ON THE

MARRIAGE

OF

CHRISTIAN MINISTERS.

It seems to me, that many men do not give sufficient weight to our Lord's observations upon those who made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, nor to St. Paul's reasoning on the subject of marraige. I would only imply, that both our Lord and the Apostle seem to establish it as a principle, that a single state, when it can be chosen and is chosen for the sake of the Gospel, is the superior state. This, I fear, is too much forgotten; and those men, who might have received the saying, and have done more service to the Church of God by receiving it, have given it little or no weight in their deliberations.

And yet it ought to be considered, that the very character which would best fit men for living in a single state, would abstract them too much from the feelings and wants of their people. I am fully sensible that I should have been hardened against the distresses of my hearers, if I had not been reduced from my natural stoicism by domestic sufferings.

The cases, I allow, are extremely few, in which a man may do, on the whole, more service to the Church by imitating St. Paul than by marrying: yet there are such cases; and it behoves every Minister seriously to consider himself and his situation, before he determines on marriage. He should not regard this state as indispensably necessary to him, but should

always remember, that cæteris paribus, he, who remains single, is most worthy of honour.

But, when it is proper that a Minister should marry, and he has determined to do it, how few select such women as suit their high and holy character! A Minister is like a man who has undertaken to traverse the world. He has not only fair and pleasant ground to travel over, but he must encounter deserts and marshes and mountains. The traveller wants a firm and steady stay. His wife should be, above all things, a woman of faith and prayer—a woman, too, of a sound mind and of a tender heart-and one who will account it her glory to. lay herself out in co-operating with her husband, by meeting his wants and soothing his cares. She should be his unfailing resource, so far as he ought to seek this in the creature. Blessed is she, who is thus qualified and

. thus lives!

But, after all, the married Minister, if he would live devotedly, must move in a determined sphere. Whatever his wife may be, yet she is a woman-and if things are to go on well they must have two separate worlds. There may, indeed, be cases, when a man, with something of a soft and feminine cast about his mind, may be united to a woman of a mind so superior and cultivated, that he may choose to make it his plan that they shall move in the same world. In such rare cases it may be done with less inconvenience than in any other. But, even here, the highest end is sacrificed to feeling. Every man, whatever be his natural disposition, who would urge his powers to the highest end, must be a man of solitary studies. Some uxorious men of considerable minds have moved so much in the women's world, that reflection, disquisition, and the energies of thought have been ruined by the babit of indulging the lighter, softer, and more playful qualities. Such a man is, indeed, the idol of the female world; but he would rather deserve to be so, if he stood upon his own ground while he attempted to meet their wants, instead of descending to mingle among them.

God has put a difference between the sexes, but education and manners have put a still greater. They are designed to move in separate spheres, but occasionally to unite together in order to soften and relieve each other. To attempt any subversion of God's design herein is being wiser than He who made us; and who has so established this affair, that each sex has its separate and appropriate excellence-only to be attained by pursuing it in the order of nature. Thought is or ought to be the characterizing feature of man, and Feeling that of the woman.

Every man and woman in the world has an appropriate mind; and that, in proportion to their strength of thought and feeling. Each has a way of their own—a habit-a system-a world-separated and solitary, in which no person on earth can have communion with them. · Job says of God, He knoweth the way that I take; and, when the Christian finds a want of competency in his bosom friend to understand and meet his way, he turns with an especial nearness and familiarity of confidence to God, who knoweth it in all its connections and associations, its peculiarities and its imperfections.

I may be thought to speak harshly of the female character; but, whatever persuasion I have of its intended distinction from that of man, I esteem a woman, who aims only to be what God designed her to be, as honourable as any man on earth. She stands not in the same order of excellence, but she is equally honourable.

But women have made themselves, and weak men have contributed to make them, what God never

designed them to be. Let any thinking man survey the female character as it now stands-often nervous, debilitated, and imaginative, and this superinduced .chiefly by education and manners—and he will find it impossible that any great vigour of mind can be preserved or any high intellectual pursuits cultivated, so far as this character stands in his way.

“Doing AS OTHERS DO,” is the prevalent principle of the present female character, to whatever absurd, preposterous, masculine, or even wicked lengths it may lead. This is, so far as it avails with man or woman, the ruin, death, and grave of all that is noble, and virtyous, and praise-worthy.

A studious man, whose time is chiefly spent at home, and especially a Minister, ought not to have to meet the IMAGINARY wants of his wife. The disorders of an imaginative mind are beyond calculation. He is not worthy the name of a husband, who will not, with delight, nurse his wife, with all possible tenderness and love, through a real visitation however long; but he is ruined, if he falls upon a woman of a sickly fancy. It is scarcely to be calculated what an influence the spirit of his wife will have on his own, and on all his ministerial affairs. If she comes not up to the full standard, she will so far impede him, derange him, unsanctify him.

If there is such a thing as good in this world, it is in the ministerial office. The affairs of this employment are the greatest in the world. In prosecuting these with a right spirit, the Minister keeps in motion a vast machine; and, such are the incalculable consequences of his wife's character to him, that, if she assit him not in urging forward the machine, she will hang as a dead weight upon its wheels.

A woman may have a high taste: her natural temper may be peevish and fretful: she may have a delicate and fastidious mind : she may long for every thing she sees. It is not enough that she is, in reality:

a

a. pious woman. Her taste, her mind, her manners, must have a decorum and congruity to her husband's office and situation. She must bear to be crossed in her wishes for unsuitable objects: he will say, with firmness, “This shall not be. It is not enough, that it would gratify you: it is wrong:

It is not enough, that it is not flagrantly sinful: it is improper, unsuitable to our character and station. * It is not enough that money will buy it, and I have got money: it would be a culpable use of our talent. It is not enough that your friend possesses such a thing: we stand and fall to our own Master."