No one spoke of her marriage as a great and solemn change coming into
her life. No one foresaw cheerful glimpses of a happy, domestic life,
presided over by a steady sustaining unity of loves. No pictures were
drawn of quiet, fireside pleasures, in their future home, no praises
uttered of a woman's hallowed power to make life's burdens easy for
him whose happiness she is free to make or mar.
Every one said how bright a star this dazzling bride would be; the
comet of many seasons, the cynosure of many jealous and many admiring
eyes. No one said: "how loving, how devoted she will be, a model wife,
a patient helpmate, the joy and comfort of her husband's days." This
was a minor consideration. I suppose, the world knows nothing of these
stay-at-home little housewives, the angels of many a happy hearth,
whose busy fingers, beaming smiles and gentle accents are the rest and
refuge of many a toil-worn weaver at life's heavy loom. To lay aside
the world's distressing cares at sunset, to wipe his moistened brow,
and "homeward plod his weary way" to his cabin small and lowly, where
glows this cheerful love in one dear breast, in one sweet face, is to
the uncouth "ploughman" a joy, a comfort, which many a prince doth
envy.
It is not I who say it, but our century has proven beyond a question,
unfortunately, that the full Christian interpretation of the Divine
ordination concerning those "whom God hath joined together" has, like
many other principles of rigid morality, become for the most part
dependant upon that honest, toiling, sterling mass of humanity upon
which society looks down with a haughty forbearance or condescending
patronage.
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