George Eliot tells us that marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest; and it is undoubtedly true that much of the matrimonial discord that exists arises from the mutual struggle for supremacy. They go to church and say "I will," and then, perhaps, on the way home, one or other says "I won't," and that begins it. "What is the reason," said one Irishman to another, "that you and your wife are always disagreeing?" "Because," replied Pat, "we are both of one mind--she wants to be master and so do I." How shall a man retain his wife's affections? Is it by not returning them? Certainly not. The secret of conjugal felicity is contained in this formula: demonstrative affection and self-sacrifice. A man should not only love his wife dearly, but he should tell her that he loves her, and tell her very often, and each should be willing to yield, not once or twice, but constantly, and as a practice to the other. Selfishness crushes out love, and most of the couples who are living without affection for each other, with cold and dead hearts, with ashes where there should be a bright and holy flame, have destroyed themselves by caring too much for themselves and too little for each other. Each young couple that begins housekeeping on the right basis brings the Garden of Eden before man once more. There are they, two, alone; love raises a wall between them and the outer world. There is no serpent there--and, indeed, he need never come, nor does he, so long as Adam and Eve keep him at bay; but too often the hedge of love is broken, just a little, by small discourtesies, little inattentions, small incivilities, that gradually but surely become wider and wider holes, until there is no hedge at all, and all sorts of monsters enter in and riot there. "Out of the very ripeness of life's core, A worm was bred." The only real preservative against this worm is true religion. Unhappily for themselves the healthy and young sometimes fancy that _they_ need not think of this. They forget that religion is required to ennoble and sanctify this present life, and are too liable to associate it exclusively with the contemplation of death. "So 'a cried out--God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet." This advice, which Mrs. Quickly gave to Falstaff on his deathbed, reflects the thoughts of many people, but it was not sound advice. Certainly it would be cruel rather than kind to advise a young pair who have leaped into the dark of married life not to think of God. He is a Saviour from trouble rather than a troubler, and the husband and wife who never try to serve Him will not be likely to serve each other or to gain much real happiness from their marriage.