may not transpire, both before and after marriage, which it were better to lock up in one's own bosom forever. It may be even so. It probably is so. But I do say that if a married lady has a bosom friend at all-if she confides her inmost secrets to any one-it should be to her husband. She has no right to trust some secret-loving gossip with that which she dares not, for her very life, confide to her husband.

Do you say that some husbands are not worthy of being confided in, or trusted? I know they are not, and it is a most unhappy circumstance; and if your husband is of this description, I pity you. But what is to be done? You have married him,

and you cannot go back. You have made him your husband; ought you not now to treat him as such?

Let me observe that there is a fault here, in our system of early education. Children are not taught to be trusted. There is no way of rendering people worthy of being confided in, or trusted, but by reposing confidence in them. The work should be commenced early. Let a child be early taught to keep a secret. Repose confidence in him, again and again, till you make him worthy of your confidence.

Were this advice followed, we should not find so many persons laying claim to the sacred names

of husband and wife, who are yet unwilling to keep a secret, and unworthy of confidence. We should not find the wife so often telling Mrs. A. B. something which she would not, for the world, tell her own husband.

But taking a husband, too, of the worst stamp, in this respect, I do think he ought not to be deemed irreclaimable. I shall hereafter insist on it, as a sacred and important duty of the wife, to improve his character physically, intellectually, socially, morally and religiously. All I have to say on this point here is, that it will be one important item in this great work, to teach him to be worthy of her confidence.

There is a tendency in our natures to become what we are taken to be. Take your husband to be worthy of being trusted, and commit a secret or something else to his keeping. Let it be, if possible, of such a character or nature that it will be for his own interest, no less than yours, that it should be kept, and that it will, if he communicates it, bring upon him suffering.

Let the trust be repeated, whether he violates it or not. I do not undertake to say to what extent this confidence should at first be carried; but I do feel sure that the work should in all cases be commenced, and that it would generally be successful. Perhaps the husband would at first be guilty of a

betrayal or two; but he would probably soon learn better.

For my own part, I would never have many secrets which I wished to communicate. The fewer we have the better. But when we have something which we wish to communicate, it is a painful condition to be unwilling or afraid to commit it to our dearest friend. I know not what those husbands think who violate confidence, and render themselves unworthy of being trusted with a secret; but I certainly do not envy them the pleasure they feel in doing so. I should much rather be the sufferer. I should prefer, by far, to be occasionally betrayed, than never to trust. This living on guard-this standing sentry over our tongues, for fear some enemy should pass, or for fear an enemy should gain some advantage-is to be abhorred. A due degree of caution, in all we say or do, is right; and is right even in married life. But I say again, that were I a young wife, I would prefer a little suffering to that over-caution which deprives us of half that happiness without which life is scarcely worth possessing.

CHAPTER VI.

SYMPATHY.

Scripture doctrine. Miss Edgeworth's opinion. Dr. Rush's. Effects of sympathy. Disposition to vex each other. A caution. Sympathy the first step to improvement.

IT is no less the command of reason than of revelation, to "rejoice with those who rejoice," and to "weep with those who weep; " or in other words, to sympathize with our fellow beings.

If, as Mrs. Edgeworth says, a being destitute of sympathy would be incapable of exercising compassion, friendship, benevolence, or any social feeling whatever, and would consequently be incapable of all intercourse with society, how deeply unfortunate must be the condition of a married couple, both of whom were in this condition! Nor would their condition be much improved, were the husband what he ought to be, while the wife remained unmoved, unsympathizing and unsocial.

Dr. Rush seems to have taken it for granted that most married people do sympathize deeply with each other; else how could he have made

the conclusion-premature as we may deem it to be-that not only the habits and manners, but even the features of married people gradually approach? This certainly never would happen without the existence of deep and strong sympathy. But I think that even Dr. Rush himself must have met with many exceptions to the truth of his remark.

I suppose, indeed, that there is scarcely a being on earth who is utterly incapable of being affected more or less by others. Probably no two persons can be in each other's society for half an hour, and be active in conversation or otherwise, without catching something, if I may so express the idea.

Yet this sympathetic influence may not always be favorable. A person-even a wife-who should be governed by sympathy alone, would necessarily be affected by the bad as well as the good passions of others. Blindly obedient to this sentiment, she must feel resentment, anger, jealousy, and other evil passions, as well as those of a contrary kind.

But it is not this for which I am contending. A person all sympathy, or with his sympathy blinded, would be a greater evil in the world, and in particular to those about him, than one who was wholly destitute of such a feeling. I am only insisting on its due place among other affections, and especially in that relation which is the most