...
'It is not good,' said He, 'that man should be alone; I will make him a
helpmeet for him.' From which words, so plain, less cannot be concluded,
nor is by any learned interpreter, than that in God's intention a meet and
happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage.... Again,
where the mind is unsatisfied, the solitariness of man, which God had
namely and principally ordered to prevent by marriage, hath no remedy, but
lies in a worse condition than the loneliest single life; for in single
life the absence and remoteness of a helper might inure him to expect his
own comforts out of himself, or to seek with hope; but here the continual
sight of his deluded thoughts, without cure, must needs be to him, if
especially his complexion incline him to melancholy, a daily trouble and
pain of loss, in some degree like that which reprobates feel."
He closed the book, and started up to pace the long, lofty room, full of
shadow, betwixt the light of the fire and that one pair of candles on his
reading desk.
"Reprobate! Yes. Am not I a reprobate, and the worst, plotting against
innocence? New England," he repeated to himself. "How much the name
promises. A new world, a new life, and old fetters struck off.
Pages:
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473