natural state for man, so it necessarily must yield the greatest amount of enjoyment. There is an inherent desire in all human beings to possess some associate, some intimate, bosom friend, to whom they may confide all the various emotions of the mind-with whom they may sympathize in the hour of gloom, and rejoice in seasons of presperity. Unless this intimate companion is found, the soul pines in loneliness; the fountain of its fine, sympathetic emotions, becomes stagnant and frozen, and its possessor is deprived of all those pure pleasures of association, which, under other circumstances, would have gilded the path of life. This friend, this associate, this companion, is obtained in the husband or wife. Marriage furnishes a friend for counsel, an associate willing to bear a portion of the burdens of misfortune, and a companion to share in the happiness which is scattered along the way of earthly existence. All experience confirms the truth of the beautiful language of the poet :

"True bliss, if man may reach it, is composed

Of hearts in union mutually disclosed:
And farewell else all hope of pure delight.

But souls that carry on a blest exchange
Of joys they meet with in their heavenly range,
And with a fearless confidence make known

The sorrows sympathy esteems its own,

Daily derive increasing light and force

From such communion in their pleasant course.

Feel less the journey's roughness and its length,

Meet their opposers with united strength,

And, one in heart, in interest and design,

Gird up each other to the race divine."-CowPER

The old adage is literally true, that, “Without a friend, the world is but a wilderness." A human being cannot remain disconnected with all others of his race, and experience the full amount T of happiness which his nature is capable of yielding: In the circling arch of human society and earthly pleasures, matrimony is the key-stone, which gives strength, permanency, and symmetry to all the most dear and sacred rights of man.--Strike out that key-stone-abolish or neglect that sacred institution-and the whole fabric would fall into ruins; the higher and nobler pursuits of civilized life would be arrested; the pure and heavenly nature with which our being has been crowned, would be overwhelmed by the lower or baser passions of the body, and man, the offspring of Divinity, would be degraded to the level of the brute!

Marriage developes our better nature, and brings into activity many valuable principles and characteristics, which would otherwise remain dormant and unknown. It often works the most striking and pleasing transformations. How frequently does it change the sour, crusty, selfish bachelor, into the kind, affectionate, assiduous husband, and the tender, watchful, smiling father! How often does it cause those who were careless and indifferent in regard to the great interests of humanity, to become awake and zealous upon subjects vitally connected with the welfare of society. He who has entered the marriage state—who is at

the head of a family-realizes that he has some thing of importance at stake in the world. He feels an immediate and powerful interest in religion, in literature, in the arts and sciences, in government and laws, in the principles of civil and religious liberty, in the rights of man-in everything that can have any influence upon the welfare, the prosperity and peace of community, and of that family in whose condition he is so deeply interested.

Marriage not only increases our usefulness, but it enlarges our enjoyments. Who does not know that to love, and be loved by, proper objects, is a source of high pleasure? Hence the reciprocal love of husband and wife—of parent and offspring-furnishes sources of pure and exalted happiness, which none can experience but those who sustain these relations. Marriage breaks the bars of selfishness, and becomes a spur to all the active duties of life. Our own personal wants no longer continue to monopolize all our attention, no longer form the line which bounds the sphere of our exertions. Our existence, our prosperity, our happiness, become merged in that of others. We are stimulated to activity, industry, and vigilance in the avocation to which our attention is turned, that we may experience the pure pleasure of contributing to the comfort and prosperity of those near to our hearts. This desire to benefit those connected with us, when once it reigns triumphant in the soul, becomes a deep, holy, undying, principle of action. I speak from the lessons of ex

perience, when I declare that an ardent desire to impart aid, and enjoyment, and peace, to those who possess our heart's deep affection, and who are more or less dependant upon us, will make us willing to toil and labor-will stimulate us to exertions and nerve us up to efforts, from which, in other circumstances, we would shrink in dismay! Strike this principle from the human heart, and how much of the industry and activity which now fill society with its hum would immediately disappear!

An individual who at his death had acquired no inconsiderable fame as an author, both in England and America, left this legacy behind him— "I am sure that every one will say, without any hesitation, that a fourth part of the labors I have performed, never would have been performed, if I had not been a married man!" Speaking of his family, he remarks-" They sharpened my industry: they spurred me on. . . . A very large portion of my nearly a hundred volumes, may fairly be ascribed to the wife and children! And how is it now? How is it when the sixty-fourth year has come? And how should I have been without

this wife and these children? I might have amassed a tolerable heap of money, but what would that have done for me? It might have bought me plenty of professions of attachment: plenty of persons impatient for my exit from the world; but not one single grain of sorrow for any anguish that might have attended my approach

ing end!" This writer can truly bear witness to the appropriateness of the poet's declaration :

"When the black-letter'd list to the gods was presented,
(The list of what fate for each mortal intends,)
At the long string of ills a kind goddess relented,

And slipp'd in three blessings--wife, children, and friends.”

Abounding as matrimony does with numerous advantages and beneficial incentives, and with so great an amount of social and domestic enjoy. ment, it is hardly supposable that any persons can be found who voluntarily abstain from marriage. Yet many there are, who exhibit this eccentricity. By way of distinction, they are denominated "Old Bachelors." They are anomalies-exceptions from all other earthly existences-a kind of monstrosity, put forth in some unaccountable freak of nature-a species of Ishmaelites, "whose hands are against every man, and every man's hands are against them." contemner of woman, the voluntary bachelor, stands out before the world as one who violates the laws of nature, disregards the commands of God, and opposes the design of his Maker in the creation of the human race-as one whose example, were it universally followed, would make man indifferent to the welfare and improvement of his fellow-beings, speedily depopulate the world, and rob heaven of the myriads of earthly spirits with which the blessed Creator designed to throng its pearly courts.

The