As regards the Preparation to be made for marriage, where it is contemplated with fair prospects of certainty, little need here be said. The whole previous life should be one act of preparation. The school-room should train the wife and the mother. Fidelity to home, to parents, brothers, sisters, and all the inmates of the paternal roof, is among the best qualifications for married life. If these duties have been hitherto neglected, be assured that the marriage ceremony will do little to supply the deficiency.
The Duration of an engagement should ordinarily be brief, at least, not needlessly protracted. We are told that no tomb in Père Lachaise is so often decorated with chaplets of fresh flowers as that of Abelard and Héloise. This shows how large is the number of thwarted and disappointed lovers who visit that cemetery. Not a few of these crossing elements would be averted by less prolonged engagements. There are those, I am aware, who maintain that early and long continued engagements are desirable. Applied to those cases where the parties reside near one another, and are placed under similar influences, this doctrine may be true. The earliest attachments are sometimes most happy and permanent. But how often does it occur, that the condition and character of two individuals become completely changed, in a few short years. Suppose a young man to leave a farm, and take up his abode in a city, as a merchant, or to commence a course of study with a view to a liberal profession. The girl, who, as a child, won his affections, has not, as a young woman, improved in her tastes, and character, like himself. His choice of a companion, if now to be made, would fall on one quite unlike her. There is something of this evil often attendant on protracted engagements. The affections may be biased by enlarged intercourse with the world. There are innumerable perils that beset a long acquaintance of this nature. The safe avoiding of them all comes usually from short engagements, from those in which the character and tastes of the parties are much the same at marriage as at the moment of the first decided intimacy.
There is one topic more which I cannot pass over in this connection. It is that of Spiritual Sympathy. How many are there, who never exchange one thought or feeling upon religion, until after their marriage. It is not until they are constrained to do it, in the bitterness of bereavement perhaps, that they communicate with one another on this momentous subject. Were it not wiser to weave a chaplet early, to their joint remembrance of Christ, rather than hang the first consecrated wreath on the tomb? How would it assuage their mingling tears, could they sorrow, “not as those without hope,” but in the long cherished spirit of a common faith and submission. They are musing on future joys. With what heightened charms and new anticipations would they enter the marriage state, if they had pledged their united hearts, before the Eternal One. They would then feel, that the bond which joined them was not one of a few fleeting years, but imperishable as their cemented souls. Shall they, can they, maintain a midnight silence upon all Heavenly themes, until “the evil days” overtake them?
XIII.
Trials of Woman; and Her Solace.
An ancient example. Trials springing from Physical Constitution. Acute Feelings. Sentiment of Burns. Trials from Imagination. An affecting incident. Want of Interesting Objects. Defencelessness in Public. Sufferings through Affections. Instance of true love. Trials of Domestic Life. Bereavement. Mrs. Sigourney, on a lost Daughter. Supports should be equal to Trials. Need of Mental Culture. Moral Developement. Friendship. Piety the great Solace.
It was remarked by an observing and wise statesman, recently deceased, that “most women are either formed in the school, or tried by the test, of adversity.” In this class stood the devout Hannah of old. She was reproached and persecuted by her haughty rival, she was the subject of remonstrance with her husband, and when she went to the temple of God, to seek peace in her troubles, because she spake not aloud, but only her lips moved, she was rudely charged with the vice of intemperance. To this allegation she replied, “I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.” These words remind us of the trials of woman; and they point us, at the same time, to her only, and effectual, Solace in trouble.
Human life contains much to try the spirits of all. There are many afflictions, which man must share alike with woman. But, superadded to these, are sources and occasions of sorrow peculiar to her sex. There are none, who do not sometimes descend the vale of tears. The cup of bitterness is placed in the hands of all. But woman is constrained to drink it sometimes to the very dregs.