D

X.

FOR THE WEDDING NIGHT.

EAR BRIDEGROOM AND BRIDE:-The most felicitous hour of your earthly existence has arrived. The brightest goal of your youthful hopes is reached—a goal, too, which is not quite so delusory as most other youthful hopes will be found. It is a real and great attainment. We gladly lift the bridal wreath to your heads, and crown you victors in this first honorable conquest in the battle of life.

Beyond all question, whatever of earthly bliss is to be found on this round world, the sweetest, the noblest, the best is found in the joys that flow like a perennial stream from the hallowed conjugal state. Beyond all question, the stars that glitter in the sky, and garnish with their eternal fires a celestial canopy over your nuptial festivities this night, as they did over the first human pair who tasted the sweets of conjugal love in holy, happy Eden, have looked down, in all their endless circuits, upon no other scene in the affairs of men, which can for a moment be compared with this into which you are now entering, whether

in regard to the delicious joys of the present, or the promise and possibility of life-long happiness unbroken and unabated. The ground on which you are treading is Paradisaic. Enjoy it with ecstacy. But, oh, tread softly, tread reverently, for it is holy.

Never forget, (what many so easily and so soon after Marriage seem to forget,) that the atmosphere of Eden is always and only the aroma of love. Given that, and you stand within the cherubic-guarded gates, the peaceful zephyrs of the holy garden breathe joy around you, you dwell amidst the beauties, you feed on the fruits, your soul is thrilled with the raptures of Paradise-and this no matter how fortune may be buffeting the garden wall outside, what frosts may be biting, what storms may be tossing men's lives in the world abroad.

Never forget, also, (it is yet more important still to remember and observe this,) that love itself, which makes your Eden, is a tender tree, and an exotic in this blasted world. It will repay, and it will require the most tender guarding and most devoted nurture-this especially in its commencing life. Under storms of passion, under chills of neglect, or carelessly left to chance, it will be a miracle if it do not wither and die.

There are a thousand effective methods and means of this beautiful growth. We commend

you to a life-long study of this horticulture of the domestic paradise. It is a worthy and a profitable engagement for every man and woman that breathes. But there is one principal artifice, which is at once so pre-eminently effective and yet so commonly disregarded, that we are content to name no other but that. It is stated in that famous stroke of Solomon, delineating a perfect wife, but which is in this respect equally felicitous and applicable in the perfect husband. "The law of kindness is in her tongue.""

It is impossible to over-estimate the efficiency of the tongue in this conjugal business. Could the momentary frettings of millions of husbands and wives be for that brief space, till the ordinary current of reason and affection had regained its sway, imprisoned in the silence of their own bosoms; could one party even, bear in silence the temporary frailty of the other's speech; what regrets, what jars, what breaches would be forestalled, and how great would be the calm! "It any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able to bridle the whole body."

On the other hand, also, if "the tongue of the" sometimes" dumb" could then be "taught to speak;" if the thousand little thoughts of affection and kindness which are born in wedded hearts toward

1 Prov. xxxi. 26.

* James iii. 2.

each other, were oftener spoken in the beloved ear; if the old vows of love, once so sweet to say and to hear, were to be oftener repeated in words, as they are still felt in secret, how it would serve to break up, as it were, the hardening earth around the roots of affection's tree, and soften the soil in which it stands to every other genial influence of growth and fruitage.

Still the former mischief is the greater, more generally at work, and more difficult to eradicate. We urge, therefore, for your bridal day, this one additional private rite. Assume this one extra-rubrical stipulation and vow. Solemnly resolve, and solemnly promise to God and to each other, that come what will, the FIRST sharp word shall NEVER between you BE SPOKEN. Keep that vow, though your partner break over his or her's, keep you your vow. Whatever sacrifice of momentary inclination or pride it may cost, keep your vow. Come what may, it will repay you.

Yet frail human hearts cannot make the most perfect attainments, by this or any other means of domestic felicity, without calling in the holy aids of religion, and of the God of love.

Whatever, therefore, be your methods of culture, plant your affections in that rich and holy soil. On your bridal night, when the bustle of congratulations and merriment has ceased, when you enter the nuptial chamber, and first find

yourselves together alone, before you commit yourselves to each other's arms to sleep and dream of bliss which may or may not be realized, and which, alas! beyond your foresight and control, must be mingled with now unknown elements of anxiety and pain—at that interesting moment the like of which can never return, first of all, kneel together before Him who made you and gave you to each other; and to Him "who careth for the sparrows, and numbereth the hairs of your heads," commit your happiness and all your ways, in an act of solemn worship—an act to be nightly repeated, as steadily as your happy nights return. Do this, and you may rest assured that the habit will be worth more to you, in conjugal love and domestic peace, than all else which the gold of the Indies could buy.

Shelter, we were saying, your mutual tenderness as you would a flower of paradise, which must not feel the chilly seasons, nor the rougher blasts of this fickle world. It cannot be guarded too securely, and nursed too gently. We go further, therefore. We advise, were it for its own sake merely, and all other considerations out of view, to set it also within the sacred enclosure of the church of God. Bring it in your united hearts under the softening influences of those holy sacraments and that solemn worship. Kneel together in confession, and prayer with the