Professor Fraser at the Masonic Hall.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1028, 26 January 1882, Page 2

Professor Fraser at the Masonic Hall.

Professor Frazer delivered another of his interesting lectures in the Masonic Hall, last evening, on “ Courtship, Love, and Marriage. There was an excellent attendance. Shortly’ after the appointed time the lecturer began. He showed to his audience that the subject matters of his lecture were the great events in one’s life, and upon which the future happiness or misery of not only ourselves, but many others depended. After dealing with the question from its scieutilic point of view, the lecturer then proceeded to point out the more familiar aspects of his subject. Before doing so he showed the different forms assumed by what was called Love. There was that love that cast forward to futurity for its abode of bliss. There was love in the higher forms of life which death itself could not sever. There was ike ordinary phase of human love possessing many imperfections to contend against, from the ethereal to the sublunary aspect of the important subject. '1 he Professor entertained his hearers by giving some valuable hints well worthy of being preserved. The period when people should sacrifice themselves upon the altar of Hymen, and whom they should choose as the partners of their joys and sorrows, were minutely dealt with it. Diagrams were used to illustrate the corresponding qualities necessary to persons matrimonially inclined if their conjugal happiness was to be considered. The lecturer then dealt with the “ lords of the soil,” and indicated what qualifications they should possess in order that they might be worthy helpmates for their better halves. Having done this, the temperaments of ladies and the husbands for whom, through the corresponding mental characteristics of the respective parties, they would be most calculated to make happy, was expatiated upon by the lecturer, and attentively listened to by the I male and female portion of his auditory. Upon the initiatory proceedings- the probationary condition of courtship—the lecturer

was very humorous. There were the Slow Courtships, that went on for an interminable period, discussed by the friends or enemies of the parties until all interest in them was abandoned. Then there were the Quick Courtships — the marriage-in-haste-and-repent-at-leisure series—marriages, however, that as often as not turned out well. Some hints were given as to how to make married life a success. The Professor pointed out how essential it was to domestic happiness that there should be a spirit of bearing and forbearing between man and wife in all things in order t o preserve the felicity of t he domestic hearth. The advantages of a married life as against one of celibacy were shown, and a variety of arguments in favour of the matrimonial condition as against the unmarried state adduced. The lecturer was frequently applauded throughout the evening, and concluded a very pleasant and instructive lecture with the following quotation from the poet Moore :— “ There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie, With, heart never chanting and brow never cold, Love on through all ills, and love on till they die. One hour of a passion so sacred is worth Whole ages of heartless and wandering And oh ! if there l>e an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this.”