The Wedding Ring | Page 6

up in amazement, and says: "Well, well, you are the
greatest woman I ever saw. I thought you would faint dead away when
I told you." And as he looks at her, all the glories of physiognomy in
the court of Louis XV. on the modern fashion plates are tame as
compared with the superhuman splendors of that woman's face. Joan of
Arc, Mary Antoinette, and La Belle Hamilton, the enchantment of the
court of Charles II., are nowhere.
A WIFE'S DEATH.
There is another time when the plainest wife is a queen of beauty to her
husband. She has done the work of life. She has reared her children for
God and heaven, and though some of them may be a little wild they
will yet come back, for God has promised. She is dying, and her
husband stands by. They think over all the years of their
companionship, the weddings and the burials, the ups and the downs,
the successes and the failures. They talk over the goodness of God and
His faithfulness to children's children. She has no fear about going. The
Lord has sustained her so many years she would not dare to distrust
Him now. The lips of both of them tremble as they say good-bye and
encourage each other about an early meeting in a better world. The
breath is feebler and feebler, and stops. Are you sure of it? Just hold

that mirror at the mouth, and see if there is any vapor gathering on the
surface. Gone! As one of the neighbors takes the old man by the arm
and gently says: "Come, you had better go into the next room and rest,"
he says: "Wait a moment; I must take one more look at that face and at
those hands!" Beautiful! Beautiful!
My friends, I hope you do not call that death. That is an autumnal
sunset. That is a crystalline river pouring into a crystal sea. That is the
solo of human life overpowered by hallelujah chorus. That is a queen's
coronation. That is heaven. That is the way my father stood at
eighty-two, seeing my mother depart at seventy-nine. Perhaps so your
father and mother went. I wonder if we shall die as well?

THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.
"The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of
her husband."--RUTH 1:9.
This was the prayer of pious Naomi for Ruth and Orpah, and is an
appropriate prayer now in behalf of unmarried womanhood. Naomi, the
good old soul, knew that the devil would take their cases in hand if God
did not, so she prays: "The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each
of you in the house of her husband."
In this series of sermons on "The Wedding Ring" I last Sabbath gave
prayerful and Christian advice to men in regard to the selection of a
wife, and to-day I give the same prayerful and Christian advice to
women in regard to the selection of a husband, but in all these sermons
saying much that I hope will be appropriate for all ages and all classes.
VOLUNTARY CELIBACY.
I applaud the celibacy of a multitude of women who, rather than make
unfit selection, have made none at all. It has not been a lack of
opportunity for marital contract on their part, but their own culture and
refinement, and their exalted idea as to what a husband ought to be,
have caused their declinature. They have seen so many women marry

imbeciles, or ruffians, or incipient sots, or life-time incapables, or
magnificent nothings, or men who before marriage were angelic and
afterward diabolic, that they have been alarmed and stood back. They
saw so many boats go into the maelstrom that they steered into other
waters. Better for a woman to live alone, though she live a thousand
years, than to be annexed to one of these masculine failures with which
society is surfeited. The patron saint of almost every family circle is
some such unmarried woman, and among all the families of cousins she
moves around, and her coming in each house is the morning, and her
going away is the night.
A BENEFICENT SPINSTERHOOD.
In my large circle of kindred, perhaps twenty families in all, it was an
Aunt Phoebe. Paul gave a letter of introduction to one whom he calls
"Phoebe, our sister," as she went up from Cenchrea to Rome,
commending her for her kindness and Christian service, and imploring
for her all courtesies. I think Aunt Phoebe was named after her. Was
there a sickness in any of the households, she was there ready to sit up
and count out the drops of medicine. Was there a marriage, she helped
deck the bride for the