Page 6 Advertisements Column 5

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 65, 19 June 1863, Page 6 (Supplement)

"INVEROARGILL TIMES" JOB PRINTING OFFICE (NEXT LTNION BANK), KELVIN- STREET INVERCARGILL. EVERY DESCRIPTION OF LITHOGRAPHIC AND LETTER-PRESS PRINTING Posters Circulars Bill Heads Show Cards Cheque Books KELVIN-STREET, ONE DOOR FROM TAY-STREET.

Marriage and its Consequences. — A great deal of beautiful moonshine is written about the sanctities of home and the sacraments of marriage and birth. I do not mean lo say that there is no sanctitv and no sacrament. Moonshine is not nothing. It is light — real, honest light— just as truly as the sunshine. It is sunshine at secondhand. It illuminates, but indistinctly. It beautifies, but it does not vivify or fructify. It comes, indeed, from the sun, but in too roundabout a way to do the sun's work. So, if a woman is pretty nearly sanctified befi re she is married, wifehood and mother hood may finish the business; but there is not one man in ten thousand of the writers afor 8 tid who would marry a vixen, trusting to the sanctifying influence of marriage to tone her down to s-veetness. A thought ful, gentle, pure, and elevated woman, who has been accustomed to s'and face to face with the eternities, will see in her child a soul. if the circumstances of her life leave her leisure and adequate repose, that soul will be to her a solemn trust, a sacred charge, for which she will give her own soul's life in pledge. But, dear me ! how many such women do you suppose there are in your village ! Heaven forbid that I should even appear to be depreciating women! Do I not know too well their strength, and their virtue, which is their strength ? But stepping out of idylls and novels, and stepping into American kitchens, 13 it not true that the larger part of the mothers) see in their babies, or act as if they saw, only babies? And if there are three or four or half a dozen of them, as there generally are, so much the more do they see babies whose bodies monopolise the mother's time to the disadvantage of their souls. She loves them, and she works for them day and night ; but when they are ranting and ramping and quarrelling, and torturing over-tense nerves, she forgets the infinite, and applies herself energetically to the finite, by sending Harry with a round scolding into one corner and Susy into another with no light thrown upon the point in dispute, no principle settled as a guide in future difficulties, and little discrimination as to the relative guilt of the offenders. But there is no court of appeal before which Harry and Susey can lay th^ir case in these charm"hap'picst days." Then there are parents who love their children like wild beasts. It is a passionate, blind, instinctive, unreasoning love. They have no more intelligent discernment, when an outside ditliculty arises with respect to their children than a she-bear. They wax furious over the most richly deserved punishment if inflicted by a teacher's hand; they take the part of their child against legal authority ; but, observe, this does not prevent them from laying their own hands heavily on their childi en. The same o!.---stinate ignorance and narrowness that are exhibited without exist within also. Follv is tolly, abroad or at home. A man does" not play the fool ont-rloors and act [he page in the house. When the poor child becomes obnoxious, tl e same unreasoning rage falls upon him. The object of a ferocious love is the object of an equally ferocious anger. It is only he who loves wisely that loves well. The manner in which children's tastes are disregarded, their feelings ignored, and their instincts violated is enough to disaffect one with childhood. They are expected to kiss all flesh that ask them to do so. They are jerked up into the laps of people whom they abhor. They say «' Yes Ma'am," under pain of bread and water for a week, when their unerring nature prompts them to hurl oxit, '* I won't, you hideous old fright !" They are sent out of the room whenever a fascinating bit of seandel is to be rehearsed, packed off to bed just as everybody is settled down for a charming evening, bothered about their lessons when their play is ftirly under way, and hedged and hampered on every side. Ii is true that all this may be for their good, but, my dear dolt, what of that? So everything is for the good of grown-up people ; but does that make us con tinted 2 It is doubtless for our good in the long run that we lose our pocket books, and break our arms, and catch a fever, and have our brothers defraud a bank, and our houses burn down, and people steal our umbrellas, and borrow our books and never return them. In fact, we know that upon certain conditions all things work together for our good, but, notwithstanding, we find some things a great bore ; and we may talk to our children of discipline and health together, and it will never be anything but an intolerable nuisance to them to be swooped off to bed by a dingy old nurse, just as the people are beginning to come, and shining silk, and floating lace, and odorous, faint, flowers are taking their ecstatic youn? souls back into the golden days of the good Haroun al Raschid. — " Happiest Days," in the Atlantic Monthly, for January. * My dear," said a gentleman to a young lady whom he was persecuting with his address, " do you intend to make a fool of me?" "No," replied the offended lady, " nature has happily saved me the trouble.' How did Ruth serve Boaz badly before Bhe married him ! Because she trod on his corn and pulled his ears. A patient is undoubtedly in a bao> way when his disease is acute and the doctor isn't, ...-■- -' J