timable, you should
express your sense of his merit, and your gratitude for his preference,
in strong terms; and put your refusal of his hand on the score of your
not feeling for him that peculiar preference necessary to the union he
seeks. This makes a refusal as little painful as possible, and soothes
the feelings you are obliged to wound. The gentleman's letter should be
returned in your reply, and your lips should be closed upon the subject
for ever afterwards. It is his secret, and you have no right to tell it
to any one; but, if your parents are your confidential friends on all
other occasions, he will not blame you for telling them.

Never think the less of a man because he has been refused, even if it be
by a lady whom you do not highly value. It is nothing to his
disadvantage. In exercising their prerogative of making the first
advances, the wisest will occasionally make great mistakes, and the best
will often be drawn into an affair of this sort against their better
judgment, and both are but too happy if they escape with only the pain
of being refused. So far from its being any reason for not accepting a
wise and good man when he offers himself to you, it should only
increase your thankfulness to the overruling providence of God, which
reserved him for you, through whose instrumentality he is still free to
choose.

There is no sure remedy for disappointed affection but vital religion;
that giving of the heart to God which enables a disciple to say, "Whom
have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none on earth that I desire in
comparison of Thee." The cure for a wounded heart, which piety affords,
is so complete, that it makes it possible for the tenderest and most
constant natures to love again. When a character is thus disciplined and
matured, its sympathies will be called forth only by superior minds;
and, if a kindred spirit presents itself as a partner for life, and is
accepted, the union is likely to be such as to make the lady rejoice
that her former predilection was overruled.

MARRIAGE.

Some young persons indulge a fastidiousness of feeling in relation to
this subject, as though it were indelicate to speak of it. Others make
it the principal subject of their thoughts and conversation; yet they
seem to think it must never be mentioned but in jest. Both these
extremes should be avoided. Marriage is an ordinance of God, and
therefore a proper subject of thought and discussion, with reference t