ruders to pass
the threshold of their homes. What can you expect out an unhappy marriage,
if you permit your sons and daughters to spend their time in converse with
love-sick tales and languishing swains? They will become love-sick, too,
and long for marriage with one who is like the hero of their last-read
romance. Perhaps they will not think their matrimonial debut sufficiently
flavored with romantic essence, unless they run off with some
self-constituted count, or at least with their papa's Irish groom!

3. We might advert, finally, to some of those false influences which are
frequently brought to bear upon the children's choice of a companion for
life. The term smitten is here significant and deserves our serious
consideration. It carries in its pregnant meaning the evidence of a
spurious feeling, and a false foundation of love and union. Be it
remembered that there must always be something to smite one. We may be
smitten by a scoundrel, or by something unworthy our affections. Empty
titles and mustaches often smite the susceptible young. Sometimes the heart
is smitten by a pretty face and form; and sometimes by a rod of gold. The
simple fact that we are smitten is not enough; we should know who or what
it is that smites us. When we are drawn to each other, it should be by a
true cord, and by an influence which binds and cements for life. The
influence of mere outward beauty is a false one. Those who are smitten by
it, and drawn thus into a matrimonial union by an interest which is but
skin-deep, and which may fade like the morning flower, are allured by a
dazzling meteor, by a mere bubble, beautifully formed and colored, but
empty within. It may dazzle the eye, but it blinds us to all its blemishes
and inward infirmities. It is deceptive. Often beneath its gaudy veil there
lies the viper, ready to poison all the sweets of home-life, and cause its
victim to lament over his folly with bitter tears and heart-burning
remorse. How soon may beauty fade; and what then, if it was the only basis
of your marriage choice? The union which rested upon it must then be at
least morally dissolved; and that which once flitted like an impersonated
charm before your admiring eye, now becomes an object of disgust and a
source of misery.

To fall in love, therefore, with mere outward beauty is, to dandle with a
doll, to fawn upon a picture, to rest your hopes upon a plaything, to
pursue a phantom which, as soon as you embrace it, may v