These are the most dangerous match-makers. Their sister companions in this
evil are, the ball-room, the giddy dance and masquerade, the fashionable
wine-cup and the costly apparel. Let me affectionately exhort the members
of the Christian home to keep all these at a distance. Touch not, taste
not, handle not! They will poison the spirit and the affections, and
encircle you with a viper's coil from which there is no hope of escape.
Here parents have a right, and it is their duty, to interfere. They can do
so effectually by not allowing such filthy match-making intruders to pass
the threshold of their homes. What can you expect out an unhappy marriage,
if you permit your sons and daughters to spend their time in converse with
love-sick tales and languishing swains? They will become love-sick, too,
and long for marriage with one who is like the hero of their last-read
romance. Perhaps they will not think their matrimonial debut sufficiently
flavored with romantic essence, unless they run off with some
self-constituted count, or at least with their papa's Irish groom!
3. We might advert, finally, to some of those false influences which are
frequently brought to bear upon the children's choice of a companion for
life. The term smitten is here significant and deserves our serious
consideration. It carries in its pregnant meaning the evidence of a
spurious feeling, and a false foundation of love and union.
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