The Wedding Ring | Page 9

of all "Vanessa." The great wit
of the day, he was outwitted by his own cruelties.
PREDESTINATION IN MARRIAGE.
Amid so many possibilities of fatal mistake, am I not right in urging
you to seek the unerring wisdom of God, and before you are infatuated?
Because most marriages are fit to be made convinces us that they are
divinely arranged. Almost every cradle has an affinity toward some
other cradle. They may be on the opposite sides of the earth, but one
child gets out of this cradle, and another child gets out of that cradle,
and with their first steps they start for each other. They may diverge
from the straight path, going toward the North, or South, or East, or
West. They may fall down, but the two rise facing each other. They are
approaching all through infancy. The one all through the years of
boyhood is going to meet the one who is coming through all the years
of girlhood to meet him. The decision of parents as to what is best
concerning them, and the changes of fortune, may for a time seem to

arrest
THE TWO JOURNEYS;
but on they go. They may never have seen each other. But the two
pilgrims who started at the two cradles are nearing. After eighteen,
twenty, or thirty years, the two come within sight. At the first glance
they may feel a dislike, and they may slacken their step; yet something
that the world calls fate, and that religion calls Providence, urges them
on and on. They must meet. They come near enough to join hands in
social acquaintance, after awhile to join hands in friendship, after
awhile to join hearts. The delegate from the one cradle comes up the
east aisle of the church with her father. The delegate from the other
cradle comes up the west aisle of the church. The two long journeys
end at the snow-drift of the bridal veil. The two chains made out of
many years are forged together by the golden link which the groom
puts upon the third finger of the left hand. One on earth, may they be
one in heaven!
But there are so many exceptions to the general rule of natural affinity
that only those are safe who pray for a heavenly hand to lead them.
Because they depended on themselves and not on God there are
thousands of women every year going to the slaughter. In India women
leap on the funeral pyre of a dead husband. We have a worse spectacle
than that in America--women innumerable leaping on the funeral pyre
of a living husband.
THE ADVERTISING BRUTE.
Avoid all proposed alliances through newspaper advertisements. Many
women, just for fun, have answered such advertisements, and have
been led on from step to step to catastrophe infinite. All the men who
write such advertisements are villains and lepers--all, without a single
exception. All! All! Do you answer them just for fun? I will tell you a
safer and healthier fun. Thrust your hand through the cage at a
menagerie, and stroke the back of a cobra from the East Indies. Put
your head in the mouth of a Numidian lion, to see if he will bite. Take a
glassful of Paris green mixed with some delightful henbane. These are

safer and healthier fun than answering newspaper advertisements for a
wife.
MARRY INDEPENDENT MEN.
My advice is: Marry a man who is a fortune in himself. Houses, lands,
and large inheritance are well enough, but the wheel of fortune turns so
rapidly that through some investment all these in a few years may be
gone. There are some things, however, that are a perpetual
fortune--good manners, geniality of soul, kindness, intelligence,
sympathy, courage, perseverance, industry, and whole-heartedness.
Marry such a one and you have married a fortune, whether he have an
income now of $50,000 a year or an income of $1000. A bank is secure
according to its capital stock, and not to be judged by the deposits for a
day or a week. A man is rich according to his sterling qualities, and not
according to the mutability of circumstances, which may leave with
him a large amount of resources to-day and withdraw them to-morrow.
If a man is worth nothing but money he is poor indeed. If a man have
upright character he is rich. Property may come and go, he is
independent of the markets. Nothing can buy him out, nothing can sell
him out. He may have more money one year than another, but his better
fortunes never vacillate.
AVOID PERFECT MEN.
Yet do not expect to find a perfect man. If you find one without any
faults, incapable of mistakes, never having guessed wrongly, his
patience never having been perturbed, immaculate in speech,