ASSAULT OF THE SORDID.

Attempt has been made to take the marriage institution, which was
intended for the happiness and elevation of the race, and make it a
mere commercial enterprise; an exchange of houses and lands and
equipage; a business partnership of two, stuffed up with the stories
of romance and knight-errantry, and unfaithfulness and feminine
angelhood. The two after a while have roused up to find that, instead
of the paradise they dreamed of, they have got nothing but a Van
Amburgh's menagerie, filled with tigers and wild-cats. Twenty thousand
divorces in Paris in one year preceded the worst revolution that
France ever saw. It was only the first course in that banquet of hell;
and I tell you what you know as well as I do, that wrong notions on
the subject of Christian marriage are the cause at this day of more
moral outrage before God and man than any other cause.

There are some things that I want to bring before you. I know there
are those of you who have had homes set up for a great many years; and
then there are those here who have just established their home. They
have only been in it a few months or a few years. Then there are those
who will, after awhile, set up for themselves a home, and it is right
that I should speak out upon these themes.

THE BENEFICENT GUEST.

My first counsel to you is, have Jesus in your new home, if it be a
new home, and let Him who was a guest at Bethany be in your
household; let the divine blessing drop upon your every hope and plan
and expectation. Those young people who begin with God end with
heaven. Have on your right hand the engagement ring of the divine
affection. If one of you be a Christian, let that one take a Bible and
read a few verses in the evening-time, and then kneel down and commend
yourselves to Him who setteth the solitary in families. I want to tell
you that the destroying angel passes by without touching or entering
the door-post sprinkled with the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Why is it that in some families they never get along, and in others
they always get along well? I have watched such cases, and have come
to a conclusion. In the first instance, nothing seemed to go
pleasantly, and after awhile came devastation, domestic disaster or
estrangement. Why? They started wrong! In the other case, although
there were hardships and trials, and some things that had to be
explained, still things went on pleasantly until the very last. Why?
They st