A happy union is indeed a scene upon which, without irreverence, we may suppose the angels in Heaven gaze from their bright places of abode with delight and approval. An unnatural or a discordant marriage, on the other hand, must form a source of delight to the arch enemy of mankind, for in it he can recognize the soul of evil. That the young should seek for and cling to a kindred spirit is natural. The undivided possession of a pure heart is perhaps the very acme of human felicity. “One home, one wife, and one God,” is the sentiment of one of the wisest of his race, and it is only when man is on the shady side of fifty that he begins to appreciate the truth of this philosophy in all its solemnity and force. Then his pleasures of life are derived as much from the past as the future, and the associations of that past, if mingled with virtue, fidelity, patriotism and religion, are indeed blissful. We pity the lonely and the desolate—the loveless and the unloved—the being without a wife or a friend—without one trusting and confiding spirit, to whom the heart may turn in its hour of sorrow and pour out its inmost and saddest thoughts. The cold and selfish mortal who passes year after year without experiencing the delightful concord of sentiment to be found in a kindred soul, is indeed the most miserable of his species. Even his joys are robbed of half their delight, because unshared by another, by one to whom he is allied by love and friendship. Wretched indeed is the isolated individual who, mingling with the multitude, can single out no destiny identified with his—no faithful and devoted heart, the breath of whose existence seems bound up with his. Nature has denied to such a being the holiest impulses that warm and agitate the human breast. Even the birds are mated, and without a ministering angel “a sweet companion,” the first born was lonely and desolate in the garden of Eden. So it must ever be with the frail and feeble things of mortal existence. If Paradise could not be appreciated and enjoyed alone, how can man reconcile loneliness to his fallen condition? The desire of the heart is for sweet companionship—the inward craving of the spirit is for a being to love. Can we wonder then that in this country, where early marriage is taught to be desirable, so many should choose rashly?