B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
In the oldest chronicle of the human race the historian of the patriarchs has preserved a genealogical record which seems to have been transmitted for the special purpose of showing the casual connection of continence and longevity. That record (the fifth chapter of Genesis) states the age and the marriage date of the progenitors of ten different generations, with a regularly correspondent decrease of period in both respects, from the first to the sixth, when both increase in a single instance and then decrease to the end of the list. The lessons of that record might be read in every branch of every genealogical chronicle from Noah to the latest posterity of his sons. In all countries, among all nations of all times, premature courtship has courted premature death. Continence during the years of development rewards itself in health and vigor, both of body and of mind. Success in every line of endeavor is the reward of reserved strength. That strength becomes available in the needs of after years, and is the chief basis of that love of independence and impatience of tyranny found only among manful and continent nations. The love of the gentlest females is reserved for the manliest males of their species, while precocious coveters of such prizes meet with humiliations and disappointments. Those who forbear to anticipate the promptings of Nature can rely on the favor of her undiminished aid; and to such only is given the power of that “love that spurs to exertions.”
And if marriages are planned in heaven, that [[50]]heaven manifests its will in the appeals of love, and not in the counsels of avarice or expedience. If the sorrows of poverty-straitened love could be measured against the misery of disgust blighted wealth, it would be admitted that the course of true love is, after all, the smoothest, in the long run as well as in the beginning. For the inspirations of genuine love will resist the assaults of misfortune as they defied its menace, and the ban of prejudice can detract but little from the happiness of a union hallowed by the sanction of Nature.