other instance favourable to the welfare of mankind, the

gospel of our salvation" has the pre-eminence. It classes the prohibition of the ordinance with "the doc. trine of devils,”—assures us "marriage is honourable in all"-leads us back to its commencement in paradiserenders the bond indissoluble-places it under the jurisdiction of heaven-takes from it an image to prefigure the union of CHRIST and his people-and often makes it the subject of particular instruction.

GENIAL INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.

Who depends so much on opinion and esteem, or feels so many motives to preserve reputation unblemished ?-Denied so often the liberty of divulging their emotions, Who so ready to seize the privilege of prayer, and to "pour out the heart before God?"-Who so susceptible of lively impressions?-Who feels so powerfully the thrilling of sympathy, or melts down so easily into all the tendernesses of benevolence?-While we think, they feel-while we deliberate, they relieve What woman was ever destitute of commiseration?It was not a woman that unfeelingly, "looked on," or "passed by on the other side," when the poor traveller

lay, wounded, bleeding half-dead.-Who so accustomed to self denial, the first, the last lesson, in the school of CHRIST?-Who feels such vicissitudes of health, or passes through scenes of pain and hazard so adapted to excite an entire dependence upon GOD, and to awaken solemn thought by bringing another world nearer the view? Less occupied in the distracting concerns of business, she has more time for solitude and reflection. Her general sphere of action, is much more propitious to innocency and devotion. Her joys are more immediately derived from her virtues. Home is the chief place of her amusements.

Of all the causes which form our manners, none operates so powerfully as female intercourse. If confined entirely to their company, we become effeminate -if constantly excluded from it, we contract roughness of temper, and a negligence of person; our behaviour assumes a ruder form, our voice a harsher tone; our sensations are less delicate, our passions more brutal. Who has so many avenues to the heart as a woman ?. What influence affects like hers? By means of a connection the most attractive, an intercourse the most familiar-the persuasion of words, the eloquence of tears, an example the most lovely and always placed in view

-a wife has a thousand opportunities of removing prepossessions, of fixing impressions, of engaging attention, of insinuating goodness.

IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS BY JEREMY TAYLOR.

"Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation; every little thing can blast an infant blossom; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new weaned boy; but when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have by the warm rays of the sun, and the kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken: so are the early unions of an unfixed marriage; watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word. For infirmities do not manifest themselves in the first scenes, but in the succession of a long society; and it is not chance or weakness when it appears at first, but it is want of love or prudence, or it will be so expounded; and that which appears ill at

first, usually affrights the inexperienced man or woman, who makes unequal conjectures, and fancies mighty sorrows by the proportions of the new and early unkindness. It is a very great passion, or a huge folly, or a certain want of love, that cannot preserve the colours and beauties of kindness, so long as public honesty requires a man to wear their sorrows for the death of a friend. Plutarch compares a new marriage to a vessel before the hoops are on; everything dissolves its tender compaginations: but when the joints are stiffened and are tied by a firm compliance and proportioned bending, scarcely can it be dissolved without fire, or the violence of iron. After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared and hardened by a mutual confidence and experience, longer than artifice and pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances, and some things present, that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces.

"Let man and wife be careful to stifle little things, that as fast as they spring, they be cut down and trod upon; for if they be suffered to grow by numbers, they make the spirit peevish, and the society troublesome, and the affections loose and uneasy by an habitual aversation. Some men are more vexed with a fly than with a wound; and when the gnats disturb our sleep,

and the reason is disquieted, but not perfectly awakened, it is often seen that he is fuller of trouble than if in the daylight of his reason he were to contest with a potent enemy. In the frequent little accidents of a family, a man's reason cannot always be awake; and when his discourses are imperfect, and a trifling trouble makes him yet more restless, he is soon betrayed to the violence of passion. It is certain that the man or woman are in a state of weakness and folly then, when they can be troubled with a trifling accident; and therefore it is not good to attempt their affections when they are in that state of danger. In this case, the caution is, to subtract fuel from the sudden flame; for stubble though it be quickly kindled, yet it is as soon extinguished, if it be not blown by a pertinacious breath, or fed with new materials. Add no new provocations to the accident, and do not inflame this, and peace will soon return, and the discontent will pass away soon, as the sparks from the collision of a flint: ever remembering that discontents proceeding from daily little things, do breed a secret undiscernible disease, which is more dangerous than a fever proceeding from a discerned notorious surfeit."

If they would preserve love, let them be sure to