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your malaise, or leave him unmoved by your suffering, if he see you without seeing, and hear you without noting, if he seek any companionship, be it of man or woman, in preference to yours, if he regard you merely as a pretty toy, a useful ornament in his home; then you have been cheated with a blank, and God's mercy alone can soften your desolate doom, and strengthen you against besetting temptations, and save you from the destroying sin of filling that miserable void in your aching, yearning, unsatisfied heart, with some secret and unhallowed idol.

Young maiden, standing beneath Hope's arching rainbow, with its glory reflected upon your furrowless brow, and its light in your earnest eyes, you turn away doubtingly, yet fearingly, from this disheartening but every-day picture. See, we place another before your wishful gaze; another, as real but more rare. Your lover's transports are over, but they are succeeded by a thoughtful tenderness that unfailingly prefers your well-being to his own; his ardor changes to a steady devotion that daily increases in strength; he ceases to talk to you of his love, because it has become too deep to find, or require expression; but his actions are more eloquent than his most impassioned words have ever been. He lifts you in his strong arms above the angry waves that dash around his own feet; he takes you as a dove into his warm bosom, and shelters you from the rude winds that fiercely