The perfection of conjugal felicity with every good man depends upon the existence of similar religious principles and feelings with those which influence himself in the partner of his life; consequently, it will ever be his concern "to marry in the Lord." No language can express the bitterness of that pang which rends his heart when a dissimilarity of taste prevails in so important an affair. It is a worm for ever gnawing the root of his peace, and will prevent its growth even under the brightest sun of worldly prosperity. Let those especially who are forming connections in life, and who "love Christ in sincerity," reflect on the fatal consequences of devoting their affections to such as can never accompany them to the house of God but with reluctance, or to the throne of grace but with weariness and aversion. If the object of your fondest regard be an unbeliever, what a cloud will darken your serenest days, what unutterable grief disturb your otherwise peaceful sabbaths! Your pleasures and your pains of a religious kind, which are the most intense, will be equally unparticipated. You must walk alone in those ways of pleasantness which would be still more endeared by such sweet society; and you must suffer the keenest sorrows of the heart--_perhaps_ without daring to name them, and _certainly_ without one tear, one word, one look of soothing sympathy. How could you endure it that the very wife of your bosom should manifest the temper of those assassins that murdered your Lord, while in the exercise of a lively faith you hailed him as "the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely?" Would it not agonize your heart that she should be _indifferent_ only, not to say inimical, towards him in whom you daily "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory?" In proportion to the wretchedness of such circumstances must be the felicity of the reverse, of which this narrative furnishes a pleasing exemplification. Zacharias and Elizabeth were _both_ righteous, and this union of spirit diffused a holy and gladdening radiance over all the scenes of life. In the family, in the social circle, in the house of God, they were ONE. Together they could bow the knee at the throne of grace, together go up to the temple! The grief or the joy of one was the grief or the joy of both; they could sing the same song, unite in the same prayer, feast on the same spiritual food! This was the perfection of love--this was the triumph of friendship! No contrary current of feeling on either side ruffled the pure stream of domestic and religious pleasure, but it flowed along in a clear, noiseless, and perpetual course. In this case the language of David might be applied with emphatic propriety: "Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is to dwell together in unity."