CHAPTER XXII.

DISCRETION.

Paul's estimate of the importance of discretion. Opinions of Gisborne. Various forms of indiscretion. Danger of extremes. What true purity is. A word of caution to the indiscreet.

If the apostle Paul, in his letter to Titus, after having directed that young women should be instructed to be sober, does not regard it as trifling to speak of the importance of discretion, it cannot certainly be amiss for me to add a few words on this quality, and on its value as a means of promoting and upholding matrimonial happiness.

Discretion, says Gisborne, is not one of those virtues which come into practice only in singular conjunctures, under circumstances which can seldom happen to the same individual, and to some persons, may never occur at all. It is not a robe of state, to be drawn forth from its recess on some day of festivity, nor a ponderous cloak, to be put on to repel the violence of a thunder shower. It is to the mind what the every-day clothing is to

the body. It is requisite, under every vicissitude, to health, and propriety, and comfort.

Discretion, he continues, embraces every season and every incident of life. At home and abroad, in the city and in the country, with intimates and with strangers, in business and in leisure, it is vigilant, and active, and unwearied. It enhances the utility of virtue, and anticipates the allurements of vice. It attends to persons and feelings, to times, occasions and situations, and abstains from all appearance of evil.

This virtue is the more worthy of being inculcated with earnestness on married people, because they appear, in several respects, to be in greater danger than the single, of being led by custom or hurried by inadvertence to disregard it. The giddy and the vain often indulge themselves, without reserve, in a freedom of manners, and a levity of conversation, from which this fear of incurring censure and exciting disgust had previously taught them to refrain. Plunging with augmented eagerness into the hurry of dissipation, and little scrupulous as to the society with which they tread the circle of amusements, they take fire at each remonstrance of a husband, as a reflection on their character, and feel the smallest obstacle to the career of their pleasures as an act of tyrannical control. Hence while the wife, on the one hand, relies on

the innocence of her intentions-and the husband, on the other, has not to charge himself with unkindness or austerity, the secret springs of disquietude and grief, perhaps of indifference, of alienation of heart, and of incurable dissensions, are already opened.

:-a

Is the wife then innocent? Unquestionably not. Admit her giddiness and vanity to be no subjects of serious reprehension-no considerable deviations from christian sober mindedness; admit her manners and her conversation to have been clear from every imputation, except that of thoughtless imprudence a heavy charge will yet remain. She has wounded the feelings of her husband; she has exposed to risk the warmth of his affection; she has laid herself open to the insinuations of calumny; she has exhibited a dangerous example; she has trodden a most dangerous path; she has hazarded her own happiness, and that of the person most dear to her, by a neglect of discretion.

But the giddy and the vain are not the only married women who are found to be indiscreet in their manners and deportment. Some, whose feelings are not very refined, take scarcely any pains to preserve their discourse and behaviour as pure, and chaste, and correct, as it should be. They do not hesitate to dwell, in common conversation, on acts of misconduct and guilt, from the contem

plation of which a mind of innate modesty would at once recoil. They behave to their acquaintance of the other sex, with blunt and unrestrained familiarity. And some are even so blinded as to make their married state an excuse for laying aside that delicacy which they regard as an unnecessary formality.

No doubt, the artificial reserve of former times ought to be discarded. At all events, modesty is not stiffness. There is, however, no little danger of going to the contrary extreme. Odious as formality is, it is better-far better-to be deemed somewhat formal, than to be actually indiscreet. To imagine that a state of life in which your conduct so intimately affects the happiness of another person should lessen your obligations to be discreet and prudent, is a most serious error. What can

be more likely to wound the feelings or deaden the affection of a husband, than to perceive his wife daily paying less and less regard to those very qualities which so much endeared her to him before marriage?

It must not be. Marriage does not diminish female obligation in this respect; but, on the contrary, greatly increases it. And there is one fact to be observed in these circumstances, which greatly enhances the value of caution. When we have once gone in the road of indiscretion, it is exceed

ingly difficult to retrace our steps. Many suppose that though there is no place of repentance to be found for indiscretion before marriage, yet the case is altered afterward. Now the greater evil of indiscreet or unchaste conversation consists in the transgressor's own mind and conscience. These it is which are defiled. And this defilement is not confined to any state of life, married or single; nor is the mind, when once defiled in either case, easily purified again. The stain is apt to abide-sometimes forever.

I tremble for those who do not tremble for themselves, in this matter. The error to which I refer is much more common among us than many persons are aware. If these remarks, and similar ones in the chapter on Purity of Character, should awaken here and there a reader to the importance of a course which will prevent the necessity of repentance, it is all I dare to hope.