of a boy engaged in amusement. He
appears driving a hoop, throwing a quoit, playing with a nymph, catching
a butterfly, or flying with a bright torch in his hand, shewing, in each
case, that love is a subject for sport. Let heathenism, if it must, so
regard it; but the Christian ought never to trifle with this sacred
interest. The rite of marriage is a solemn thing. Who would jeer, and
jest, as she stood before the altar, and pledged fidelity unto death to
her betrothed partner? And why, I would ask, should the preliminaries of
marriage be treated as a theme fit only for levity and merriment? It is
said that we Americans are peculiar for banter on this subject. One
scarcely hears it alluded to in society, except with a laugh, or a jest.
As a natural consequence of this state of feeling, and this style of
conversation relative to the affections, it is not easy to know when one
speaks as he means on this topic. Not "seriously,"--for the matter is
all sport,--not in "sober earnest" may you take what is said, since
soberness is supposed to be wholly irrelevant to so light a subject.

And then too the effect of this practice on the feelings and deportment
of the parties most nearly concerned, even during their engagement,--if
this take place amid the bandying of jests,--is often unhappy. The same
levity pervades their conversation and manners toward one another; and
there is scarcely one sober sentiment, or calm thought, associated with
their interviews.

So also has this habit a blighting influence upon the views with which
the individuals are at length joined in marriage. What was commenced in
gaiety and sport, and has been continued in the same spirit, is
consummated in thoughtlessness. It is only when these scenes of mutual
delusion and folly are over, and the two beings are united by an
inseparable bond, and begin to feel the pressure of real duty and actual
life, that they look on each other as rational creatures ought. The
words, sacred, and principle, the thought of responsibility to God,
ideas of solemnity, are now for the first time associated with marriage.
Can this condition of mind be other than deleterious to the virtue,
peace and happiness, of the parties involved in its effects? "O there is
nothing holier, in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of
love,--the first rising sound and breath of that wind, which is so soon
to sweep through the soul, to purify, or to destroy!" So let every young
maiden