is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates." PROVERBS XXXI. This exquisite picture, combining as it does industry, prudence, dignity, meekness, wisdom and piety, cannot be too frequently or minutely studied, by those who would attain to high degrees of female excellence. The business of providing for the family, however, belongs chiefly to the husband. It is yours, my brethren, to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of carefulness, and to drink if necessary, the waters of affliction, that you may earn by the sweat of your brow, a comfortable support for the domestic circle. This is probably what the apostle meant, when he enjoined us to give HONOUR to the wife as to the weaker vessel: the honour of maintenance, which she in consequence of the weakness of her frame, and the frequent infirmities which the maternal relation brings upon her, is not so well able to procure for herself. In most barbarous countries, and in some half civilized ones, the burden of manual labour falls upon the female, while her tyrant lord lives in indolence, feeding upon the industry of the halpless being whom he calls a wife, but treats as a slave. And are there no such idle tyrants in our age and country, who so as they can live in indolence, and gratify their appetites, care not how they oppress their wives ?— Wretches who do little or nothing for the support of the family? How utterly lost to every noble and generous sentiment must that man be whose heart can not be moved by the entreaties or tears of an interest ing woman, and who can hear in vain her pleadings for his child at her breast, and his child by her side, and who by such appeals cannot be induced to give up his daily visits to the tavern, or his habits of sauntering idleness, to attend to his neglected business, and stay the approaching tide of poverty and ruin. Such a creature is worse than a brute, he is a monster; and it seems a pity, that there is no law and no convict ship to bear him away to a land, where if he will not work, so neither could he eat. In general, it is for the benefit of a family, that a married woman should devote her time and attention almost exclusively to the ways of her household: her place is in the centre of domestic cares. What is gained by her in the shop, is oftentimes lost in the house, for want of the judicious superintendence of a mother and a mistress. Comfort and order, as well as money, are domestic wealth; and can these be rationally expected in the absence of female arrangement ? The children always want a mother's eye and hand, and should always have them. Let the husband, then, have the care of providing; the wife, that of distributing; for this is the rule both of reason and revelation. And as Christ laboured for his church, not only during his abode upon earth, but made provision for its welfare when he departed from our world, in like manner should the husband take care of his wife. I never could understand that custom, which is but too common, of mens providing by their wills so much better for the children than they do for the mother. Does this look like a supreme love? Every man who raises a woman to the rank of his wife, should take care, however inferior she might have been in circumstances before their marriage, to leave her in the situation into which he brought her: for it is indeed most cruel, to leave her to be deprived at once, not only of her dearest earthly friend, but of her usual means of comfortable subsistence. A practical affection to a wife extends, however, to every thing: it should manifest itself in the most delicate attention to her comfort, and her feelings; in consulting her tastes; in concealing her failings; in never doing any thing to degrade her, but every thing to exalt her before her children and servants; in acknowledging her excellences, and commending her efforts to please him; in meeting, and even anticipating all her reasonable requests; in short, in doing all that ingenuity can invent for her substantial happiness and general comfort. ་ Christ's love to his church was DURABLE and UNCHANGEABLE. Having loved his own he loved them to the end," without abatement or alteration: so ought hubands to love their wives, not only at the beginning but to the end of their union; when the charms of beauty have fled before the withering influence of disease; when the vigorous and sprightly frame has lost its elasticity, and the step has become slow and faltering when the wrinkles of age have suc : D ceeded to the bloom of youth, and the whole person seems rather the monument, than the resemblance, of what it once was. Has she not gained in mind what she has lost in exterior fascinations? Have not her mental graces, flourished amidst the ruins of personal charms? If the rose and the lily have faded on the cheek, have not the fruits of righteousness grown in the soul? If those blossoms have departed, on which the eye of youthful passion gazed with so much ardour, has it not been to give way to the ripe fruit of christian excellence? The woman is not what she was, but the wife, the mother, the christian, are better than they were. For an example of conjugal love in all its power and excellence, point me not to the bride and bridegroom displaying during the first month of their union all the watchfulness and tenderness of affection, but let me look upon the husband and wife of fifty, whose love has been tried by the lapse and the changes of a quarter of a century, and who through this period and by these vicissitudes, have grown in attachment and esteem ; and whose affection, if not glowing with all the fervid heat of a midsummer's day, is still like the sunshine of an October noon, warm and beautiful, as reflected amidst autumnal tints. But, before I go away from this view of a husband's especial duty, I must just advert to another rule of his regard which is laid down for him by the apostle. "So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies: he he that loveth his wife loveth himself.” A man's children are parts of himself; his wife is himself: "for they two shall be one flesh." "This is his duty and and the measure of it too; which is so plain, that, if he understands how he treats himself, there needs nothing be added concerning his demeanour towards her; for what mighty care does he take of his body, and uses it with a delicate tenderness, and cares for it in all contingencies, and watches to keep it from all evils, and studies to make for it fair provisions, and is very often led by its inclinations and desires, and does never contradict its appetites, but when they are evil, and then also not without some trouble and sorrow." So let a man love his wife as his own body. Can it be necessary to apply the force of motives to produce an appropriate attention to such a duty? If so, I appeal to your sense of honour. Husbands call to recollection the wakeful assiduities, and the tender attentions, by which you won the affection and the confidence of the woman, who forsook her father and her mother, and the home of her childhood, to find a resting place for her heart in your attachment; and will ye falsify the vows you plighted and disappoint the hopes you raised? Is it accounted a disgraceful stigma on a man's reputation, to forfeit the pledges of a lover? oh! how much more dishonourable, to forget those of a husband! That man has disgraced himself who furnishes just occasion to the partner of his days, to draw with a sigh, a contrast between the affectionate attention she received as a lover and as a wife. I urge affection to a wife, by the recollection of that solemn moment, when in the presence of heaven and |