“I leave thee, father!  Eve’s bright moon,
      Must now light other feet,
  With the gathered grapes, and the lyre in tune,
  Thy homeward steps to greet.”

“Yes, I leave thee, father!  I receive thy last blessing; no longer shall thy protecting hand guide me; no longer shall thy smile be music to my ear.  I leave thee, oh, therefore, let me weep!

  “’Mother!  I leave thee! on thy breast,
  Pouring out joy and woe;
  I have found that holy place of rest
  Still changeless—­yet I go!”

“Yes, I go from thee, mother!  Though you have watched over me in helpless infancy with all a mother’s love and care, and ’lulled me with your strain;’ and though earth may not afford me a love like yours; yet I go!  Oh, therefore, sweet mother, let me weep!”

  “’Oh, friends regretted, scenes forever dear
  Remembrance hails you with her burning tear;
  Drooping she bends o’er pensive fancy’s urn,
  To trace the hours which ne’er can return.’”

If momentous interests’ are involved in marriage, then, we think that parents should take an important part in the matrimonial alliances of their children.  When they grow up, they naturally seek a companion for life.  The making choice of that companion is a crisis in their history, and will determine their future interest and happiness.  If separation from home is a great sacrifice, then we should look well to the grounds of our justification in making that sacrifice.

We propose, under the head of “match-making,” to consider the part which parents should take in the marriage of their children; and also the false and true standards of judgment both for parents and their children, in making the marriage choice and alliance.

Have parents a right to take any part in the marriage choice and alliance of their children?  Have they a right to interfere in any respect with the marriage of their children?  That they do possess such a right, and are justified in the exercise of it within just and reasonable limits, is, we think, undisputed by any one acquainted with the Word of God.  It is one of the cardinal prerogatives and duties of the Christian parent.  His relation to his children invests him with it.  The age and inexperience of the child, on the one hand; and the seductions of the world, on the other; imply it.  Children need counsel and admonition; and this is a needs be for the interposition of the parent’s superior wisdom and greater experience.

This right is plainly exemplified in sacred history.  Abraham interfered in Isaac’s selection of a companion.  Isaac and Rebecca aided in the choice of a wife for Jacob.  And indeed throughout the patriarchal age, you find this right recognized and practiced.  It was also acknowledged and exercised in all the subsequent ages of Judaism, in the age of primitive Christianity, and even down to the present time, in every true Christian household.  The right still exists, and receives the sanction of the church.  The great dereliction of parents now is, that they do not exercise it; and of children, that they do not recognize it.  “A wise son heareth his father’s instructions.”  “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pluck it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”