Jeremy Taylor impresses this fact by one of his quaint illustrations: "The stags in the Greek epigram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow upon the mountains, came down to the brooks of the valleys, hoping to thaw their joints with the waters of the stream; but there the frost overtook them, and bound them fast in ice, till the young herdsmen took them in their stranger snare. It is the unhappy chance of many men finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life, they descend into the valleys of marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or woman's peevishness."
The Psalmist says that "God maketh men to be of one mind in a house." Let husband and wife live near Him, and He will enable them to avoid domestic strife which Cowper declares to be the "sorest ill of human life."
CHAPTER XXIV.
NETS AND CAGES.
"I think for a woman to fail to make and keep a happy home, is to be a 'failure' in a truer sense than to have failed to catch a husband."—Frances Power Cobbe.
"We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry."—Vittoria Corombona.
When Mr. Wilberforce was a candidate for Hull, his sister, an amiable and witty young lady, offered a new dress to each of the wives of those freemen who voted for her brother. When saluted with "Miss Wilberforce for ever!" she pleasantly observed, "I thank you, gentlemen, but I cannot agree with you, for really I do not wish to be Miss Wilberforce for ever."
We do not blame Miss Wilberforce or any other young lady for not wishing to be a "Miss" for ever; but we desire to point out in this chapter that all is not done when the husband is gained.