l
chance comers, but made to measure. He spoke most impressively on
family respectability, and on the honour of the husband and the wife
being identical. Children inherit the good name of their parents, but
when they turn out badly, the parents are free from blame in the sight
of God and man,--they did their best, they could do no more. The
children of disreputable parents may attain respectability by their own
efforts,--they have their life before them. The brother shares the
honour of his brother, but he can leave him, and pursue his own path.
But the honour of married people is different: here they are, in the
purest sense of the word, one flesh; here harmony is a mutual object.
When the one aspires to honour at the cost of the other, nothing can
ensue but discord, disunion, and death. It is a holy and wise ordinance
that the woman, though she preserves her baptismal name, receives a new
family name from her husband. She adopts the man's name, and the man's
honour. The Pastor commended the good qualities of the couple now
standing before the altar, though Lenz came in for the largest share of
praise; but Annele too had a fair portion; and he reminded them that no
man living had any cause to be proud of his good qualities; that the
slow and the quick should mutually esteem and regard each other; that
marriage was not only according to the law of the land--a mere
community of temporal goods,--but still more according to the law of
God--a community of spiritual good, where _mine_ and _thine_ cease, and
where every possession is called _ours_, and not only _ours_, but as
belonging to the world at large, and, above all, to God.

Under cover of generalities, and yet easily applicable to the young
couple, the Pastor gave utterance to the anxious wish of their mutual
friends, that two persons so unlike in disposition, and in worldly
occupations, might live henceforth in peaceful and happy union
together.

Pilgrim, who was sitting with the singers in the gallery, nodded to the
leader of the choir, who nodded back significantly. Faller did not once
look up; he pressed his hand to his eyes, and thought, "It was thus I
spoke myself to Annele; who knows what she would say to our Pastor, if
she dared speak! But I pray thee, good Lord! who once performed so many
miracles on this earth, do this one more,--implant good thoughts in her
heart, and place good words on her lips, for my excellent Lenz, the
most admirable--"

No voice