ation,
if not unfaithfulness, and imbitters the marriage relations through life;
and well it may.

10. UNHAPPY MARRIAGES.--This very cause, besides inducing most of that
unblushing public and private prostitution already alluded to, renders a
large proportion of the marriages of the present day unhappy. Good people
mourn over the result, but do not once dream of its cause. They even pray
for moral reform, yet do the very things that increase the evil. {152}

[Illustration: AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT.]

11. WEEPING OVER HER FALLEN SON.--Do you see yonder godly mother, weeping
over her fallen son, and remonstrating with him in tones of a mother's
tenderness and importunity? That very mother prevented that very son
marrying the girl he dearly loved, because she was poor, and this
interruption of his love was the direct and procuring cause of his ruin;
for, if she had allowed him to marry this beloved one, he never would have
thought of giving his "strength unto strange women." True, the mother
ruined her son ignorantly, but none the less effectually.

12. SEDUCTION AND RUIN.--That son next courts another virtuous fair one,
engages her affections, and ruins her, or else leaves her broken-hearted,
so that she is the more easily ruined by others, and thus prepares the way
for her becoming an inmate of a house "whose steps take hold on hell." His
heart is now indifferent, he is ready for anything.

13. THE RIGHT PRINCIPLE.--I say then, with emphasis, that no man should
ever pay his addresses to any woman, until he has made his selection, not
even to aid him in making that choice. He should first make his selection
intellectually, and love afterward. He should go about the matter coolly
and with judgment, just as he would undertake any other important matter.
No man or woman, when blinded by love, is in a fit state to judge
advantageously as to what he or she requires, or who is adapted to his or
her wants.

14. CHOOSING FIRST AND LOVING AFTERWARDS.--I know, indeed, that this
doctrine of choosing first and loving afterward, of excluding love from the
councils, and of choosing by and with the consent of the intellect and
moral sentiments, is entirely at variance with the feelings of the young
and the customs of society; but, for its correctness, I appeal to the
common-sense--not to the experience, for so few try this plan. Is not this
the only proper method, and the one most likely to result happily? Try it.

15. THE YOUNG WOMA