Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, They are gone—and for ever! He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If gaudy equipages and gay parties confer happiness, he is happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the stormy ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provision has been made for a large, expected family. Had he married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it, how different might have been his lot! Until men and woman are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when they themselves desire it, they ever will form mercenary and demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissipation the happiness they might have found in domestic life. I know that this, however common, is not a universal case. Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred, at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the consequence? Sometimes—if even rarely—the young mind _does_ hold to its first resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary anxiety; happy, if before the best hours of life are gone, and its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of his forbearance and his industry. But even in this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this, in itself, desirable? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacrifice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time of life, “while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say, ‘We have no pleasure in them?’”