The noon is past—the sun declines Below the western hills; Upon the peasant’s face joy shines. And peace his bosom fills. He stands beside the cottage door, His wife and children round, With that content which evermore Doth with the true abound. The pastor, pausing on his way, Surveys the happy scene; If all mankind were pure as they Slights tasks for him, I ween! Not in the peasant’s cottage dwell Sin and her joyless train, He thinks of palace, dome and cell, And passes on again! * * * * * THE HASTY MARRIAGE. A SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BRIDAL.” How few “look before they leap,” even in an affair of so much moment as matrimony. We fear the fault is in our system. We educate our daughters superficially—for _display_ rather than usefulness—to catch the eye rather than win the heart. Our girls are taught in early life, either directly or indirectly, that marriage is the great object of woman’s ambition, and in endeavoring to secure that object, and to surpass in the race of conquest their companions and rivals, they sometimes wed rashly and to the sacrifice of happiness. Difficult, we are aware, is the task of discrimination with the young and inexperienced. Pure and artless themselves, they are apt to imagine the possession of like virtues by all others, and to conceive it impossible for a fine form and a handsome face to be associated with a false heart. Alas! how often are they disappointed! How frequently do the sudden attachments of early life prove hollow and unsubstantial! How often is it discovered that the first dream of love, which has been so extravagantly eulogized by poets and romancers, was a mere delusion that would not bear the test of time and of reason! With what bitterness of disappointment have many started from this dream! Stripped of the rainbow coloring with which the fancy is apt to paint an object of idolatry, how prominent appear the darkness and the deformity! How broad the contrast between the just view of truth and the rapid and prejudiced survey of passion! How often do we see beings standing before the altar, pledging themselves to each other for weal and for wo, who, comparatively speaking, were strangers but yesterday! Knowing little of each other’s lives and dispositions, merits or demerits, they are willing to risk peace of mind for long years, and to identify destinies for time, perhaps for eternity! Can we wonder that strife sometimes mars the domestic circle—that wives are left lonely and deserted—that the agency of man should so often be invoked to part beings who have been joined together by an ordinance of God!