A word just here to newly-married couples belongs properly to this subject. No fact or philosophy of married life is more important for them to consider than the relation of their voices and words to it. They will never quarrel, never get weary of each other, never begin to want a divorce, if they never speak the first harsh word. If the first drink makes the drunkard, in the sense that it leads on to other drinks, so the first harsh, unfair, unconjugal word makes the trouble that wearies and wears to the breaking point their married life. When they take their solemn vows of fidelity to each other at the altar, they should as solemnly pledge their tongues to the perpetual use of conjugal language--to the tones and words that befit the holy union of loving hearts. After all, what are the vows at a wedding altar but mere words. These vows spin an invisible thread binding husband and wife as one in God's sight. The fist unconjugal word should be to them the serpent in Eden, which they should dread and keep at bay through the weapon of God's strength and Christian self-control. Awful, frightful, rebellious thing is the beginning of evil speech by those who live in wedlock. Tongues should be married as well as hearts. Whatever may be the tumult within the tongue should be held to silence over it, till it can speak in moderation and mercy. And this rule of the tongue and tones of the voice with which the newly married begin, should be the rule right on to the end. Loud tones, sharp, harsh speech, hasty, stinging words, bitter lamentations, reproachful exclamations, snarling, snapping, faultfinding utterances do not belong to the conjugal vocabulary nor home language, and should be kept out by a rigid police authority over the home tongues.