proverb is just as true in matrimony as elsewhere. "The devil tempts all other men, but idle men tempt the devil.” Prince Eugene "informed a confidential friend that, in the course of his life, he had been exposed to many POTIPHARS, to all of whom he had proved a JOSEPH, merely because he had so many other things to do."

A slothful, indolent, prating, gadding woman is both a moth and a mortification to a sensitive husband. And a lazy, loafing, shiftless man is an onerous burden to a faithful, toiling wife. For either party to feel that he or she is compelled to toil with industrious hand, while the other gas or lounges, is a sore festering at the heart of the conjugal relation.

COLLATINUS boasted of the industrious habits of his wife -LUCRETIA; and one day while banquetting with several princes, he laid a wager, that an unexpected visit to their wives would find his partner busily engaged with her domestics. The wager was accepted, and away they rode to Rome, where they found the princesses revelling at a luxurious banquet with their friends. From Rome they hastened to Collatia, the residence of Lucretia, where they found her, late at night, engaged in spinning amid the circle of her maids. Her husband gloried in the triumph he had won through her domestic virtues.

It was the pride of Augustus Caesar that his wife had a hand in making his imperial robes and costly girdle. “And Tanaquil, the wife of Tarquin, wrought woollen robes so well, that long after her death, her spinning implements, together with a robe of her manufacture, were hung up in the Temple of Fortune;" a constant lesson of INDUSTRY to Roman maids and matrons. And the favored Jewish husband, in the days of Solomon, did "safely trust" in his companion, because she cat "not the bread of idleness," but “worked` willingly with her hands."

Among these mutual duties we would not forget a regard.

to LITTLE THINGS. These are of vast importance in married life. A single word, a trifling act, has power to bless or mar a match. A hint may start suspicions and jealousies enough to destroy the happiness of the wedded pair. And a single act of kindness has power to span the future with the rainbow-promise of hope.

"A pebble in the streamlet scant

Has turned the course of many a river;

A dew-drop on the baby plant.

Has warped the giant oak forever."

What harsh words and alienations have grown out of the naming of a child! Both parties asserting that they are not at all particular, yet indirectly contending for some favorite name! One yielding with apparent cheerfulness, yet reluctantly at heart, to be dissatisfied for life, and disclose the inward feeling by "flings" over the little one's christian name! Such a triflc has flung its darkling shadows over more than one matrimonial alliance.

A niggardly, stingy spirit, united with vanity in respect to dress, greatly lowers the wife in the esteem of a generous husband. A too rigid economy in furnishing the tablepoorer provisions served up for the servants, simply that more may be expended for silks and satins-cheating the stomach to adorn the back-this is an exhibition of a mind so shallow, and a heart so empty, that any noble man must view it with contempt. It may create a family quarrel.

Inattention to the relatives of husband or wife is often the cause of alienations. If the wife is indifferent to the kindred of her husband, cold and distant in their reception, and all life and interest in waiting upon her own, it will not escape his notice. On the other hand, if the husband manifests little interest in the relatives of his wife, while he is all attention to his own, it will not escape her observant eye.

And here mutual jealousy may arise, and harmony be destroyed by a family eruption.

Little words of unkindness often make a sad breach in the family. Sometimes the husband, jaded and fretted by his business, is unfitted to appreciate the toils of his excellent wife; and he complains of the food, "too plain" or "too rich; "“the bread is poor and miserably baked;" the meat is cooked "too much" or "too little; " a "button is off his his shirt; "his "pants are never mended;" and nothing is right, but all wrong. And again the wife complains of the servant, and complains of the toils of house-keeping, and intimates that her husband is not exactly what he should be and closes with a pitiable sigh over the trials of the marriage state. And thus from little words and ejaculations, uttered without thought and consideration, there grow discontent end strife, until the parties wrangle, and curse their wedding day.

Nearly all family disputes commence with LITTLE THINGS. Some peccadiilo affair is made the theme of warm discussion, as if it were a case of life and death, and eloquence and passion storm around it, until love and concord are no more. Says JEREMY TAYLOR, "Man and wife are equally co cerned to avoid all offences of each other at 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 embraces 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."

But no matrimonial connection can be truly felicitous without the benign and sanctifying influence of RELIGION. This sweetens the temper, and hallows the affections, and purifies the heart. This leads to mutual faithfulness, kind

ness, and attachment from the highest and holiest principle. This brings the loving couple to the throne of Grace, where the heavenly influence of Prayer is shed over the thoughts of the mind and the feelings of the heart. This enjoins mutual LOVE, CONFIDENCE, and ATTENTION, and a long train of lively graces belonging to wedlock's "STRING OF PEARLS." This converts the little petty annoyances and vexations of life into aids to mutual devotion, proving them to be blessings in disguise. The pearl-oyster, by some mysterious secretion, converts the fretting grain of sand, that is forced within its shell, into a costly gem to adorn the neck of beauty. So RELIGION Converts the little, irritating occurrences and trials of wedded life into pearls of priceless worth; so that cach one's heart is richer for their existence.

The SCRIPTURES speak as follows upon the duties involved in the conjugal relation. To husbands the counsel is:-"usbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies. Let every one so love his wifo even as himself." "Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." "Ye husbands, give honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel." To wives the Divine lesson is:-"Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands, in every thing." "Let the wife sce that she reverence her husband." This is God's HOUSEHOLD CHARTER -a charter of "womens' rights" as well as mens'; love and protection on the part of husband, and reverence and submission on the part of the wife. He

shall not stretch out over her the sceptre of a lordly master,( nor must she crouch in servile obedience to be his slave. "Love and lordship like no fellowship." His shall be the rule of lore, and her's the submission of the same confiding spirit. It is such a husband who deserves a wife. It is such an obedient wife that commands her husband."

Such are the leading duties involved in the conjugal relation a union all of whose thrilling destinies will not be opened to our view until we stand amid the solemn verities of the last great assize. There is meaning, then, deep and touching, in the sacred bonds of marriage. It is not all an irresponsible delight to make the plighted vow, to add another to earth's widely scattered homes, to become the constituted and united head of a family, and to train children that bloom like "olive plants" around the festive board. There is trial, discipline, and great responsibility here. Character, hopes and happiness are here involved. And the illustrations of this truth, all along the thoroughfares of life, are a swift witness against the inconsiderate and rash, who take a partner for life with as little sense of obligation, as they add an acre to their lands, or an article to their wardrobe.

YE WEDDED ONES! before the same altar where your connubial bands were tied, ponder the duties of this lifelong relation! Ye have made the vow to be one in interest and affection that ye may swell the number of happy HомES, whose bright associations refresh the sinking heart of many a wanderer, and around whose altars concentre scenes such as the tongue of CICERO could not truthfully describe, or the brush of RAPHAEL paint. Ye are to make a HOME! green islet upon this " sea of trouble," inviting the tossed and weary voyager of life to its crystal waters and ambrosial shadesa sheltering refuge for the victim of misfortune, flecing before the storm of adversity as a bird to its nest in the mountain-pine; a bright spot (than which earth has not

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