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HUSBANDS' DUTIES AT HOME.

HUSBANDS! think upon your duty.

You who have taken a wife from a happy home of kindred hearts and kind companionship, have you given to her all of your time which you could spare? Have you endeavored to make amends to her for the loss of these friends? Have you joined with her in her endeavors to open the minds of your children, and give them good moral lessons? Have you strengthened her mind with advice, kindness, and good books? Have you spent your evenings with her in the cultivation of intellectual, moral, or social excellence? Have you looked upon her as an immortal being, as well as yourself? Has her improvement been as much your aim as your own?

A

EXTREME JOYS AND SORROWS. WOMAN in a single state may be happy, and may be miserable; but most happy, these are epithets, which, with rare exceptions, belong exclusively to a wife.

most miserable,

Coleridge.

WOMAN THE DIGNITY OF THE FAMILY.

WITHOUT woman, we cease to regard pro

prieties; we more or less fall into that ignoble state which has been termed boorishness. This is the life of the club-room or the coffeehouse, which renders us incapable of appearing in good company. There is, also, a boorishness, which, while it observes the usages of wellbred people, takes advantage of opportunities no longer to keep up the elevation of thoughts and sentiments.

Woman prevents us from such a catastrophe. Her presence not only arrests ill-mannered expressions; she not only compels each individual to look to his carriage and conduct; if I may venture the expression, she has to do, also, with the carriage of the soul. There is about her such delicacy, she is endowed with such lively sensibilities, that things low and vulgar, wherever they may be, instinctively offend and shock her. She reads us, and we are forced, as far as possible, to put ourselves into harmony with this marvellous gift of her nature.

Count Gasparin.

THE BRIDAL RING.

A WIFE'S APPAREL.

WITH regard to your apparel, it appears

me that you should be guided by the taste of your husband. It is for him to decide upon these little proprieties. If he wishes to practise economy in these things, you ought to retrench as far as may be agreeable to him. If he desires you to make a certain appearance, do, out of complaisance to him, whatever you think will please him, and yield to him your own taste and judgment.

Fénelon.

HOME AND HEAVEN.

THE pilgrim's step in vain

THE

Seeks Eden's sacred ground,
But in home's holy joys again
An Eden may be found.

A glance of heaven to see
To none on earth is given;
And yet a happy family
Is but an earlier heaven.

Bowring.

CHASTITY.

INVIOLABLE faith, unspotted chastity,—

this is the marriage-ring. It ties two hearts by an eternal band. It is like the cherubim's flaming sword, set for the guard of Paradise.

Chastity is the security of love. Under this lock is deposited security of families, the union of affections, the repairer of accidental breaches. This is a grace that is shut up and secured by all arts of heaven, and the defence of laws, the locks and bars of modesty, by honor and reputation, by fear and shame, by interest and high regard; and that contract that is intended to be forever is yet dissolved and broken by the violation of this.

Jeremy Taylor.

MUTUAL CONFIDENCE.

BETWEEN husband and wife there ought to

be no more religious reserve than between man and God; for they ought to confess themselves to one another as freely as to their Creator.

Mountford.

As

LIKE HUSBAND, LIKE WIFE.

S the husband is, the wife is: if mated with a clown,

The grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

Something better than his dog, a little dearer

than his horse.

Tennyson.