*

sympathizing with its struggles. The cruel and inveterate factions and quarrels which the commissioners of Henry VIII. reported are very credible among men who, being confined together within the same walls, never can forget their mutual animosities, and who being cut off from all the most endearing connections of nature, are commonly cursed with hearts more selfish and tempers more unrelenting than fall to the share of other men. This description corresponds very much to the interior of a workhouse at the present day. Gibbon's account is much to the same purpose. Speaking of primitive monks, he says, "Whenever they were permitted to step beyond the precincts of the monastery, two jealous companions were the mutual guards and spies of each other's actions ; and after their return they were condemned to forget, or at least to suppress, whatever they had seen or heard in the world. Except in the presence of others, the monastic slave might not receive the visits of his friends or kindred, and it was deemed highly meritorious, if he afflicted a tender sister, or an aged parent, by obstinate refusal of a word or look. Prior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see him, but he shut his eyes during the whole visit. At their silent meals, they were enveloped in their cowls, inaccessible and almost invisible to each other."

The parallel of Buddhism is complete ;

* Hume's "Hist. of Eng.," ch. xxxi.

"It is curious to note how many customs this system has in common with heathenism. In Japan all officials serve in pairs, as spies upon each other."-Sir Rutherford Alcock's "Capital of the Tycoon," i. 64.

History of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch.

xxxvii.

for under that system the mendicant monk is forbidden to look at or converse with a female: yea, if his mother have fallen into a river, and be drowning, he shall not give her his hand to help her out; if there be a pole at hand, he may reach that to her; but if not, she must drown.*

Are those teachers actuated by a purely religious zeal who urge young females to forsake home and enter the cloister? It may be so sometimes, but a convert from Romanism, whose keen eye had seen the inside of the machine, says, that an odious, gross, animal jealousy triumphs in the perpetual exclusion of an interesting girl from the world.t

The same system has warred against domestic life and answered to the apostolic description "forbidding to marry." In the time of Queen Mary, a Welsh bishop, Ferrars, of St. David's, was burnt at Carmarthen for the crime, among others, of having a wife and whistling to his child, as he lay in the arms of his nurse; and here as in many cases one can see the irony of history and the Nemesis of events; for in the French Revolution some priests were compelled to marry against their will.‡

Most unenviable is the man who represses his domestic affections till he comes to be without love, without sympathy, without praise. Surely he suffers from atrophy of heart, and that organ must be wasting and dwindling away till he becomes heartless.

Perhaps some may think this a homely subject, fit only

* Wilson.

+"Life of Blanco White," i. 120.

Alison's "Hist. of Europe," 8vo. ed., ii. 74.

for home-bred men, and they may sneer at the tame spectacle; but no success or glory can compensate for the want of home. Some who have tasted the greatest varieties of life, and have had a right to speak with the authority of that experience, have declared as much. The noble Admiral Collingwood as he paced the deck of his victorious ship was sighing for home. The great Napoleon, after he had tasted of all the pleasure and greatness of the world, said that the chief happiness of his life had been with Josephine at home.

CHAPTER II.

MARRIAGE.

A WITNESS may be repulsive, and yet true. Of this character is the saying, "Marriage and hanging go by destiny." For the most part, a life-long union is brought about by a meeting, accidental, as the thoughtless say, providential, as the devout believe. The choice is seldom made by reason, which is the man himself, but by some sudden gust of feeling which carries him away; and yet matrimony involves tremendous issues.*

It has been noted that bad husbands have often very good wives, and the contrary is true, that good men have often had bad wives. Milton's wife left him for four years, adding insult to desertion. Hooker was called from his studies, or his friends, to mind the sheep or to rock the cradle; which gives his quaint biographer

* If the marriage is unhappy, then

τά τ ̓ ἔνδον εἰσὶ τά τε θύραζε δυστυχεῖς.—Orest., 604.

+ Lord Bacon's Essays: "Of Marriage and Single Life." In Herodotus (viii. 68) there is an interesting address sent by Artemisia to Xerxes, in which we find the germ of Bacon's remark. She says: “O king, consider this, that the good among men commonly have bad slaves, and the bad ones, good."

cause to wonder why the blessing of a good wife “ was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr. Hooker.” * But there is really little cause to wonder in these two cases, for the great theologian married Joan, his landlady's daughter, and the great poet married a frivolous girl. There was no

fitness in the choice of either.

The passion of love is notoriously injudicious; it overlooks considerations of propriety, and suitableness, and equality. As Cervantes says, "Love levels all." It levels down King Cophetua, and it levels up the beggarmaid; but seldom does such a matrimonial plane continue smooth and horizontal. There is often after an upheaving and a subsidence arising from difference of education, difference of habit, and general unfitness. Those who intend to marry might, according to the suggestion of Pittacus, take a lesson from boys at play, and choose a match; "Sume parem.” †

There are weighty physical reasons for not marrying too early or too late. Premature marriages are dangerous for the children, late marriages are dangerous for the mother. In modern Egypt marriage frequently takes place when the bride is twelve or only ten.‡ The Talmudists forbade marriage in the case of a man under thirteen years and a day, and in the case of a woman under twelve years and a day. In the hope of a robust progeny, Lycurgus had delayed the season of marriage. It was fixed by Numa

*Izaak Walton's "Life."

† Ὡς τὸ κηδεῦσαι καθ ̓ ἑαυτὸν ἀριστεύει μακρῳ.-Asch., Prom. Vinc., 890.

Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible,” art. Marriage.

C