"Behold, the bridegroom cometh!"

DUTIES OF HUSBANDS TO WIVES.

"And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide: and he
lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were
coming."--GENESIS 24:63.

A bridal pageant on the back of dromedaries! The camel is called the
ship of the desert. Its swinging motion in the distance is suggestive
of a vessel rising and falling with the billows. Though awkward, how
imposing these creatures as they move along, whether in ancient or
modern times, sometimes carrying four hundred or four thousand
travelers from Bagdad to Aleppo, or from Bassora to Damascus! In my
text comes a caravan. We notice the noiseless step of the broad foot,
the velocity of motion, the gay caparison of saddle, and girth, and
awning, sheltering the riders from the sun, and the hilarity of the
mounted passengers, and we cry out: "Who are they?" Well, Isaac has
been praying for a wife, and it is time he had one, for he is forty
years of age; and his servant, directed by the Lord, has made a
selection of Rebekah; and, with her companions and maidens, she is on
her way to her new home, carrying with her the blessing of all her
friends.

THE NUPTIAL MEETING.

Isaac is in the fields, meditating upon his proposed passage from
celibacy to monogamy. And he sees a speck against the sky, then groups
of people, and after a while he finds that the grandest earthly
blessing that ever comes to a man is approaching with this gay
caravan.

In this my discourse on "The Wedding Ring," having spoken of the
choice of a lifetime companion, I take it for granted, O man, that
your marriage was divinely arranged, and that the camels have arrived
from the right direction and at the right time, bringing the one that
was intended for your consort--a Rebekah and not a Jezebel. I proceed
to discuss as to how you ought to treat your wife, and my ambition is
to tell you more plain truth than you ever heard in any three-quarters
of an hour in all your life.

THE RESPONSIBILITY UNDERTAKEN.

First of all, I charge you realize your responsibility in having taken
her from the custody and care and homestead in which she was once
sheltered. What courage you must have had, and what confidence in
yourself, to say to her practically: "I will be to you more than your
father and mother, more than all the friends you ever had or ever can
have! Give up everything and take me. I feel competent to see you
throu