founded in God, love such as the spirit of Christ creates in human hearts, renders devotedness easy to the husband, submission easy to the wife. Wherever we advance in the path of marriage and of life, with eyes lifted up toward a Saviour we love, with a salvation we hope for, with a spirit of prayer and supplication through which Jesus Christ constantly intervenes by his spirit between the husband and wife, - there, indeed, a marriage may be happy; nay, must be infal libly so. The union between two converted hearts is necessarily sweet and unalterable : without this, there is no security.

Vinet.

THE IDEAL WOMAN.

HE was a phantom of delight

SHE

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her

eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ;

A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her, upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see, with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.

Wordsworth.

VII.

THE PEARL.

PURITY.

Prized as an ornament, its whiteness gleams,
And well the robe and well the gold beseems.
At certain seasons do the oysters lie

With valves wide-gaping towards the teeming sky,
And seize the falling dews, and, pregnant, breed
The shining globules of the ethereal seed.

i

THE PEARL.

MA

UNFAITHFULNESS.

ARRIAGE is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore?

Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

The Scriptures.