Let no one have thy confidence, O wife, saving thine husband: Have not a friend more intimate, O husband, than thy wife. In the joy of a well-ordered home be warned that this is not your rest; For the substance to come may be forgotten in the present beauty of the shadow. If ye are blessed with children, ye have a fearful pleasure, A deeper care and a higher joy, and the range of your existence is widened: If God in wisdom refuse them, thank Him for an unknown mercy: For how can ye tell if they might be a blessing or a curse? Yet ye may pray, like Hannah, simply dependent on His will: Resignation sweeteneth the cup, but impatience dasheth it with vinegar. Now this is the sum of the matter:--if ye will be happy in marriage, Confide, love, and be patient: be faithful, firm, and holy. [Illustration] OF EDUCATION. A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love: A resting place for innocence on earth; a link between angels and men: Yet is it a talent of trust, a loan to be rendered back with interest; A delight, but redolent of care; honey-sweet, but lacking not the bitter. For character groweth day by day, and all things aid it in unfolding, And the bent unto good or evil may be given in the hours of infancy: Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, The scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come; Even so mayst thou guide the mind to good, or lead it to the marrings of evil, For disposition is builded up by the fashioning of first impressions: Wherefore, though the voice of instruction waiteth for the ear of reason, Yet with his mother's milk the young child drinketh Education. Patience is the first great lesson; he may learn it at the breast: And the habit of obedience and trust may be grafted on his mind in the cradle: Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling; Let him see thee speaking to thy God; he will not forget it afterward: When old and grey will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piety, And the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man in his sin.