Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose. Too often, after many sugar-coated words, and several premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws a blank and the other a booby. After patiently angling in the matrimonial pool, one draws a sunfish and the other a minnow. One expects to capture a demigod, who hits the earth only in high places, but when she has thoroughly analyzed him, she finds nothing genuine, only a wilted chrysanthemum and a pair of patent leather shoes, while he in return expected to wed a wingless angel who would make his Edenic bower one long drawn out sigh of aesthetic bliss. The result is very often that he is tied to a slattern, who slouches around the house with her hair in tins, a dime novel in her hand, with a temper like aqua fortis and a voice like a cat fight--a voice that would make a cub wolf climb a tree; a fashionable butterfly, whose heart is in her finery and her feathers; who neglects her home to train with a lot of intellectual birds; whose glory is small talk; who saves her sweetest smiles for society and her ill temper for her family altar. If I were tied to such a female as that, do you know what I would do? You don't, eh? Well, neither do I. There was a time, we are told, when to be a Roman was to be greater than to be a king; yet there came a time when to be a Roman was to be a vassal or a slave. Change is the order of the universe, and nothing stands. We must go forward, or we must go backward. We must press on to grander heights, to greater glory, or see the laurels already won turned to ashes upon our brow. We may sometimes slip; shadows may obscure our paths; the boulders may bruise our feet; there may be months of mourning and days of agony; but however dark the night, hope, a poising eagle, will ever burn above the unrisen tomorrow. Trials we may have, and tribulations sore, but I say unto you, O, brothers mine, that while God reigns and the human family endures, this nation, born of our father's blood, and sanctified by our mother's tears, shall not pass away, and under heaven, for this great boon, this great blessing, we'll be indebted to the women of America--God bless them. Finally, brethren, be serious while I impart this concluding lesson: "She--was--a--good--wife--to--me. A good wife, God bless her!" The words were spoken in trembling accents over a coffin-lid. The woman asleep there had borne the heat and burden of life's long day, and no one had ever heard her murmur; her hand was quick to reach out in helping grasp to those who fell by the wayside, and her feet were swift on errands of mercy; the heart of her husband had trusted in her; he had left her to long hours of solitude, while he amused himself in scenes in which she had no part. When boon companions deserted him, when fickle affection selfishly departed, when pleasure palled, he went home and found her waiting for him.