other holds like relation, knows like affection, or is bound by like responsibility. In all the training of that child, they are one. In its life their life is bound up. In its death, should death nip the beautiful flower, they mourn together. The pulsations of their hearts beat as one heart toward the child, for each sees in it a second self.

In all the duties of the marriage relation, there is a like demand for sympathy. The vows of espousal are mutual vows, binding husband to wife and wife to husband, in love, fidelity, and unchanging truth, all "life's journey through." No pledge is given on the one hand that is not answered by a mutual pledge on the other. Hearts and hands are united, so that they are henceforth to walk heart to heart and hand in hand. Thus they enter their new home. To fulfil truly their vows, it must be a home hallowed by religion. There must be sympathy with God and with one another. It was so in the first marriage, the purest and most blissful earth has ever known. Adam and Eve were in sympathy with God, and the nuptial hour was hallowed by prayer and praise. It was a home of peace, which knew no discordant note till sin entered, and, separating between man and God, created alienation also between man and woman; for Adam boldly accused her, who had been given him to cheer his loneliness with the sweet sympathy his nature so strongly craved, as his tempter to transgression. Especially should there be sympathy between the husband and wife in religious faith and feeling. "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers," is not more a precept of the Bible than of sound reason. It is an unequal yoke. It destroys the sympathetic union; for on one great theme, and that a theme so important and engrossing as to fill the heart, they have no feeling in common. They cannot come together to God in prayer, cannot commune together of Christ, nor can they rejoice together in the hope of heaven. What a closing up of the deepest, purest sympathies of our nature. Payson has well illustrated such an union by the figure of a bird, one of whose wings is broken, and its flight toward heaven is painful and impeded.

Life is a checkered scene,-"alternate sunshine, bitter tears." It has its joys and its sorrows, its hopes and its fears, its light and its darkness. In all these it is not good for man to be alone. The cup of joy is sweeter when he shares it with another, who can relish it with enjoyment like himself; the cup of woe is more

tolerable when another shares and sympathizes with him in its bitterness. This sympathy he must find, if anywhere in the wide world, at home, with his wife. If her eye and heart do not respond to his under every successive change, he is alone. The like sympathy from him must bless her, or she has no true home, but dwells in solitude. In all the petty cares of each passing day, in all the little incidents of common life, this mutual sympathy must show itself, or the full measure of duty and blessing is not attained. Sympathy felt in all which pertains to their common home is the bond of per fectness between husband and wife. Sympathy expressed on all occasions is the music of home. Nothing can supply its place, or fill "the aching void "always found where it is not.

We have thus briefly and imperfectly carried out our idea of marriage as it was in the beginning. It would follow as a necessary consequence that there could be no such union unless in marriage to one wife. The heart cannot be divided in its sympathies, so as to make of more than twain one flesh. Hence we read, without wonder, the declaration of the wise man, that, among a thousand, he had not found one woman. We doubt not there were among the thousand many, who, if he had chosen one of them alone, and bound up his heart to her heart in true marriage, would have blessed him with woman's devoted and faithful love. But no woman could give ner whole heart for the thousandth part of a man's. And no man, who divides his affections among a thousand, could know the blessedness of loving only one. There can be no sympathy unless heart be

given for heart.

Sin has marred this institution of God. It has made many unhappy marriages, by perverting the ordinance to lust, the love of wealth, fashion, and the mere caprice of seeking a home. Hence marriages are made without any sympathy between the parties, on the principles of bargain and sale. Dr. Watts thus humorously satirizes such matches:

Say, mighty love, and teach my song,
To whom thy sweetest joys belong,
And who the happy pairs;

Whose yielding hearts and joining hands
Find blessings twisted with their bands,
To soften all their cares!

Not the wild herd of nymphs and swains

Who thoughtless fly into the chains,
As custom leads the way;
If there be bliss without design,
Ivies and oaks may grow and twine,
And be as blest as they.

Not sordid souls of earthly mould,

Who, drawn by kindred charms of gold,
To dull embraces move;

So two rich mountains of Peru
May rush to wealthy marriage too,
And make a world of love.

Not the dull pairs whose marble form
None of the melting passions warm
Can mingle hearts and hands;

Logs of green wood, which quench the coals,
Are married just like stoic souls,

With osiers for their bands.

Not minds of melancholy strain,
Still silent, or that still complain,
Can the dear bondage bless;

As well may heavenly concerts spring
From two old lutes with ne'er a string,
Or none beside the bass.

Nor can the soft enchantment hold
Two jarring souls of angry mould,
The rugged and the keen;
Samson's young foxes might as well
In bands of cheerful wedlock dwell,
With fire-brands tied between.

Nor let the gentle fetters bind
A gentle to a savage mind,

For LovE abhors the sight;
Loose the fierce tiger from the deer,
For native rage and native fear
Rise and forbid delight.

Two kindest souls alone must meet;
'Tis friendship makes the bondage sweet,
And feeds their mutual loves;

Bright VENUS, on her rolling throne,
Is drawn by gentlest birds alone,

And Cupids yoke the doves.

This amusing satire well paints the folly of those who are "paired, not matched." Such unions are not marriage. They lack its essential element,- mutual sympathy. Of course, all duties are either neglected, or so ceremoniously rendered as to afford no solid bliss. To such there is no true home, and the married are even more alone than the single; for they are shut up to companionship without sympathy, and bound in fellowship without love. The records of the fashionable would unfold many such histories, painful and degrading to human nature, which serve to show how sin has polluted the only ordinance which remains to man of his primeval holiness and bliss.

We find in the New Testament the fullest and most striking development of the principles we have stated. There is everywhere the recognition of the oneness of those bound by marriage ties, and the duties of the relation are all based on that fact. Thus our Saviour restored the institution from the glosses and corruptions the Jews had gathered round it, and made it the permanent union of twain into one, which only crime or death could dissolve. And Paul, with peculiar boldness, makes the relation so close and intimate, that the husband, sinning against the wife, sins against himself. He in like spirit exhorts "husbands to love their wives as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth himself." This is the grand key to the whole mystery. It opens the whole routine of duty and obligation, so that all may understand what is to be done, and how it is to be done. With this idea our English word, husband, beautifully accords; of which Bloomfield happily remarks, "I know no term, in any language, so significant or so expressive of the duties annexed to that state, as our husband; that is, the house-band, or bond of the house."

The most beautiful symbol of marriage love is that given by Paul in Ephesians 5: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." The same idea is conveyed in those passages, scattered over the prophetic writings, which speak of the church as the bride, to be married unto Christ. We feel at once the appropriateness of the emblem, founded on the only human relation which was known to man while undefiled by sin. While yet his union with God was perfect and unbroken, he was united to the woman in holy marriage; and the heart, linked to God in supreme affection, was closely knit unto his wife in loving sym

pathy, which knew no sin. In that love was no fear, for it was perfect; and sweet was the communion of them one with another, and with God. But under other and widely different circumstances were other human relations formed. The bonds of parent and child, and of brethren and sisters, were not known till after the curse had fallen, and fears, infirmities, and sinful passion, had marred the pure affection. In sorrow and pain Eve became a mother, and tears of bitterness might well mingle with her joy as she clasped the child to her bosom, for, by her sin, that child was born under the condemnation and the curse. How different from the hour of her espousals! an hour on which God smiled, and her heart knew no fear. else can we find a symbol of the union of Christ and the church; the elect people over whom, in the beautiful language of the prophet, "God rejoiceth with the joy of the bridegroom"? The church is the bride, the Lamb's wife; and the marriage shall be holy and happy; a renewing of the bliss and love of Eden, and a reëntering into the Paradise of God, where no seducing tempter can come to blight and destroy.

Where

To this end Christ became one with us, that we might be one with him. He took on him our nature, robed himself in our flesh, and partook of our trials and changes. How fully Paul develops this idea in the Epistle to the Hebrews! "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoves him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of. our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." This is true ground for sympathy, and for an union which, like marriage, shall of twain make one. Christ thus became one with us, sympathizing with us in life's trials and changes, and in the dread agonies of death. This is the bond of our union to him. This idea of likeness and oneness to Christ is the true idea of the