can be supplied. She is not, O man, thy superior she is not thy slave, thy servant, thy dependent. She is indeed a help-mate; so art thou-but she is thy companion.'

Yet, as a companion, she is very distinguishable from every other. A brother or sister is a companion; but they are so involuntarily she is thy companion by choice. Many are companions for a while; but they are separable from us, and our intercourse may be reduced to correspondence-she is thy companion for life. Let other companions be ever so intimate, they have yet their separate allotments—she is thy companion, so as to have no interests of her own, but is an equal sharer in all the cares and comforts of thine.

It will be confessed, that there are some differences between the male and the female character, produced by nature, and enlarged by education. But the very differences render them the more mutually eligible as companions. The defective qualities of each are provided for in the attributes of the other. Both excel; but they excel in their own way. He is more characterized by thought; she, by

sympathy but these properties demand and aid each other. The eagerness, the sensitiveness, the delicacy, the genius, of the female, would unnerve the man: and the courage, the inflexibility, the severeness of the man, would unsex the female. Nothing can be more absurd than to oppose their respective claims; nothing more injurious than to separate them. Let their peculiar properties and places be retained, and all will be found adaptation and order. Let them be associated, and all will be found harmony and completeness.

But how is it to be lamented when their companionship is not carried into the widest, noblest, and most important region of its exercise-I mean religion! How unmeet is it, while one goes into the presence of God by devotion, for the other to stand without, till this transaction be over! How forceless the petition singly signed, while the voice of love and union cries, 'If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching any thing they may ask, it shall be done of my heavenly Father!' How strange and unsightly must it be for one of these associates to be walking the way ever

REF.

lasting, while the other is going the road to death! How hurtful and fatal to divide and separate, where, weak and opposed alone, they need every mutual encouragement and assistance! How appalling to reflect, that the most endearing alliance must be broken up forever at the termination of a life equally short and uncertain!

Husbands and wives! never forget that you are moral and accountable beings; and that the present life is only the threshold of existence. Be companions in faith and godliness. Walk together as heirs of the grace of life. Take sweet counsel together, and go to the house of God in company. Allure each other over the land of revelation in the length and breadth thereof. Mutually survey its prospects, admire its beauties, and gather of its flowers and fruits. Encourage one another with these words; and let your hearts be comforted and knit together in love unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Then

your children will not be perplexed by contrary counsels and examples. Then you will be lovely in life, and in death not divided. Then your separation will be only temporary; a time of re-union will come; and the intercourse of pure and perfected friendship will be renewed forever.

Thirdly: She is the wife of thy covenant.' Covenant here means the marriage contract; and by the mention of this, the husband is called upon to remember that the vows of God are upon him. A truly virtuous man will feel love more binding than law; yet considering human frailty, and the interests of society, it is well to be bound by duty as well as affection: and be constrained, if we act wrong, not only to violate principle, but obligation. The forms and rites of the connubial engagement may vary in different ages and countries; but some sanction has been always required. If the contract be not directly a religious transaction, it has generally been accompanied and enforced by religious sanctions. And surely such a

connexion can never be rendered too solemn and too sacred. It is the most awful and in

teresting compact into which it is possible to

enter.

Yet there are men who can trifle with a stipulation so momentous; and seem to forget all the responsibilities it entails: requiring perhaps at the same time exact fidelity on the other side—as if, in a covenant, both the parties were not equally bound. Did these men, beforehand, tell the persons they are endeavouring to espouse, how they designed to treat them; or did they refuse to pledge themselves to any kind of agreeable and good behaviour towards them; they would act an open part at least; and their wives, though chargeable with folly in venturing to advance, would yet have no deceitfulness to complain of. But when a man has voluntarily promised and bound himself by oath, he is no longer at liberty to behave otherwise than his engagement prescribes, without falsehood, perfidy, perjury, and disgrace.

He that does not verify the engagement, not only implied but expressed, upon which alone the heart was surrendered to him, is no better than a seducer. He falsely wins confidence, basely to betray it; and proclaims him