Practical Hints—Health—Marriage, Etc.

To the best of my ability I want to tell young men how to start in life, and how to act in all that comes and goes in the daily course of things. I will simply tell what I have seen, heard, and made a note of in the ups and downs of life. My own life has been a hard and varied one from first to last, so that I ought to know how to help young men. Whatever I have, be it much or little, has all been taken at the spear-point. I owe nothing to wealth, nothing to the rich, nothing to the great. I am a working-man, and the son of a working-man, and I am not ashamed to say

so. I am not aware that I have ever known any A period of idleness in the whole course of my life. Having first praised God for His pity and love and aid, I praise hard work — the hardest ever done by any man of my acquaintance — as the cause of any useful position I may have acquired. That I am not either in the workhouse or in the madhouse is an escape for which prayer and toil have alone to be credited. To patrons I owe nothing. The young man who depends upon patrons will probably have a smooth way down to failure and nothingness. As a boy I had a capital schooling in letters and in service. I thought it hard at the time, but as a man, I am thankful for all the drill, Many boys brought up on plum-cake and barley-sugar have come to me for help. They began too well. They began at the wrong end. Some of them even smoked in their teens, and contradicted their elders before coming of age. I never smoked. I saved my pennies and bought books with them. Premature manliness, so-called, often means premature old age, or, as the proverb puts it, ‘Soon ripe, soon rot.”

At first there was a good deal of difficulty in deciding how I was to start the world. Most boys want to begin as cabmen. I never felt the thrill of that delight. At fourteen years of age I thought I should like to succeed my father in his business as a builder. He employed men, working amongst them himself, doing more than any two of them, and had gathered a constituency which he thought might be worth preserving for his only son. Yet the kind old heart could not take easily to the idea. He would rather work for me than that I should work for myself. But he compromised the matter by engaging for me a private tutor in architecture. He thought it would be better for me to begin at the high end of the work, and to come down little by little if I should feel it necessary or desirable to do so. This did not suit me. If I was to be a builder, I must know the whole art and mystery of the craft from end to end. Like William Denny, the noted shipbuilder, nothing would satisfy me, but at the age of fourteen I must join my father’s men. I would work during the day, and study architecture in the evenings. I was to work with my father. I was to be no man’s servant, nor was I ever the servant of any man. I was to do everything that any other boy would do. No favour would I accept. Remember, I was fourteen years old, and do not be shocked when I tell you that before I was fifteen I was back at school, where I remained until I was nineteen. In a few months the building vision vanished without my having laid one stone upon another. If ever I did lay two stones together, I cannot but wonder what has become of them! Yet some kind and sensitive souls — so rejoiced to see me a minister — so delighted with my success in life, thinking it is such a great credit to me — never allow an opportunity to pass without telling the world that I have worked my way up from humble beginnings! It would be amusing but for the malignant bitterness which they clumsily and vainly try to conceal.

When I was nineteen, then, I continued at school, partly as scholar, and partly as assistant. I was appointed usher of the school, principally in the mathematical department. The first money I saved amounted to three half-sovereigns. These I stowed away in the secret drawer of a rosewood writing-desk (value two guineas) presented to me by my father. I often stole a glance at them. In fact, I often counted them. I knew there were only three; yet it seemed that they invited me to count them, and looked grateful for the attention. I moved them from one place to another in the little drawer with my finger-tip; then turned them over and moved them back again; and thus did my duty by the little golden store. I have the same desk now, and sometimes I touch the secret spring and look into the drawer; but, alas! the three half-sovereigns have made unto themselves wings and flown away! Tam thankful that I was early taught the value of money. I was not brought up in the harum-scarum way which does not distinguish between a sovereign or a shilling, or that thinks it grand to take no count of copper. We had in one way or other to work for every penny we had, so every penny was accounted and appraised. ‘This was not the result of covetousness, but of wise and honest thrift. There was no greed in our house. On the contrary, what. local repute that house had, turned upon the unvarying kindness of its occupants, whose hearts literally glowed with generosity. It is possible to be both economical and benevolent. As a boy, in my early teens, I do not remember ever sitting down to my own Sunday dinner without first taking a plateful of smoking refreshment to a poor widow who lived not far away. Having deposited the little gift with her, I ran back and enjoyed my own dinner all. the more for this little recreation. If this is breaking the Sabbath, I hope it will be broken more and more. This is not a bad training for boys: it brings them face to face with actual poverty; and I am glad to say that in this instance I was brought face to face with actual gratitude.

Having continued in the school from nineteen to twenty-two, I went to London and began my ministerial course. My first pastoral salary (when I was twenty-three) was £130 a year, which I thought and said was too much. When the leading deacon of the little church told me that they would give me £130 a year, I bluntly told him that it was too much, and that I could not imagine what I could do in return for so large a sum. I do not think the sum so large to-day. We change our ideas of the value of money, and probably our ideas of all earthly things. My first rent was fifteen pounds a year. I never desire a nicer outlook from any window than I had under this insignificant rental. I have paid more than ten times that rental since, but I have never had so fine an outlook from any window. I looked right across undulating fields, dotted with browsing cattle, and shadowed here and there by noble trees; another man paid all the expense of this, and probably I took more enjoyment out of it than he did. The first twenty pounds I saved I sent home. The next twenty-five pounds I saved I also sent home. And so I went on until every penny my father expended upon me was repaid. I tell you these things that you may have proof of my right and title to address you, founded as they are upon the fact that you are not being instructed by a man who is unacquainted with the wear and tear of life. My experience is my qualification. I do not intend to preach to you, as ministers are wont to do, but to talk to you right out of my store of personal facts, recollections, and observations. My experience is sustained by observation so practical and so intimate that it is nearly of equal value. I have personally known young men who began life with every social advantage who (as I have just said) have come to my door to beg. Such men I have never sent empty away. I blame their parents quite as much as I blame themselves. They began life at the wrong end. They were never taught the value of money. Every wish was attended to almost before it was expressed. What could be expected? It is absurd for parents to neglect the most elementary culture of their children in practical things, and then to expect their children to turn out models of management and thrift. The result of my observation is the conviction that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, and that well-regulated severity is the deepest and truest kindness. In giving this judgment I lay great stress upon the word “well-regulated.” There is a severity that is brutal. There is a severity which will be tremendously, because justly, avenged. I would entreat parents not to bring their childen up with the notion that life is a holiday, and certainly not with the notion that life is a terror. The middle way is best. Life has its sunshine and its cloud, its gardens and its deserts, its holiday and its toil, — recognise both aspects, and deal wisely with the complicated situation. If I were to attempt to set forth in a sentence the result of my combined observation and experience, it would be to the effect that excess of kindness in the matter of sparing children toil and gratifying children’s wishes has been the source of incalculable mischief and sorrow. The same thing may be said of excessive severity. I know a family trained on the despotic principle. The father was simply an old fool. I have no wish to speak discourteously, nor have I any wish to speak flatteringly or falsely, and therefore I must abide by that contemptuous description. All women he snubbed as inferior. His children were never permitted to speak freely in his presence. When he played any game with them, it was understood that he was to win, because he laid down the idiotic doctrine that a man ought not to be beaten by his own

children! From an income of thousands a year he fell into almost penniless poverty, and his children — snubbed, contemned, and baffled at every point — are this day suffering the consequences of a policy of the most Iudicrous vanity, self-display, and despicable Dombeyism. This is not the severity Icommend. I commend only the severity which is compatible with reason and justice.

The first schoolmaster I had (though an officer ina Christian church) ought at this moment to be in perdition. He was simply a fiend. From a human point of view, perdition is too good a place for him, One of his scholars had lost ‘an arm, and whenever the brute thrashed this scholar he laid the long thick stick heavily upon the stump of the lost arm. The sight was horrible. It was a sight I would gladly forget, but I cannot banish the fearful scene from my recollection. I loathe the memory of the wretch. Men ought to be very careful as to the first impressions which they make upon the minds of children. I think if I were to meet that man as an angel of light, it would be impossible for me to forget the brutality which I have seen him practise. I was but a child at the time, but the impression which he made upon my memory is simply indelible. In the matter of savagery he was exactly Squeers. Surely he must have sat for the portrait of that demon. You will see from all these hints and indications that I had opportunities of learning something about the ways of men at a very early period, and what I have thus learned I am about to place at your service by way of counsel and sympathy. You present yourself to my mind as a young traveller who has set out in the early morning upon a very difficult and untried journey. I meet you at the very beginning of your course, and I tell you that having been over all the road I am willing to give you the benefit of my experience, if you will allow me to talk to you confidentially, sympathetically, and tenderly. I want also to talk to you frankly.

I should like to feel that there is no barrier between us preventing the freest and most genial intercommunication. Ply me with any questions that may occur to you, and do not hesitate to ask me how you are to conduct yourself under the most trying and delicate circumstances. I could address you in long and carefully constructed sentences, with more or less of a conscious effort to elicit your wonder and your admiration in reference to my literary skill, but all this 1 propose to avoid, and to come into close quarters with you, dealing with life as a reality and not a dream, a present discipline and not a remote possibility. All this has been done over and over again. Probably it never. was so well done as in the first two chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes. But as every man has his own way of putting things, and as you may be interested in my particular standpoint and observation, it will be a great joy to me if you will listen whilst I talk over the difficulties, the battles, the successes, the joys, and the sorrows of this complicated and tragical human life.

SUGGESTIONS.

TI. HEALTH,

Ir I had not had the constitution of a tiger, I should long ago have been in my grave. Under God, I have my health to thank for most of my success. ‘When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh,” they soon found that the meal would disagree with them. I use the word “health” in a large sense, including in it, as partly arising from it, invincible buoyancy of spirits. Perhaps that buoyancy occasionally showed itself in a degree of what some people would call frivolity, leading me to caper, and shout, and sing in my study even when the clerical enemy was foaming at the mouth. I never cared a button either for him or his foam, for my heart beat steadily, and my blood went up and down adequately and without complaining. For all this I have to thank a lion-like father and the most enduring of mothers. What they gave me to start with, I have sustained and matured by

Ir daily care. Smoking and drinking would soon have shattered me, but I kept them under my feet and despised them in every form. Not only have I thus preserved my health, I have also saved much time and money. Let me tell you what I have seen and known on the matter of bodily health.

1. My own habits have been very simple. I rise at seven o’clock, and breakfast at eight. At two o’clock I have my dinner, consisting of a plain joint and. plenty of vegetables, together with (as a rule) a tapioca or rice or sago pudding, and two or three oranges as long as the season lasts. No wine, no beer, no spirits. Plain tea at five. For supper I have porridge and milk and a boiled egg, and have had the same simple fare for many years. If you will follow this course, you need not care how far from medical men you take up your abode. Of course you are never to forget that what cured the tailor killed the cobbler, or, in other words, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” We cannot lay down a hard and fast rule which every man must obey. There is a sense in which every man must be his own doctor. I take leave, however, to think that the further we remove our habits from simplicity the further we shall plunge into danger. If your constitution is weak, your safety will be

THE USE OF WATER, eh

found in the simplicity of your diet. I do not know any constitution that naturally requires champagne, venison, and tobacco. I do not believe the Lord ever made such-a constitution. The taste for these things is, I believe, an almost exclusively acquired taste. The Gospel is set before us as bread and water, not as confectionery and champagne; the simplicity of bread and water represents what is essential to us, and therefore best for us in intellectual, moral, and physical health. Beware of pampering yourself. The fewer your needs the greater will be your riches.

2. I am convinced that a plentiful use of hot and cold water is essential to health. Have a thorough cleansing of the skin every day. Specially have it in the morning. Get into the water when it is quite warm; soap yourself with energy; then whilst the hot water is running away through the wastepipe, turn on the cold water and sponge yourself well. The cold water closes the pores and hardens the skin. After this process you can tackle your work, however hard it may be, with effect. Let me hear no nonsense about being afraid of taking cold. You should be much more afraid of being dirty. Twice a week at least I have this bath at the City Temple. After it the exercise of preaching is delightful. On this matter of bathing

I long ago expressed myself as follows in Springdale Abbey : —

“About five o’clock every summer morning I stand the rousing shock of the shower-bath, and this makes me master of the day. At first this shower-bath business is not exactly what one would regard as specially comfortable; at all events, not in the remarkable way in which I commenced the operation. It took me several hours to prepare for it; for being natively cautious, I naturally preferred to approach the bath reflectively. I always began the night before to prepare for the event, and invariably (I think I may say without exaggeration) my courage at night was sensibly greater than in the morning, At night I went so far as openly to sneer at all cowardice in relation to aquatic exercises, and on one occasion I was so provoked as to pronounce such cowardice thoroughly contemptible, especially — as I remarked in an irritated tone to a shuddering listener who cringed as if drops of cold water were trickling at intervals down his back — especially as it was generally admitted that ‘ Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ In the morning, however, my courage fell several degrees below the temperature of my creed, and I then wished to persuade myself that my remarks had an exclusive reference to warm water. I felt this to be necessary in order to maintain a fair show of self-respect, which was manifestly on the decline as I sneaked under the bath with a look of meanness and terror which I try in vain to forget. I ought not though to say wnder the bath — -strictly speaking, that is going too far. The literal facts of the case are these: at first, I would stand at a safe distance, with an outstretched hand laid upon the chain which dangled from the bath, just to ascertain whether the water came down properly, not exactly that I was afraid of it, but merely to see that the chain and the bowl and the joints were in working order; then I would try how gently I could pull the chain, just to see, as a matter of curiosity, and that I might be able to testify, should the subject ever be disputed in my hearing, how very dittle water could, by delicate manipulation, be squeezed out of a critically balanced bowl through the perforated roof of a shower-bath; all this time I would be intermittently hamming some popular tune, so that nobody need imagine that they had a frightened man in the house. All this time, too, my skin was becoming microscopically mountainous in consequence of standing so long in what Franklin amusingly calls an air-bath. At length the crisis came, and then I tried a few drops on the middle of the back, just once more to satisfy myself that the machine was in proper working order. Meanwhile, to speak frankly, my image was not exactly what one would prefer to have taken in the form of a carte-devisite; there was altogether too much contortion, too apprehensive an expression about the eyes, and too marked an elongation about the corners of the mouth for that; however, that is neither here nor there, for though cleanliness is next to godliness, yet shower-bathing is at an immeasurable distance from photography. The adventurous back having been gently sprinkled, the head was gradually brought under the sharpening shower; first came the organ of self-esteem, which was effectually humbled, and in due time came the organ of language, which was as effectually shut up as if a large prize had been offered for hard winking; and as the drenched hair bedraggled the discoloured countenance, and a shiver shook the cringing frame, I seriously doubt whether my own mother would have known me. Then came the rubbing, and then the healthful glow, and finally the two-mile walk, during which I felt the strongest inclination to throw stones at every closed window-shutter in the neighbourhood — to such a pitch of indignation may the feelings of virtuous and heroic men be occasionally excited.”

Health is injured not alone by vulgar abuses of its laws, such as drunkenness, debauchery, and reckless exposure to all kinds of outward danger. Against such excesses there ought to be no need for me to warn you. I would therefore draw your attention to the fact that influences so subtle as evil thinking and evil desire drain and enfeeble the nerve forces and play havoc with the brain. You may be scrupulously clean, you may be temperate in eating and - drinking, and in all outward things you may live by the strictest rules, yet one wicked thought will age and wither you ina moment. There will be loss of brain energy, loss of nervous power, loss of will, loss of hope; your mind will be cloudy, your hand will be unsteady, and invincible reluctance will paralyse your aspirations and all the faculties which they should animate. Preoccupation of mind is the best security against the assault of unholy thought and desire. Always be thinking of something useful or good or noble; then to every insidious as well as to — every common and blatant temptation you can say: “JT am doing a great work, and cannot come down.” I cannot too urgently insist that it is not the tenth or the twentieth evil thought that wrecks the brain; it is the very first wicked desire or iniquitous purpose that assails and overthrows the best life. I have often thought what a wonderful thing it is that man was told the consequences of his disobedience in these words: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The man was not simply beginning to die, but as a matter of fact sin instantaneously paid him his wages, and the wages of sin is death. It is B the first lie that ruins us. We do not wait for the liar’s portion until we have told the hundredth lie. The moment the idea of telling a lie comes into our heart, something is subtracted from the brain, and the work of deterioration has set in with fearful energy. Of course, the more you attend to cleanliness and to self-control the less opening there will be for temptation, and the less field will there be for it to exercise its evil seductiveness upon; in this sense cleanliness itself becomes a protection against temptation, and self-control watches the gates of our being, keeping at bay every enemy how latent or palpable soever. No man can have an evil purpose in his heart regarding his fellow-man without his bodily health suffering. The connection between body and soul is simply vital. We hurt the one when we hurt the other. We are told constantly in the Bible that wrong-doing is self-injury. We not only inflict wrong upon others, we first inflict it upon ourselves. ‘‘He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul,’ — showing the profound and unchanging doctrine that even external wrong-doing first plunders, defiles, and enfeebles the soul of the wrong-doer himself. It is utterly in vain for you to think that you can keep up your health without attending to your morals, And here again let me say that by “morals” I do not mean simply outward and mechanical behaviour, I mean rather those spiritual morals that have to do with motive, purpose, unspoken, secret, and unspeakable desire. You have the battle to fight in the inmost places of your soul, and if you do not there win the victory the enemy will have no difficulty in overthrowing the whole citadel and spoiling the whole plan of your life.

II. CourTsHIP AND MARRIAGE.

On these points perhaps more than on any other is advice needed by young men and young women. Yet on no point is advice less likely to be taken. “Natural selection” is regarded as being in most cases its own unanswerable defence. Yet both young men and young women ought not to be blind and deaf to the social experience which is writing its record round about them with unmistakable legibleness. Facts should go for something even with the youngest learners. How to approach you on these subjects I hardly know, yet I must beg you to believe that I come to you along the lines of the strictest observation and with the authority of a prolonged experience. In the first instance, who can describe the subtle effect of mere personal attractiveness in the matter of facial appearance? Many men have married only a face. It was enough for them, in the first instance, to have their imagination satisfied by what they considered to be beauty. As a matter of fact, where there is only a face, beauty is simply impossible. In such a case beauty is not.a question of form or outline or colour; the deepest beauty, the truest and most abiding beauty, can only be secured in association with mental and moral qualities. The form itself may be destitute of beauty, and yet in the very face and figure there may be a strange and happy fascination because of the energy of the indwelling and all-directing life. To imagine that face-beauty will last, supposing it to be nothing more, is self-delusion of the most vexatious kind. Where face-beauty is associated with mental beauty, so much the better. Never forget, however, the old proverb which says, “Handsome is that handsome does.” Beauty of character will outlast beauty of form and beauty of colour. The latter may be pleasant enough for a few days, or a few years, but can avail nothing in the night of darkness, in the hour of sorrow, in the pain and need of growing weakness. Under such experiences we need moral qualities of the very highest kind. Look out, then, not for mere beauty of a facial or superficial kind, but for beauty of soul, which shows itself in benevolent thinking, beneficent action, religious aspiration, readiness to serve and help all who require the attention and sympathy of mankind. The association which has no moral basis is exposed to all the changing winds of whim, temper, fashion, and custom. The association which has a profound moral basis is not a weather admiration, is not dependent upon climatic conditions; it is founded in reason, it is upheld and glorified by justice, and it comes to larger and riper fruition day by day. The most contemptible persons I have known in this relation are persons who have been moved in their selection of life-companionship by the mere love of money or position. Men good otherwise have in my judgment erred in advising young people only to marry where there is wealth, or a prospect of it. I do not undervalue money. Money has its place and its power, and fortunately or unfortunately we cannot do without it as society is at present constituted. He who marries for money will find that he has married disappointment and sorrow. His own energy may be unhappily affected by the early possession of wealth which he has not worked for. The money often turns out to be much less than it appeared to be in the dreams of unmarried love. I never asked a question about money, either in the marriage relation or in the pastoral relation, on beginning the one or the other. The man who cannot maintain his own wife ought not to enter into responsibilities for whose discharge he is not prepared. Of course, if a young man should determine to begin where his father ended, he will feel a continual pressure, and he will begin life by carrying an unnecessary burden. It is a most

mischievous thing to have everything we can desire at the very outstart of life. It is better to begin with brown bread; as we have just said, it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. What do you want with an imposing entowrage at the beginning? I would rather advise you not to have anything you have not worked for. I know young men who have not brought a penny to their wedded life, and have simply sat down to enjoy what the bride or her friends may have supplied. This is meanness or cowardice or unmanliness of the basest type. Always remember that some men have a fortune with their wives, and other men have a fortune in them. The latter is the abiding wealth. The wealth that is external may take to itself wings and fly away. - Reason, thriftiness, forecast, true and wise economy will abide the day that shakes all qualities and tests all positions. I have always held it to be unjust to say that a wife has not contributed to her husband’s prosperity simply because she has not brought actual money to him. Some wives double their husbands’ incomes by taking care of them. I know one case in which a very thriving man would have brought himself to the workhouse but for his wife’s thriftiness and painstaking. She herself had not a penny at the beginning of her married life, yet how unjust it would be to say that she did not bring her fortune to her husband. In very deed she brought him the only fortune he ever had. He had skill in making money, but he had equal skill in spending or losing it. The money was only safely banked when it got into his wife’s hands.

Coming to married life itself, let me advise you above all things to realise the fact and delight of honest and trustful companionship. Husband and wife should live together in the deepest sense of the term; sharing each other’s thoughts, knowing each other’s plans, entering with zest and eagerness into each other’s pursuits. The man is likely to bring himself to ruin who does not make a real and loving companion of his wife. In her presence he ought to think aloud. He should conceal nothing from her. Concealment even in so-called little things ends in large and often mischievous issues, I have always maintained the doctrine that a husband should communicate freely with his wife as to his business position and prospects. The wife should know something like the exact financial standing of her husband. It may not be always possible to go into mere detail, but it is always possible for a wife to know whether her husband is able to pay twenty shillings in the pound or not. I knew a man who made a great profession of religion, and who attempted from time to time even to criticise the ministrations of his pastor, a man who assumed a very large religious function, and went up and down amongst men as an embodiment of piety. He got through a large fortune of his own; he got through a large fortune belonging to one of his relatives; his wife was under the impression that he was a substantial merchant; and within a day of his utter collapse and demolition she was living as she would have been doing had her husband’s income never undergone any diminution, Notwithstanding his Christian profession, I denounce this man as a bad man, His life was a daily lie. Not only was he lying to himself, he was lying to others; nor did the matter end in the mere telling of falsehoods, for he was inflicting upon his wife and his children the deepest lifelong cruelty. He made his mean escape from worldly difficulties by dying a coward’s death, but he has left a widow and many children to mourn their recollection of his name. Such a man was, I suppose, legally married; but morally, spiritually, sympathetically, and lovingly he was not married in the sight of God. Where there is companionship of the kind I venture to suggest, it will be demonstrated by a persistent and joyous love of home. Here the wife must play her part, doing all in her power to make home the most attractive place on earth. I will not, however, allow the husband to blame the wife because his house is not homelike, if he knows in his heart that he is longing with evil desire to get away from his own fireside, and to enjoy himself, as he terms it, with boon companions. I believe that clubs have done a good deal towards injuring the finest bloom and happiest effect of home-life. It is really not necessary that you at your time of life should belong to a club. Of course it may seem to be very grand for you to have the name of a club on your card. Yon shall have my permission to belong to a club, if you think it worth while doing so, as soon as you are forty years of age. If a man cannot be trusted at forty, the probability is that he will never be worth trusting at all. Home should be your club. Home should be the domestic aspect of your church. Home should be the beginning of your heaven. It is not necessary to have a grand home in order to have a happy one. For myself, I have had houses of various sizes and various surroundings; but I have never been happier than I was in my first little cottage. He who multiplies riches multiplies sorrows. A wise man has said that there are as many miseries beyond wealth as there are on this side of it. You see, therefore, that I would have you a domestic man, — a wife-loving, a home-keeping, a thrifty householder, having above all things, after having secured the barest necessaries of home, a little library, which shall be the soul, the eye, and the joy even of the tiniest house.

I am afraid that these advices stand a poor chance against the energetic current of immediate fashion or transient admiration of form or face. It would seem as if every man must purchase his experience at a heavy cost. In truth we cannot put an old head on young shoulders. All we can hope to do is to contribute of our experience with the earnest desire that a man here and there will pay heed to those who have gone before him and escape the pits into which some of them have fallen. As a matter of experience, the young men whom I have known, who have married either for facial beauty or for wealth, have come to a disastrous end. I have known several young men whose early lot in life I envied. They seemed to marry the most beautiful young ladies in their respective towns. Their weddings were gay and hopeful. They departed from the bride’s house amid showers of rice, salutations, benedictions, and prophecies of good; yet ‘because there was no deepness of earth, they soon withered away.” JI have known other instances, in which young men have married comparative poverty, but real and substantial moral qualities: in every such instance the issue has been one of satisfaction and delight. I am here dealing with what might be made a mere matter of statistics. I haye seen men, north and south, big and little, young and old, under all sorts of conditions; and I tell you, as a matter of solemn testimony, that just in proportion as men have paid attention to moral judgments and moral tests have they really and solidly succeeded in married as well as in business life.

SUMMARY.

1. Never marry whilst you are in debt.

2. Never furnish on the hire system.

3. At the beginning do not pay more (except in great cities) for your rent than one-tenth of your income.

4. Look out for a healthy house rather than

a showy one,

5. Envy no other man’s house.

6. Let it be God’s house, that it may be truly your home.