nd endearing ties,
and making of "twain one flesh"; but they are easily torn asunder, and then
adieu to the joys of connubial bliss! {149}

2. COURTING BY THE QUARTER.--This courting by the quarter, "here a little
and there a little," is one of the greatest evils of the day. This getting
a little in love with Julia, and then a little with Eliza, and a little
more with Mary,--this fashionable flirtation and coquetry of both sexes--is
ruinous to the domestic affections; besides, effectually preventing the
formation of true connubial love. I consider this dissipation of the
affections one of the greatest sins against Heaven, ourselves, and the one
trifled with, that can be committed.

3. FRITTERING AWAY AFFECTIONS.--Young men commence courting long before
they think of marrying, and where they entertain no thoughts of marriage.
They fritter away their own affections, and pride themselves on their
conquests over the female heart; triumphing in having so nicely fooled
them. They pursue this sinful course so far as to drive their pitiable
victims, one after another, from respectable society, who, becoming
disgraced, retaliate by heaping upon them all the indignities and
impositions which the fertile imagination of woman can invent or execute.

4. COURTING WITHOUT INTENDING TO MARRY.--Nearly all this wide-spread crime
and suffering connected with public and private licentiousness and
prostitution, has its origin in these unmeaning courtships--this premature
love--this blighting of the affections, and every young man who courts
without intending to marry, is throwing himself or his sweetheart into
_this hell upon earth_. And most of the blame rests on young men, because
they take the liberty of paying their addresses to the ladies and
discontinuing them, at pleasure, and thereby mainly cause this vice.

5. SETTING THEIR CAPS.--True, young ladies sometimes "set their caps,"
sometimes court very hard by their bewitching smiles and affectionate
manners; by the natural language of love, or that backward reclining and
affectionate roll of the head which expresses it; by their soft and
persuasive accents; by their low dresses, artificial forms, and many other
unnatural and affected ways and means of attracting attention and exciting
love; but women never court till they have been in love and experienced its
interruption, till their first and most tender fibres of love have been
frostbitten by disappointment. It is surely a sad cond