Speak it not lightly; 'tis a holy thing-- A bond, enduring thro' long distant years, Life will not prove all sunshine; there will come Dark hours for all; oh! will ye, when the night Of sorrow gathers thickly round your home, Love as ye did in days when smooth and bright Seemed the sure path ye trod, untouched by care, And deemed the future, like the present, fair? Age, with its silvery locks, will come stealing on, And bring the tottering step, the furrow'd cheek, The eye, from whence each lustrous gleam hath gone; And the pale lip, with accents low and weak; Will ye then think upon your youth's gay prime, And, smiling, bid love triumph over time? Speak it not lightly; oh! beware! beware! 'Tis no vain promise, no unmeaning word; Before God's altar, now ye both do swear, And by the High and Holy One 'tis heard! Be faithful to each other till life's close; Seek peace below, and you'll get Heaven's repose. 1303 Let him who weds, wed character, not money. 1304 A girl should look happy because she is not married; a wife because she is. 1305 _A Gentleman, but a Fool._--Chief Justice Marshall once found himself suddenly brought to a halt by a small tree which intervened between the front wheel and the body of his buggy. Seeing a servant at a short distance, he asked him to bring an axe and cut down the tree. The servant--a colored man--told the judge that there was no occasion for cutting down the tree, but just to back the buggy. Pleased at the good sense of the fellow, Judge Marshall told him that he would leave him something at the inn hard by, where he intended to stop, having then no small change. In due time the man applied, and a dollar was handed him. Being asked if he knew who it was that gave him the dollar, he replied: "No, sir: I concluded he was a gentleman by his leaving the money, but I think he is the biggest fool I ever saw." 1306 If thou art a master, be sometimes blind, and sometimes deaf. --_Fuller._ 1307 Let no man be the servant of another who can be his own master. 1308 Our master is our--enemy. --_From Amiel's Journal._ Applicable to those who have formed a useless habit. 1309 _Matrimony._--He hath tied a knot with his tongue that he cannot untie with all his teeth. 1310 _Numbers, xxxvi. 6_,--"Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their fathers shall they marry."