ip needed.

Indeed, some of the mightiest men this world ever saw have not
patronized matrimony. Cowper, Pope, Newton, Swift, Locke, Walpole,
Gibbon, Hume, Arbuthnot, were single. Some of these marriage would
have helped. The right kind of a wife would have cured Cowper's gloom,
and given to Newton more practicability, and been a relief to Locke's
overtasked brain. A Christian wife might have converted Hume and
Gibbon to a belief in Christianity. But Dean Swift did not deserve a
wife, from the way in which he broke the heart of Jane Waring first,
and Esther Johnson afterward, and last of all "Vanessa." The great wit
of the day, he was outwitted by his own cruelties.

PREDESTINATION IN MARRIAGE.

Amid so many possibilities of fatal mistake, am I not right in urging
you to seek the unerring wisdom of God, and before you are infatuated?
Because most marriages are fit to be made convinces us that they are
divinely arranged. Almost every cradle has an affinity toward some
other cradle. They may be on the opposite sides of the earth, but one
child gets out of this cradle, and another child gets out of that
cradle, and with their first steps they start for each other. They may
diverge from the straight path, going toward the North, or South, or
East, or West. They may fall down, but the two rise facing each other.
They are approaching all through infancy. The one all through the
years of boyhood is going to meet the one who is coming through all
the years of girlhood to meet him. The decision of parents as to what
is best concerning them, and the changes of fortune, may for a time
seem to arrest

THE TWO JOURNEYS;

but on they go. They may never have seen each other. But the two
pilgrims who started at the two cradles are nearing. After eighteen,
twenty, or thirty years, the two come within sight. At the first
glance they may feel a dislike, and they may slacken their step; yet
something that the world calls fate, and that religion calls
Providence, urges them on and on. They must meet. They come near
enough to join hands in social acquaintance, after awhile to join
hands in friendship, after awhile to join hearts. The delegate from
the one cradle comes up the east aisle of the church with her father.
The delegate from the other cradle comes up the west aisle of the
church. The two long journeys end at the snow-drift of the bridal
veil. The two chains made out of many years are forged together by the
golden link whi