Page:New letter writer, or, Polite correspondence, on friendship, business, courtship, love, and marriage.pdf/19

( 19 ) From a friend to another, adviing him to Marry.

Dear Charles,

orry to hear that you have abolutely declared againt matrimony, and for no other reaon as I can learn, but becaue you are not acquainted with its weets. Has not both Providence and religion enjoined this acred union? Would we be now in exitence only for it? But without confining ourelves to general reflections, let us ee if you could not live more comfortably with a woman, than in the ingle tate you are at preent reolved to make choice of; for my part, I mut think that if you think yourelf capable of regulating a family, of living upon good terms with an honet peron, and of giving good education to your children, you would find that there is nothing more agreeable than to live with a woman who has made a tender of herelf to you, and who is inclined to dicharge faithfully all the duties incumbent on that union. If you examine every thing which paes in a family under proper regulations, you will ee that a good virtuous wife, hares with her huband all the pleaures or orrow that may happen. His joy he encreaes by adding her own, and his afflictions he alleviates by the part he bears in them. Conjugal affection, when it is incere, eldom decreaes; but, uppoing the firt tranport of love to uffer an abatement, till a virtuous woman is the bet friend a man can have; they concert together the meaures they judge