of sufficient importance to claim the attention, and demand the amendment of every well-inclined individual.

"Many a well-meaning wife may trace the coldness and estrangement of her husband to some trifling cause. If a husband, for example, says, 'Don't put your feet upon the grate,' the subject is of sufficient importance to induce you to guard against a repetition. His taste is annoyed by the least inelegance of attitude.

"But it is not errors like these-errors observed, perhaps, only by the extremely refined-to which I would particularly advert; it is the disregard of that inestimable rule-Do as you wish to be done by '—a rule applicable to every situation of every individual, capable of being applied to the greatest and most momentous subjects, as well as to the most simple affairs of household propriety— a rule comprising within itself a motive for action, which, if it were universally observed, would supersede the necessity of legislation, and banish unhappiness from the world. This simple yet important rule is of itself sufficient to establish the divine character of him who uttered it. He or she who wantonly disregards this divine rule, even in little things, is sapping the very foundation of domestic happiness."

CHAPTER IV.

CHEERFULNESS.

Influence of cheerfulness. Opinion of the Journal of Health. Dr. Salgues' opinion. Interesting anecdote. Evils of a want of cheerfulness. Story of Alexis and Emilia. Reflections.

THE young wife also owes it to her husband and to the world, to be cheerful. She is seldom aware of the amazing importance of this quality to her own happiness, as well as to that of others.

In the second volume of the Journal of Health, there is an extended essay on the importance of cheerfulness to health and longevity. Nor is it a solitary instance. Many writers, both in morals and medicine, have dwelt, at considerable length, on its favorable tendency on our every-day happi

ness.

Dr. Salgues, professor to the Institute of France, has the following excellent remarks on the importance of what he calls gaiety, but which answers exactly to what we call cheerfulness:-"It is," says he, "the best preservative against anxiety

and grief; it is the golden panacea, the secret of longevity, the elixir of life." And in another place, he adds, "Joy and gaiety give activity to transpiration, render digestion easier and better, sleep more regular and refreshing, the cure of sickness easier, the period of convalescence shorter, and life itself longer."

This is the importance of cheerfulness in general.

But its peculiar importance to the wife can best be seen by observing those families where it is wanting. Unhappily, they are so numerous that we need not go very far for the purpose.

I recollect most distinctly a family of this painful description, not a hundred miles from the place of my nativity.

It was a small family, in moderate, though not affluent circumstances, and surrounded by most of those externals which are calculated to make life delightful. Yet cheerfulness was only an occasional visitor there-seldom or never an inmate.

The father labored like a galley slave, to amass property, and almost always came home from his labor fatigued and dejected; never smiling or happy. The mother, born, as it seemed, to perpetual sullenness and gloom, did nothing, of course, to cheer his spirits. Not a sprightly word or cheering look was ever transmitted from the one to the other, except on extraordinary occasions, as

on the arrival of some friendly visitor. More than this, the countenance of the mother usually wore a frown, even in her happiest moments.

In this sad condition things went on for many years. A family of three children were in the mean time rising to maturity, and their character, for time and for eternity, forming under such woful influences. They were at length fairly on the stage of life, and actors in life's busy scenes. And what were their tempers and dispositions? Two of them are far from being cheerful or happy. Nor were they happy in their youth; for they were often melancholic in the midst of the gayest companions. Some of them already have rising families of their own, among whom they are spreading, by gloomy countenances, the same unhappy influences to which themselves, in early life, had been subjected.

In my youth I had occasion to spend a few days in the cheerless family of which I have been speaking. As I was a mere boy, there was probably no effort to appear differently from what was usual in the family; and therefore I had a fine opportunity to see things as they were.

I believe I was in the family four days. Yet during this whole time, I never heard a pleasant voice, or saw a kind countenance or a friendly smile, except in a single instance. The father was

dejected; the mother was irritable; the daughters were peevish and gloomy; the son was discontented and unhappy.

There were no cords of love and union there. The father never sat down, in the midst of a happy family, nor formed the hero of a circle around the fireside. If he had a moment's leisure, he was at the "store," or the "corner," in the midst of other and sometimes more unfavorable influences.

Now when I reflect upon the circumstances of this group of relatives-for I will not call it a family--I feel a good degree of confidence that maternal kindness would have prevented all this. Not through the medium of occasional smiles or acts of kindness, but by an uninterrupted series of those looks and acts that make their impression on the heart, and imperceptibly, though effectually, win it.

Abbott, in his "Path of Peace," describes this state of things as if he too, like myself, had been an eye witness to it. Speaking of the want of cheerfulness, and its sad effects on the husband, he thus observes:

When, wearied and excited by the harassments of the day, your husband has returned to his home, he has not been met with a smile of welcome, and a placid heart. The parlor is in a clutter, the children are neglected, his wife is fretful. Love,