“Of all the joys that man can feel,
The purest sure are there.
While o’er his heart affections steal,
Like balmy summer air;
His wife’s caress, his children’s smile,
Unlike the world are free from guile.”
Premature marriages are among the greatest evils of the times—the result of fancy. The ballroom or evening party never develops real character. Matches made at such places, or made under similar circumstances, are not of the class that originate in heaven. They more generally are conceived in the opposite place, and bring forth only iniquity.
The true way to study and learn one another is to do it at home, in the parlor, in the kitchen, and on occasions that test the temper. We see the result of premature unions in the almost daily divorces that are taking place; in the running away of husbands—leaving their wives and children to starve—and in the elopement of wives. Not only this, but we witness it in broken-spirited men, made old in the prime of life, struggling on for mere food, clothing, and mere shelter; and in woman, cross, sluttish and wrinkled. And the result does not stop with the husband and wife. There are the children; they partake of the feebleness and vices of the parents, both physical and moral, and go out into the world stunted and gnarled. Young friends, beware!
“O lasses take care where fancy lights,
This world’s full of snares: