We do not endorse the exaggerated statement of Richter that "no man can live piously or die righteously without a wife," but we think that the chances of his doing so are considerably lessened. It is not good for a man to live alone with his evil thoughts. The checks and active duties of marriage are the best antidote, not only to an impure life, but to the dreaming and droning of a useless and purposeless one. Certainly there are some men and women who without wives or husbands are marriage-made in the sense of having their love and powers drawn out by interesting work. They are married to some art or utility, or instead of loving one they love all. When this last is the case they go down into the haunts of evil, seek out the wretched, and spare neither themselves nor their money in their Christ-like enthusiasm for humanity. But the luxury of doing good is by no means confined to the celibate. On the contrary, the man with a wife and children in whose goodness and happiness he rejoices may be much better prepared to aid and sympathize with the erring and the suffering. The flood-gates of his affections may have been opened, and he may have become receptive to influences which had upon him beforetime little or no effect. Not a few good and great men have confessed that they were marriage-made to a very considerable extent. The following testimony was given by De Tocqueville in a letter to a friend: "I cannot describe to you the happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual society of a woman, in whose soul all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even improved. When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be perfectly right, I read immediately in Marie's countenance an expression of proud satisfaction which elevates me; and so when my conscience reproaches me her face instantly clouds over. Although I have great power over her mind, I see with pleasure that she awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now I am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into anything that is wrong." Many a man has been shown the pathway to heaven by his wife's practice of piety. "My mercy," says Bunyan, "was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." By reading these and other good books, helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the way of righteousness.