t spirit
in every department of the united life. This is the life that should be
determined upon before Marriage, this the life that the parties should
mark out for themselves in all its detail, before they enter into the
Marriage covenant; and this the life when lived that is blessed and
blissful beyond expression.

I said in the outset of this discourse that the young are apt to hang
too many garlands about the married life. This is so as this life is
generally lived. But if it is wisely entered and truthfully lived, it is
more beautiful and happy than any have imagined. It is the true life
which God has designed for his children, replete with joy, delightful,
improving, and satisfactory in the highest possible earthly degree. It
is the hallowed home of virtue, peace, and bliss. It is the antechamber
of heaven, the visiting place of angels, the communing ground of kindred
spirits. Let all young women who would reap such joys and be thus
blessed and happy, learn to live the true life, and be prepared to weave
for their brows the true wife's perennial crown of goodness.

Lecture Twelve.

RELIGIOUS DUTIES.

Our Father In Heaven--Moral Obligations and Religious
Duties--Impiety of Professed Christians--Deficiency of Religious
Gratitude--Gratitude makes Life Cheerful--Religion gives Joy to
Life--Love, the Seed of Religion--The Religion of Christ--Woman's
Heart a Natural Shrine--Religion fit for all Conditions--Love for
the Unseen--Personal Acquaintance not necessary for Love--The Idea
of God Spontaneous--It is the Unseen we Love--Life well lived is
Glorious.

We propose a few thoughts in the present Lecture to young women upon
their _Religious Duties_. The theme is a rich one. Any consideration of
our relations and duties to the great Father of all, the Lord Almighty,
the primal source of being and blessing, is replete with moral grandeur.
God is a great and glorious word, expressive of all infinities, all
perfections, all glories, word of all words, in power and grandeur above
all. It should inspire us with reverence. The thought of that
incomprehensible Being, which we mean by this word, should ever impress
us with moral solemnity. And when we associate with this majestic Being
the idea of Father, clothe him in a Father's love, fill him with a
Father's care and benignity, he appears to us infinitely lovely and
attractive as well as infinitely great and good. It is no common th