MARRIED LIFE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1091, 10 April 1883, Page 3

MARRIED LIFE.

'Rica,'in the Christchurch 'Society' expresses her opinion of married life, in the following manner : —To the vast majority of mankind there can bo no question that married life is immeasuiably happier than single. Of course it has its burdens. It is a much more anxious, arduous, hard-working life for both tha man and the woman. Many- a father earns what would keep him twenty times; and many a mother is always at work. Let no man marry for laziness ; but although an apple tree is very pretty in full bloom, it is much more pretty weighed down with golden fruit ; and Darby and Joan, loving and respecting each other, ripening to middle age, and wiih young ones around their knees, are happier, wiser, nobler than Darby, a gay young rake of 35) and Joan, a soured, curata-

hunting spinister of the same age. And! their happiness is, moreover, not only much higher in degree ; it is a totally different find superior happiness. F<tncy if you can, you selfish bachelors, a long life of constant self-sacrifice—and such is the lire of many a husband and wife—for their children and those about them, until giving and doing good become mere pleasant habits, and they learn the blessed truth, it is better to give than to receive. Lmagine Darby and Joan growing old, shutting their eyes to their own merely human faults, and awakening te the fact that they have been God's servants, and have grown into some solid and admirable virtues—patience, • long-suffering, meekness, love, hope, faith, charity -and then imagine the intense love interchanged by such a couple ! hemember, too, that you do not feed your cat because she benefits you, but because you pat and love her ; you feed her, benefit her, and you always love those whom you have done good to, \pply that even to a l grumpy' husband. There can be no argument about this. All the world knows and feels that, with all its weight upon it, married life is much better than single.