be taken it should be short, quiet, free-and-easy, and inexpensive. At some future time, when the young people are less agitated and have learned to understand each other better, the time and money saved will be available for a more extended holiday. During the honeymoon there should be "marches hymeneal in the land of the ideal" rather than globe-trotting; "thoughts moved o'er fields Elysian" rather than over the perplexing pages of "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide."

In reference to the honeymoon, as to other matters, people's opinions differ according to their temperaments and circumstances. So we shall conclude this chapter by quoting two nearly opposite opinions, and ask our readers to decide for themselves.

In the "Memoir of Daniel Macmillan " his opinion is thus stated: "That going out for the honeymoon is a most wise and useful invention; it enables you to be so constantly together, and to obtain a deeper knowledge of each other; and it also helps one to see and feel the preciousness of such intimacy as nothing else could. Intercourse in the presence of others never leads below the surface, and it is in the very depths of our being that true calm, deep and true peace and love lie. Nothing so well prepares for the serious duties of after-life."

"As to long honeymoons," says the Bishop of Rochester, "most sensible people have come utterly to disbelieve in them. They are a forced homage to utterly false ideas; they are a waste of money at a moment when every shilling is wanted for much more pressing objects; they are a

loss of time, which soon comes to be dreary and weary. Most of all, they are a risk for love, which ought not so soon to be so unpleasantly tested by the inevitable petulances of a secret ennui. Six days by all means, and then, oh! happy friends, go straight home. . . . Whenever you come back, six weeks hence or one, you will have just as much to stand the fire of a little hard staring which won't hurt you, and of bright pleasantness which need not vex you; and the sooner you are at home, the sooner you will find out what married happiness means."

"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."-Ecclesiastes v. 5.

HE honeymoon is over, and our young couple have exchanged their chrysalis condition for the pleasures and duties of ordinary married

life. Let them begin by forming the highest ideal of marriage. Now, and on every anniversary of their wedding day, they should seriously reflect upon those vows which are too often taken, either in entire ignorance of their meaning and import, or thoughtlessly, as though they were mere incidents of the marriage ceremony.

A Hampshire incumbent recently reported some of the blunders he had heard made in the marriage service, by that class of persons who have to pick up the words as best they can from hearing them repeated by others. He said that in his own parish it was quite the fashion for the

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man, when giving the ring, to say to the woman : my body I thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou." He said the women were generally better up in this part of the service than the men. One day, however, a bride startled him by promising, in what she supposed to be language of the Prayer Book, to take her husband "to 'ave and to 'old from this day fortn't, for betterer horse, for richerer power, in siggerness health, to love cherries, and to bay." We have heard of an ignorant bridegroom, who, confusing the baptismal and marriage services, replied, when asked if he consented to take the bride for his wife: "I renounce them all!" It is to be hoped that the times of such ignorance are either passed or passing; still, a little instruction in reference to marriage vows might be given with advantage in some churches.

In one of his letters Byron tells a story of a learned Jew, who was remarkable, in the brilliant circles to which his learning gained him admittance, for his habit of asking questions continuously and fearlessly, in order to get at the bottom of any matter in discussion. To a person who was complaining of the Prince Regent's bad treatment of his old boon companions, this habitual interrogator cried across a dinner-table: "And why does the prince act so?" Because he was told so-and-so by Lord ; who ought to be ashamed of himself!" was the answer. "But why, sir, has the prince cut you?" inquired the searcher after truth. "Because I stuck to my principles-yes, sir, because I stuck to my principles !" replied the other, testily thinking that his examination

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was ended. "And why did you stick to your principles?" cried the interrogator, throwing the table into a roar of laughter, the mirth being no more due to the inquisitor's persistence than to his inability to conceive that any man would stick to his principles simply because he believed them to be right. Are there not some educated as well as uneducated people who seem to be quite as incapable of conceiving that they should keep their marriage vows, simply because it is dishonourable and wicked to break them?

A mother having become alarmed about the failing state of her daughter's health, and not being able to get much satisfaction from a consultation with the village doctor, took her to a London physician for further advice. He asked a few questions as to the girl's daily habits and mode of life, carefully stethoscoped her heart and lungs, and then gave an involuntary sigh. The mother grew pale, and waited anxiously for a verdict. "Madam," he said, "so far as I can discover, your daughter is suffering from a most serious complaint, which, for want of a better name, I shall call 'dulness.' Perhaps it is in your power to cure it. I have no medicine which is a specific for this disease." Girls, who suffer in this way, too often prescribe for themselves marriage with men whom they cannot love, honour, and obey. This is as bad as dramdrinking, or gambling; but what else can the poor things do? They have not been trained like their brothers to useful work, and have always been told that woman's first, best occupation is to be a wife. To which it may be answered