MARRIED LIFE. The Rev. Dr. John Hall, discussing the question of a home after getting married, expresses the opinion, from which few will dissent, that it is "good for the newly married as a rule to begin by themselves, together, without the officious direction of others, however well meaning, and it is good, if possible, to be in a home, not a boarding-house, nor a hotel. It may be 'love in a cottage,' and the cottage may be humble; but it is commonly better adapted to the growth of a true, pure, simple life, than 'rooms' in one of those non-military barracks which the needs of our great cities are supposed to demand. A 'mess table' is doubtless proper for the officers of a regiment or a group of monks. The passengers of a train or an ocean steamer, of course, can properly dine together; but for young married people, it is best that they should live together, their door closing out the world; that they should be all in all, under God, to each other; that the young wife should not be pursued by calculations as to how she looks to a hundred spectators; that he and she should plan together, wisely adapt their modes and habits of life to means and prospects, always remembering that it is comparatively easy to go up, but exceedingly difficult to descend gracefully. We do not overrate the poetry of the 'lowly cottage;' we are distinctly sensible of the difficulty of reading the 'register' or the 'stove' into the versification of 'the fireside,' or of the heroic watchword pro aris et focis, for altars and hearths. We have read, of course, of 'Home-made pop that will not foam, And home-made dishes that drive one from home,' but we adhere to the conviction that a modest, self-contained dwelling is morally more healthy, more conducive to permanent happiness, more likely to have its 'grace before meat,' its family altar, and its practical prudence in management, than the nicest apartments' in the most attractive hotel. How hard it has been, in many cases, to make the transition from the dishes of a French cook, at a salary of five thousand a year, to the more modest table of a wife's own arranging! Better to begin at the beginning, and to conquer the prosaic difficulties of life while the poetry of early love is still real, and while the later cares and anxieties of life are not yet pressing, than to be forced to the task when other and inevitable burdens have to be carried." Judge Tourgee thinks that one frequent cause of trouble in married life is a want of openness in business matters. A husband marries a pretty, thoughtless girl, who has been used to taking no more thought of how she should be clothed than the lilies of the field. He begins by not liking to refuse any of her requests. He will not hint, so long as he can help it, at care in trifling expenseshe does not like to associate himself in her mind with disappointments and self-denials. And she who would have been willing enough, in the sweet eagerness of her girlish love, to please, to give up any whims or fancies of her own whatever, falls into habits of careless extravagance, and feels herself injured when at last a remonstrance comes. How much wiser would have been perfect openness in the beginning! "We have just so much money to spend this summer. Now, shall we arrange matters thus, or thus?" was the question I heard a very young husband ask his still younger bride not long ago; and all the womanhood in her answered to this demand upon it, and her help at planning and counseling proved not a thing to be despised, though hitherto she had "fed upon the roses and lain upon the lilies of life." I am speaking not of marriages that are no marriages-when Venus has wedded Vulcan because Vulcan prospered at his forge-but marriages where two true hearts have set out together, for love's sake, to learn the lesson of life, and to live together until death shall part them. And one of the first lessons for them to learn is to trust each other entirely. The most frivolous girl of all "the rosebud garden of girls," if she truly loves, acquires something of womanliness from her love, and is ready to plan, and help, and make her small sacrifices for the general good. Try her, and you will see. When persons have married, there should be a good understanding to begin with. "I will tell you two things," said a lady to her niece the evening before her wedding, "which I have fully proved. The first will go far toward preventing the possibility of any discord after marriage; the second is the best and surest preservative of feminine character." "Tell me," said the niece, anxiously. "The first is this: demand of your bridegroom, as soon as the marriage ceremony is over, a solemn vow, and promise yourself, never, even in jest, to dispute or express any disagreement. I tell you, never! What begins in mere bantering will lead to serious earnest. Avoid expresssing any irritation at one another's words. Mutual forbearance is the great secret of domestic happiness. If you have erred, confess it freely, even if confession cost you some tears. Further, promise faithfully, and solemnly, never, upon any pretext or excuse, to have any secrets or concealments from each other, but to keep your private affairs from father, mother, brother, sister, and the world. Let them be known only to each other and your God. Remember that any third person admitted into your confidence becomes a party to stand between you, and will naturally side with one or the other. Promise to avoid this, and renew the vow upon every temptation. It will preserve that confidence which will indeed make you as one." Every newly-married couple is supposed to be happy, but the happiness is not always of the kind that endures. The foundation of it is not laid in the right principles. It should have a basis in reason, grace, and self-sacrificing devotion, so that when the novelty of the new relation has worn off, it may still remain, making the two sympathetic hearts to thrill with that pure joy which is a foretaste of the heavenly. In the eighty-fourth year of his age, Dr. Calvin Chapin wrote of his wife: "My domestic enjoyments have been, perhaps, as near perfection as the human condition permits. She has made my home to me the pleasantest place on earth. And now that she is gone, my worldly loss is perfect." How many poor fellows would be saved from suicide, the penitentiary, and the gallows every year, had they been blessed with such a wife! "She made my home to me the pleasantest place on earth.” What a grand tribute to that woman's love, and piety, and common sense! Rather different was the testimony of an old man, a few years ago, just before he was hung in the Tombs' yard, in New York: "I didn't mean to kill my wife, but she was a very aggravating woman." And some of the men are very aggravating," too. Snubbing husbands make henpecking wives. Snarling men find their counterparts in scolding women. Many men who are not positively ugly are yet cruelly inattentive. They remind one of Frederic Moul and his dying wife. We read that when Moul was engaged in translating Libanius, a servant came to tell him that his wife, who had long been in a declining state, was very ill and wished to speak to him. "Stop a minute, stop a minute," said he; "I have but two sentences to finish, and then I will be with her directly.' Another messenger came to announce that she was at the last gasp. "I have but two words to write," answered he, "and then I'll fly to her." A moment after, word was brought to him that she had expired. "Alas! I am very sorry for it," exclaimed the tranquil husband, "she was the best wife in the world!" Having uttered this brief funeral oration, he went on with his work. That was heathenish in the extreme. No amount of genius, or enthusiastic attachment to a chosen pursuit will justify a man in neglecting the wife he has sworn to love and cherish in sickness and in health. Remember, O man, whomsoever thou art, "the frail being by thy side is of finer mold; keener her sense of pain, of wrong, greater her love of tenderness. How delicately turned her heart; each ruder breath upon its strings complains in lowest notes of sadness, not heard, but felt. It wears away her life like a deep under-current, while the fair mirror of the changing surface gives not one sigh of woe." "Speak kindly to her. Little dost thou know Some one remarks that the banes of domestic life are littleness, falsity, vulgarity, harshness, scolding, vociferation, an incessant issuing of superfluous prohibitions and orders, which are regarded as impertinent interferences with the general liberty and repose, and |