fe, with so
many new interests and amusements open to them, in the pride of their
freedom and independence, they are no longer so inclined to marry, and
are even apt to look down upon the married state. They form so high an
ideal of the man to whom they would surrender their independence--an
ideal which they fortunately do not apply to their fathers and brothers,
whom they find it quite possible to love on a far lower and more human
level--that because a man does not fulfil this ideal, and is not a fairy
prince dowered with every possible gift, they refuse men who, though not
angels, would have made them happy as wife and mother. Would not a
little sound, sensible teaching be of great good here? Could we not
point out that, though in so vital and complex a union as the family
there must be some seat of ultimate authority, some court of final
appeal somewhere, and that the woman herself would not wish it to rest
anywhere else than in the man, if she is to respect him; yet there is no
subservience on the part of the wife in the obedience she renders, but
rather in South's grand words, "It is that of a queen to her king, who
both owns a subjection and remains a majesty"? Cannot we contend against
this falsehood of the age which seems so to underlie our modern life,
and which inclines us to look upon all obedience as a slavish
thing--that obedience which "doth preserve the stars from wrong," and
through which "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong"; that
obedience which when absolute and implicit to the Divine will is "a
service of perfect freedom"? It is the profession which exacts
unquestionable obedience that forms the finest school for character, as
I have already pointed out. We do not hear of a Wellington or a Roberts
refusing to enter the service because they could not give up their
independence. Our military heroes at least know that it is through
discipline and obedience that they gain their real independence--the
independence of a strong character.

Again, our girls need to be taught not only that there is nothing
derogatory in the married relation to the freest and fullest
independence of character, but surely in these days of open advocacy by
some popular writers of "les unions libres" and a freedom of divorce
that comes to much the same thing, they need to be taught the sanctity
of marriage--those first principles which hitherto we have taken for
granted, but which now, like everything else, is thrown i