mine to enter
it under the sanctions of true religion, and demand a like state of mind
in her companion, that they might live to be blessings to each other, I
should feel richly remunerated for my labor. I treat this subject now
and have at former times with a view to elevate the minds of youth in
relation to it.

It is in vain to try to make the world moral and religious while the
great institutions of social life are corrupted and corrupting. At the
very bottom of adult life lies the institution of Marriage. To reform
the world we must begin with this. If we can get men and women well
married, the work of reform is half done; life is half lived. It is next
to impossible to make good and happy an ill-assorted pair. They work
against each other almost in spite of themselves. They are like a
steamboat with its wheels playing in opposite directions. They make a
great noise and a terrible jarring, and put forth desperate efforts, but
no forward motion is produced.

It would be well if we had more judicious books on Marriage, designed
for youth. One on the Philosophy of Marriage; one on the Duties of
Marriage; one on the Religion of Marriage; or all these subjects treated
in one book might be very profitable; and if such a book were designed
for high schools, academies, and colleges, and made a study, as is moral
science and natural religion, it might be made eminently useful. There
is a science of Marriage. It should be developed and made a study. Some
strong mind and pure heart, baptized in the spirit of divine truth and
love, should write it out. I know the youth of our country would receive
it gladly and study it with great profit. What is most wanted is thought
and enlightenment on the subject. Thought is the grand lever of reform.
This thing of thinking is what makes men great and good. It is the grand
plowshare that turns up the old soil of error and despotism and reveals
the hidden treasures of truth. Get people to thinking and they will be
likely to think themselves right in the end. We want thought on the
subject of Marriage--calm, consecutive, serious thought. Nothing else
will do. We have passion, zeal, impulse, imagination; but we lack
thought. Thought is the helm of passion, the ballast of imagination, the
compass of impulse. Let youth think on the subject as they ought, and
they will marry well.

I remarked that the institution of Marriage was at the bottom of adult
life. This is a truth, and it is a thoug