Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/190

182 is inferior to herself upon which love is founded; and therefore no woman can truly love a man who is her inferior in mental and moral endowments. If she cannot truly love him, she cannot be happy with him; and to marry him can only be an act of folly and madness.

Similarity of religious faith should also be considered indispensable. Where there is a regard for religion, it forms the central idea in the mind; and a difference on a matter of so much importance cannot fail, at some time or other, to producer a jar of discord. It may not come until the interests of children are to be regarded, when one or the other will have to yield in a matter involving principles felt to be of the most vital importance. Who shall yield? Can the mother, in conscience, consent to have her children instructed in doctrines that she believes will lead them far away into the mazes of error, and endanger their best and highest interests? Can the father believe a system of religion to be true, and not teach it to his children? Will he not be deeply culpable if he neglect to do so? Here there can be no neutral ground, no yielding on the part of either, if both be equally well convinced of the importance of giving their children early religious instruction. Painfully embarrassing, indeed, is the