as it is pure and true, bringing sweet changes and renewal, like the revolving seasons.
Beauty, wealth, and fame are incompetent to meet the demands of the affections, and should never weigh against the more honest claims of intellect, goodness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires an object on which to rest.
Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the being, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite mortals more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world, and begins to unfold its wings for heaven.
Marriage is unblest or blest, according to the disappointment it involves, or the motives it fulfils. To happify existence, by constant intercourse with those adapted to elevate it, should be the motive for marriage. Wedlock gives new pinions to joy, or causes its drooping wings to trail in dust.
Notes are ill arranged that produce discord. Tones of the human mind may be different, but they should be concordant in order to properly blend. Unselfish ambition, nobler life-motives, increased happiness and usefulness, — these different elements of the human mind, meeting and mingling, constitute the true marriage. In such union there is strength.
Let there be moral freedom in wedlock. Never contract the horizon of a worthy outlook, by the selfish exaction of all another's time and thoughts. With
