contemplate marriage. It is the design
of our physical and moral constitution, and the spring of unsullied
enjoyments, social and spiritual; and no one should voluntarily exclude
herself from this bond, save for imperious considerations. Yet let no
young woman predetermine that hers may not be an exception to the
general law. The inquiry should at least arise in her mind, "May I not
be of those, whose usefulness and happiness do not absolutely require
their entering the marriage state?"

But our friend thinks there is a fatalism not only in regard to her
marriage, but in reference to the particular companion, with whom she
must be associated for life. "Matches are made," say some, "in Heaven."
Prudence has no concern with this matter. A young woman fixes her
affections on some individual, and believes that it is decreed she
should love and should marry him. If circumstances appear unpropitious
to their intimacy, she is perfectly wretched. And this, not simply
because she loves him so ardently, but because she believes a decree of
Heaven will be violated, if their union fail of consummation. "Our
presentiments," it is said "often work their own fulfilment." I cannot
doubt, that, in the formation of the marriage bond, at least, they often
do, and that with the saddest results.

What an idea is this, if one will steadily contemplate it. That the
heart is not subject, in the slightest degree, to our dominion? That we
must love, and love, too, one whom perhaps accident alone threw in our
way! Are you, indeed, obliged by a physical or moral necessity, to marry
this person, because he is an inmate of your father's household, or
because you were both born in the same village, or because he has
something in his countenance that tells you,--before a word has been
exchanged between you,--that he must be your lover, and your husband?
The picture needs but be presented one moment before a calm,
dispassionate eye, to force on us the conviction that, if in any human
transaction we are free to accept, and free to reject the offers of
another, we are clearly so in this.

There are those who, passing to the opposite extreme, entertain the
opinion that love is a sentiment, not only subject to human control,
but capable of being entirely suppressed. They deem it altogether
optional with themselves, whether they shall know anything of the
affection between the sexes, or not.

Did this notion extend only to the relative power of the sexe