goes,
they are quite equal in disposition to their married sisters. The
state of celibacy is honored again by such persons as Macaulay and
Washington Irving in literature, and Florence Nightingale and Miss Dix
in philanthropy.

But while Paul remained in the single state, he kept his eyes open,
and he looked off upon the calm sea of married life, and upon the
chopped sea of domestic perturbation. He comes forth in my text to
say, "Let every one in particular so love his wife even as himself;
and the wife see that she reverence her husband;" implying that the
wife ought to be lovable, so there might be something to love, and the
man ought to be honorable, so there might be something to reverence.

It is

A MOST CONGRATULATORY THOUGHT

that the vast majority of people in the married state are well mated.
When the news is first announced in the outside world of the
betrothal, there may be surprise and seeming incongruity, but as the
years pass by it is demonstrated that the selection was divinely
arranged. There may be great difference of temperament, great
difference of appearance, great difference of circumstances. That is
no objection. The sanguine and the phlegmatic temperaments make
appropriate union, the blonde and the brunette, the quick and the
slow, the French and the German. In the machinery of domestic life
there is no more need for the driving wheel than for the brakes. That
is the best union generally which has just the opposites.

The best argument in behalf of marriage as a divine institution is the
fact that the vast majority of conjugal relationships are the very
best things that could have happened. Once in a while there is a
resounding exception to the good rule, the attempt being made to marry
fire and gunpowder, with the consequent explosion in the divorce
courts; but in the vast majority of instances the conjugal relation is
a beautiful illustration of what the Psalmist said when he declared,
"God setteth the solitary in families."

Taking it for granted, then, that you are well mated, I proceed to
give you some

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS;

and, first of all, I remark:

I. A spirit of compromise must be dominant. You must remember that you
were twenty or thirty years forming independent habits and having your
own way. In the marriage state these habits must be brought into
accord, and there may be some ingenuity necessary. Be determined to
have your own way, and there will