"And left a name to other times
Link'd with no virtue, but a thousand crimes."

The history of modern nations is not without examples of similar evils
entailed upon those who, professing themselves the heads of a purified
church and a reformed faith, choose (from motives of pride or policy) to
seek an alliance with the adherents of a dark, cruel, and persecuting
superstition. Such a marriage precipitated the Stuarts from the throne
of England, cost one king his life, and the family a kingdom; and the
marriages of policy among princes, contravening the rules of God's word,
are often followed by most disastrous results, and hasten the evils they
are contracted to prevent.

In private life, also, the marriage of those who have renounced this
world for a higher portion, with the worldly and the ungodly, is
generally a source of sin or of sorrow. There can be little congenial
feeling between the spiritual and the earthly; and the servant of God
who chooses a wife from the daughters of sin and the devotees of
pleasure, places himself in a position of peculiar trial.

The spirit of the wife pervades the household. The husband may rule, but
the wife influences. His voice is obeyed, but the wishes of the wife are
consulted. Her friends are the welcome guests. His associates gather
around his board and claim his leisure hour, but her voice whispers to
him in his retirement. She comes between God and his soul. The strongest
of men was shorn of his might by the companion of his bosom; the wisest
was led into foolishness and idolatry by the influence of a corrupt
woman.