they clasp love's flower indeed!

"Yet neither season knows the life

Of autumn, in the yellow grain,

Or grape, with amber juices rife—
Knows not its power for joy or pain;

Nor maid nor wife the passion feels

That stirs the mother's burdened breast,

Whose wounded child through her reveals
Love's value at its ripest, best."

"Youth," continues Mr. Parker, "is the tassel and silken flower of love; age is the full corn, ripe and solid in the ear. Beautiful is the morning of love with its prophetic crimson, violet, purple and gold; with its hopes of days that are to come. Beautiful, also, is the evening of love, with its glad remembrances, and its rainbow side turned toward heaven as well as earth.

"Young people marry their opposites in temper and general character, and such a marriage is generally a good one. They do it instinctively. The young man does not say, 'My black eyes require to be wed to blue, and my over vehemence requires to be a little modified with somewhat of lullness and reserve.' When these opposites come together to be wed they do not know it, but each thinks the other just like himself.

"Old people never marry their opposites; they marry their similars, and from calculation. Each of these two arrangements is very proper. In their long journey these two opposites will fall out of the way a great many times, and both will charm the other back again, and by and by they will be agreed as to the place they will go to and the road they will go by, and become reconciled. The man will be nobler and larger for being associated with so much humanity unlike himself, and she will be a nobler woman for having manhood beside her that seeks to correct her deficiencies and supply her with what she lacks, if the diversity be not too great, and there be real piety and love in their hearts to begin with.

"The old bridegroom, having a much shorter journey to make, must associate himself with one like himself. A perfect and complete marriage is, perhaps, as perfect personal beauty. Men and women are married fractionally-now a small fraction, then a large fraction.

"Very few are married totally, and they only, I think, after some forty or fifty years of gradual approach and excitement. Such a large and sweet fruit is a complete marriage that it needs a winter to mellow and season. But a real happy marriage of love and judgment between a man and woman is one of the things so very handsome, that if the sun were, as the Greek poets fabled, a god, he might stop the world in order to feast his eyes with such a spectacle."