of your sins; resolve upon a great change in the whole spirit of your life, as you have resolved upon a great change in your condition; put away all light thoughts; become serious and sober-minded; do not hurry lightly forward in the gay spirit of the world; take this serious step in a serious spirit; give yourself to earnest prayer for the blessing and grace of God; look on marriage not with pleasure-seeking but with Christian eyes; improve yourself before your marriage that you may be improved by your marriage; make a fresh start in life; give up all known sins; devote yourself to your Saviour's service; love with a holy love the wife or husband whom you are about to have; love them with that religious affection which does not droop or die when youth is gone, but which will grow with your growth, and strengthen with your strength, which will survive the first bloom of youthful years, which will be as a light in a dark place, when sorrow crosses your earthly home. O my friend, seek to be filled with the love of Christ, that with true Christian love you may enter your new home; and may you so holily live together in the earthly home, that husband and wife may meet in that heavenly home which our Saviour has purchased by His blood. May you

from this time forward more and more live for a life to come. May you more and more do all things to the glory of God, that with your partner you may at last find your home in heaven. Soon will the world pass away; soon will the marriage feast be over; soon will your new home be broken up; soon will the wife be weeping for the husband, or the husband for the wife; soon will you both be standing before our Lord Jesus Christ. O prepare to meet your God. Pray for each other, that you may be prepared, and that your marriage may be a help not a hindrance to you on your road.

DUTIES OF THE MARRIED STATE.

"THAT ye may so live together in this world that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting," are the concluding words of the most. solemn benediction in the marriage service; yet how many who hear them at the time of marriage hear them for the last time as well as for the first in their lives.

A christian man or woman cannot think of marriage as a mere legal ceremony, permitting two persons to live together for the term of their natural lives; the state can, and in many instances does allow this, and the consequences are that people who undertake lightly to live together, as lightly separate from each other, and having only natural obligations do really live "as brute beasts which have no understanding." But a Christian cannot fail to remember that

marriage is a great mystery, one which our blessed Lord consecrated by His presence and first miracle in Cana of Galilee, and on the fulfilment of whose duties depends the temporal, and not unfrequently the eternal happiness of all married people.

What then are the duties of the married state, is the question that should present itself to every person before entering upon any engagement to marry; and then, secondly, they should ask themselves, Am I by God's help resolved to fulfil those duties. And we shall follow the teaching of the Church, which addresses the man first, and bids him in the language of Holy Scripture love his wife, that he may not mistake her language, and place a carnal passion in the place of real love. He is reminded of the spiritual union which exists between Christ and His Church. And we know how close this union is, how pure the love of the most pure Jesus towards the Church. Next the man is reminded of the unity of purpose which marriage implies; there are still two persons but one will; two bodies but one spirit animating each to seek the other's good; daily living less to self, and more to each other; pursuing the same great object, the salvation of the soul, and looking

to the same great end; when having lived soberly and godly in this present world, both as one wait the time when mortality shall be changed for one eternity of happiness in heaven.

You may perhaps ask why is all this addressed to the man and not to the woman. It is addressed to both, though in particular to the man, who from his more constant intercourse with the world, and the daily vexations of life, may be supposed to need most the admonitions; for the practice of daily life shews that men are only too apt to bring all their troubles into their homes to the great discomfort of those they ought to cherish. Thus if a poor man has had a dispute with his master, or a tradesman has made a bad debt, or a merchant has been unfortunate in his speculations, or a lawyer failed in his cause, or lost his client; they forget that home is a sacred place into which evil tempers should never enter, they carry into the consecrated place the harshness of the world, and the anger of a disturbed mind. Now if they thought of the solemn vows they had made, or the end for which they were married, that they might so live together in this life that in the world to come they might have life everlasting; they would