Young men are no longer led to look upon every girl that they meet as furtively, to use a vulgarism, "setting her cap for him," and only too ready to fling herself at his feet.

So far so good.

But have we not suffered our girls to drift into the opposite extreme?
In the heyday of their bright young life, with so many new interests and amusements open to them, in the pride of their freedom and independence, they are no longer so inclined to marry, and are even apt to look down upon the married state.

They form so high an ideal of the man to whom they would surrender their independence--an ideal which they fortunately do not apply to their fathers and brothers, whom they find it quite possible to love on a far lower and more human level--that because a man does not fulfil this ideal, and is not a fairy prince dowered with every possible gift, they refuse men who, though not angels, would have made them happy as wife and mother.

Would not a little sound, sensible teaching be of great good here?
Could we not point out that, though in so vital and complex a union as the family there must be some seat of ultimate authority, some court of final appeal somewhere, and that the woman herself would not wish it to rest anywhere else than in the man, if she is to respect him; yet there is no subservience on the part of the wife in the obedience she renders, but rather in South's grand words, "It is that of a queen to her king, who both owns a subjection and remains a majesty"?
Cannot we contend against this falsehood of the age which seems so to underlie our modern life, and which inclines us to look upon all obedience as a slavish thing--that obedience which "doth preserve the stars from wrong," and through which "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong"; that obedience which when absolute and implicit to the Divine will is "a service of perfect freedom"?
It is the profession which exacts unquestionable obedience that forms the finest school for character, as I have already pointed out.