"Some men, it must be acknowledged, seem strangers to all refinement of feeling, and cannot be overcome by even the meekness of wisdom: yet if the address of tenderness and entreaty be unhappily useless, all carriage of an opposite character will be more than useless. The being upon whom gentleness and good nature are lost, can never be amended by ill humour and clamour. A man of sense will often, for the sake of propriety or peace, submit to be talked down by a wife talented in this species of oratory; but a man destitute of sense will be sure to retort such treatment with double violence and insult. With the well advised is wisdom,' while fools are the most unpersuadable of all animals. But you should not marry fools. You may be imposed upon with regard to piety, but you cannot be mistaken in regard to sense.

"But if, after all your blamelessness and commendableness, you are in the affliction we have been endeavouring to prevent, one source of relief is open: carry your distress to the mercy-seat; and, spreading it before the God of all comfort, say, 'Lord, all my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not hid from thee.' While he permits your sufferings he loves you, he pities you, he is on your side, he is able to turn the curse into a blessing. We know that 'all things work together for good to them that love God.' We have seen wives who have been 'chosen in the furnace of affliction.' They have had this valley of Achor given them for a door of hope. Their purposes being broken off, even the thoughts of their heart, and their prospects on life's fairest

side being clouded and gloomy, they have looked out after a better country. They have asked, 'Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?' They have said, 'And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.""

CHAPTER V.

PECULIAR DUTIES OF WIVES IN VARIOUS
STATIONS OF LIFE.

THE duties of a wife, as hitherto considered, have been those which necessarily arise out of the relation, without reference, or with very little reference, to the particular circumstances of individuals. These, however, involve some particular modifications of conduct, to which brief allusion should here be made.

Every rank in society, as well as every situation in life, has its peculiar advantages, which are to be regarded in the light of talents intrusted to be improved and accounted for hereafter: "Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing," Luke xii. 43. It has also its peculiar evils and dangers. These are trials of the character, and should be made incentives to constant watchfulness, diligence, and prayer; "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him," James i. 12.

"Honour and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part-there all the honour lies."

THE GENTLEMAN'S WIFE.

These pages may meet the eye of some young female united in marriage to a man of property. The home to which he conducts her is the abode of affluence and elegance. The society to which he introduces her is that of the well-informed, the polite, and perhaps the gay. To the cares and anxieties of the many, "What shall we eat, and

what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" they are entire strangers: they have more than heart could wish; ample stores of wealth are ready to supply all their wants and meet all their desires; and a train of obsequious domestics wait to minister to their ease and gratification. The slightest wish is instantly obeyed, and the most costly and far-fetched indulgence promptly procured; the tender and delicate woman need not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground, nor her hand to the spindle, the distaff, or the needle.

Well, my young friend, and is such your lot? For what end, then, were you made, and placed in circumstances of such abundance? Was it that

you might live a life of ease and indulgence; live to be pampered, and amused, and admired? Were you, in a word, created for yourself? and have you nothing to do but please yourself, and invent or adopt one scheme after another for accomplishing that object? Oh no; suffer not yourself to be thus degraded to the rank of a butterfly. You have a mind, a soul, capabilities, opportunities, and responsibilities of a far higher order.

Come, rouse yourself, and consider, What can I do to glorify God, and benefit mankind? Shall I, possessing superior advantages, be less useful than the poor uneducated hind who ploughs the soil, or the maiden who fills the lowest station in the household? No; to me much is given, and of me much will be required. "Lord, what wilt thou have me

to do?" Acts ix. 6.

A few hints may be suggested.

1. Improve the leisure and ease which your situation affords you, for the purposes of self-improvement. If you have been privileged with a really good education, you are very far from supposing that it is finished. You are desirous of improving your mind, and adding to your stock of valuable knowledge every day. You have leisure and a library at command; privileges after which many of your sex sigh in vain. Improve these valuable advantages. Let your reading be select and profitable. Squander not your time, waste not your feelings on the empty, frivolous, time-consuming, exciting novel; but strengthen and enlarge your mind by steady application to some worthy pursuit. Let not your chosen society be the giddy, the frivolous, and the vain, who can converse only on dress, fashion, and scandal— topics which tend to enfeeble and pollute the mind; but cultivate the society of the wise and good: seek, as you have opportunity, to "meddle with all wisdom," and especially labour to acquire that practical knowledge of human character and human life, in which the higher classes of society are sometimes lamentably deficient, and consequently unfitted for the efficient discharge of many