and, if it do thus instruct you, you will want no arguments from me to induce you, at such a season, to prove the sincerity of your affection by every kind word and kind act that your mind can suggest.  This is the time to try you; and, be you assured, that the impression left on her mind now will be the true and lasting impression; and, if it be good, will be a better preservative against her being jealous, than ten thousand of your professions ten thousand times repeated.  In such a case, you ought to spare no expense that you can possibly afford; you ought to neglect nothing that your means will enable you to do; for, what is the use of money if it be not to be expended in this case?  But, more than all the rest, is your own personal attention.  This is the valuable thing; this is the great balm to the sufferer, and, it is efficacious in proportion as it is proved to be sincere.  Leave nothing to other hands that you can do yourself; the mind has a great deal to do in all the ailments of the body, and, bear in mind, that, whatever be the event, you have a more than ample reward.  I cannot press this point too strongly upon you; the bed of sickness presents no charms, no allurements, and women know this well; they watch, in such a case, your every word and every look:  and now it is that their confidence is secured, or their suspicions excited, for life.

198.  In conclusion of these remarks, as to jealousy in a wife, I cannot help expressing my abhorrence of those husbands who treat it as a matter for ridicule.  To be sure, infidelity in a man is less heinous than infidelity in the wife; but still, is the marriage vow nothing?  Is a promise solemnly made before God, and in the face of the world, nothing?  Is a violation of a contract, and that, too, with a feebler party, nothing of which a man ought to be ashamed?  But, besides all these, there is the cruelty.  First, you win, by great pains, perhaps, a woman’s affections; then, in order to get possession of her person, you marry her; then, after enjoyment, you break your vow, you bring upon her the mixed pity and jeers of the world, and thus you leave her to weep out her life.  Murder is more horrible than this, to be sure, and the criminal law, which punishes divers other crimes, does not reach this; but, in the eye of reason and of moral justice, it is surpassed by very few of those crimes. Passion may be pleaded, and so it may, for almost every other crime of which man can be guilty.  It is not a crime against nature; nor are any of these which men commit in consequence of their necessities. The temptation is great; and is not the temptation great when men thieve or rob?  In short, there is no excuse for an act so unjust and so cruel, and the world is just as to this matter; for, I have always observed, that, however men are disposed to laugh at these breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to produce injury to the whole character; it leaves,