but the whole manner of the man. The conditions of the
man, as she said about herself; else she will boldly and bravely die a
maid. And there are multitudes of married women who, when they read this
page about Mercy, will gnash their teeth at the madness of their youth,
and will wildly wish that they only were maids again; and, then, like
Mercy, they would take good care to make for themselves husbands of their
own conditions too--of their own means, their own dispositions,
inclinations, tastes, and pursuits. For, according as our conditions to
one another are or are not in our marriages,

"They locally contain or heaven or hell;
There is no third place in them."

What untold good, then, may all our young women not get out of the loving
study of Mercy's sweet, steadfast, noble character! And what untold
misery may they not escape! From first to last--and we are not yet come
to her last--I most affectionately recommend Mercy to the hearts and
minds of all young women here. Single and married; setting out on
pilgrimage and steadfastly persevering in it; sitting still till the
husband with the right conditions comes, and then rising up with her
warm, well-kept heart to meet him--if any maiden here has no mother, or
no elder sister, or no wise and prudent friend like Prudence or
Christiana to take counsel of--and even if she has--let Mercy be her
meditation and her model through all her maidenly days.

"Nay, then," said Mercy, "I will look no more on him, for I purpose never
to have a clog to my soul." A pungent resolve for every husband to read
and to think to himself about, who has married a wife with a soul. Let
all husbands who have such wives halt here and ask themselves with some
imagination as to what may sometimes go on, at communion times, say, in
the souls of their wives. It is not every wife, it is true, who has a
soul to clog; but some of our wives have. Well, now, let us ask
ourselves: How do we stand related to their souls? Do our wives, when
examining the state of their souls since they married us, have to say
that at one time they had hoped to be further on in the life of the soul
than they yet are? And are they compelled before God to admit that the
marriage they have made, and would make, has terribly hindered them?
Would they have been better women, would they have been living a better
life, and doing far more good in the world, if they had taken their
maidenly ideals, like Mercy, for