In addition to these, your own good sense and taste will suggest many other desirable qualities in a companion for life.

Upon receiving the addresses of a man, your first object should be to ascertain whether he possesses those prominent traits of character which you consider indispensable.  If he lack any one of these, you have no further inquiry to make.  Inform him openly and ingenuously of your decision; but spare his feelings as far as you can consistently with Christian sincerity.  He is entitled to your gratitude for the preference he has manifested for yourself.  Therefore, treat him courteously and tenderly; yet let him understand that your decision is conclusive and final.  If he possess only the feelings of a gentleman, this course will secure for you his esteem and friendship.  But if you are satisfied, with respect to these prominent traits of character, next look for those qualities which you consider desirable, though not indispensable.  If you discover few or none of these, it will be a serious objection against him.  But you need not expect to find them all combined in any one person.  If you seek for a perfect character, you will be disappointed.  In this as well as every other relation of life, you will need to exercise forbearance.  The best of men are compassed about with imperfection and infirmity.  Besides, as you are not perfect yourself, it would seem like a species of injustice to require perfection in a companion.

While deciding these points, keep your feelings entirely under control.  Suffer them to have no influence upon your judgment.  A Christian should never be governed by impulse.  Many persons have, no doubt, destroyed their happiness for life, by suffering their feelings to get the better of their judgment.  Make the matter a subject of daily prayer.  The Lord directs all our ways, and we cannot expect to be prospered in anything, wherein we neglect to acknowledge him, and seek his direction.  But, when you have satisfied yourself, in relation to these things, and the person whose addresses you are receiving has distinctly avowed his intentions, you may remove the restraint from your feelings; which, as well as your judgment, have a deep concern in the affair.  A happy and prosperous union must have for its basis a mutual sentiment of affection, of a peculiar kind.  If you are satisfied that this sentiment exists on his part, you are to inquire whether you can exercise it towards him.  For, with many persons of great worth, whom we highly esteem, there is often wanting a certain undefinable combination of qualities, not improperly termed the soul of character; which alone seems to call out the exercise of that peculiar sentiment of which we are speaking.  But I seriously charge you never to form a connection which is not based upon this principle; and that, for the following reasons: 

1.  Such depraved creatures as we are, need the aid of the warmest affection, to enable us to exercise that mutual forbearance, so indispensable to the peace and happiness of the domestic circle.