the marriage contract and dowry; to escort the parties to church at their marriage, witness to their vows, accompany them to the bridegroom's house, preside at the nuptial banquet, &c.

After the conclusion of the ceremony, the bride and bridegroom presented offerings, and received the holy communion; the bride was then conducted to the house of her husband; nor was it deemed unsuitable to welcome her with a modest epithalamium and a feast of joy.

It is while contemplating a Christian marriage, thus solemnly ratified by the Church, that Tertullian exclaims, "How can I sufficiently set forth the happiness of that marriage which the Church makes or conciliates, and the offering confirms, and the blessing seals, and the angels report, and the Father ratifies!”

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CHAPTER VII.

THE CHRISTIAN WIFE.

Marriage is a figure and an earnest of holier things unseen, And reverence well becometh the symbol of dignity and glory.

TUPPER.

Ir has been already remarked how intimately every occurrence of domestic and social life was interwoven with the popular mythology of the heathens. Their most ordinary and trivial actions acquired a meaning from their reference to religion; every tree and herb was under the guardianship of some divinity; the days and months were called after their names; and the various articles of dress and furniture were each made to recall some circumstance in the mythic history of their deities; nay, the every-day language of familiar intercourse abounded in expressions having some idolatrous allusion, which the believer could scarcely avoid without the utmost caution, nor hear without pain.

"On their oft-recurring days of general festivity, it was the custom of the antients to decorate their doors with lamps and branches of laurel, and to crown their heads with garlands of flowers." But what might be regarded only as a harmless expression of mirth, was in truth an idolatrous custom; for the doors were under the protection of the household gods, and the laurel was sacred to the lover of Daphne.

How difficult, therefore, the path of the young Christian wife in a heathen home! she who had been taught to shrink from the bare appearance of evil, and to hate even the garments spotted by the flesh! In her kitchen stood the hearth which was consecrated to the household deities; here burnt the sacred lamp, and around it were ranged the lares and penates who daily required fresh offerings of incense and libations. What was the duty of the female convert amidst these trying and conflicting claims? To whom could she delegate an office which was considered peculiarly her own? Her conscience would not sanction even outward compliance with what she believed to be sinful; and yet, in times of persecution, how opportune

a subject was her refusal for the accusation of her heathen domestics! The same difficulties attended her in their social repasts. Though she had the apostolic warrant (1 Cor. x. 27.) for accepting the invitations of her heathen acquaintances to a feast, and might eat whatever was set before her without distressing her mind by needless scruples; yet if any Christian guest or domestic were to inform her that the meat had been offered in sacrifice to idols, by which he would seem to imply that he considered it sinful to partake of such a dish, her line of duty was plain; though she might feel perfectly persuaded in her own mind, that an idol was nothing in the world, yet a tender regard for the conscience of a weaker brother, and especially of him who had made this communication, would at once prompt her to refrain from partaking of it.

In the same manner, she could bear no part in the libations which were poured out after their repasts, in honour of the gods, or in the pantomimic dances which frequently accompanied them. Instead of the solemn reading of Holy Scripture, and the singing of psalms

and hymns, which were wont to gladden the social meals of her Christian home, she was forced to listen to the recital of pagan writers, or to profane songs and impious buffoonery. Her conscience, too, might sometimes upbraid her with wearing chaplets of roses and garlands of flowers, which many of the early Christians regarded as idolatrous. These garlands, as we have already remarked, were severely censured on various accounts, chiefly because the flowers of which they were composed were for the most part consecrated to the heathen deities: the statues of the gods, too, were crowned with flowers; and Tertullian, in his book De Corona, says: "What is a crown on the head of a woman, but the pander of her beauty, the highest mark of lewdness, the extreme denial of modesty, and the contriver of allurement?"

In short, beset as she was at all points by heathen customs and practices, she must frequently have been under the painful necessity of withdrawing from the society of her husband and children. She was obliged to observe yet greater caution in her intercourse with her idolatrous relations: we can hardly conceive

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