The man who has no love for his Maker will be likely to have little for his wife and children. He who does not acknowledge his responsibility to a higher power will soon forget his obligations to the wife he has promised to love and cherish. The man who is not willing to sacrifice the gratification afforded by such pernicious habits as dram-drinking and tobacco-using to insure the comfort and happiness of his wife and children, is too selfish to make any woman a kind husband.
There is no greater error abroad than that held by not a few that "a reformed rake makes the best husband." The man whose affections have been consumed in the fires of unhallowed lust is incapable of giving to a pure-minded woman the love that she expects and deserves. A person cannot pass through the fire unscathed. The scars burned into the character by the flames of concupiscence are as deep and lasting as those inflicted upon the body, and even more so. Only "in the regeneration" will the marks and scars of the reformed reprobate be wholly effaced.
We willingly grant that there have been numerous instances in which noble women have by years of patient effort reformed their erring husbands, restoring them to the paths of virtue and sobriety from which they had wandered. We do not deny that it can be done again; but we do not hesitate to say that the experiment is a most perilous one for any woman to undertake, and one which not more than one woman in a hundred can bring to a successful termination. The hazard is terrible. Perhaps it is on this very account that many young women run the risk; but they rarely understand what they are doing. The woman who marries a drunkard will, ten chances to one, die a heart-broken drunkard's wife, or follow her husband to a drunkard's grave. It is never safe for a woman to marry a man who has been for years an habitual drunkard, since he may relapse at any time; and the man who has only indulged moderately should be thoroughly reformed and tested before the chances are taken "for better or worse." Let him prove himself well first. A proposition to reform on condition of marriage should be dismissed with disdain. If a young man will not determine to do right because it is right, his motives are sordid; and the probability is very great that so soon as some stronger incentive appeals to his selfishness, he will forget his vows and promises and relapse into his former vices.
[Do Not Be in a Hurry.]—In conclusion, perhaps we could give no more important advice than this: Do not be in a hurry to marry. There is little danger that this advice will do harm, for ten illustrations of the evil results of hasty marriage are seen to one in which the opposite mistake is made. It rarely happens that a marriage made without consideration and due deliberation on the part of both parties is a happy one in its results. There are exceptional cases in which this kind of matrimonial alliances result very satisfactorily; but these cases are quite exceptional. The business of selecting a partner for life, one who is expected to sustain the closest relation possible between human beings, who must be prepared to share in another's sorrows as well as joys, to sympathize with another's aspirations and appreciate another's motives and sentiments,—such a task is certainly one of the most serious of an individual's life and ought to be entered upon with calmness, deliberation, and unbiased judgment and entire self-control. When making a decision which must affect seriously an individual's whole life-time, passion, caprice, and all motives calculated to bias the judgment, should be laid aside. The happiness and usefulness of a whole life-time may be marred by a word. There is too much pending to be in a hurry.
A certain philosopher once "compared a man about to marry to one who was about to put his hand into a sack in which were ninety-nine serpents and one eel; the moral of which is that there are ninety-nine chances to one against a fortunate selection." If this is true of a man about to marry, it is probably equally true that a woman under the same circumstances has nine hundred and ninety-nine chances against, for one in favor of, a fortunate selection.
[CHASTITY.]
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."