Page:Advantages and disadvantages of the marriage-state.pdf/8

8
upon it, Ichabod.—As they travelled, they
would frequently sit down in the shade,
divert themselves with trifles, and often
turn aside, which made their progress very
small; and this indolence prevailed more
and more, until they came to a low valley
by the brink of the river Euphrates, where
they turned aside and fell asleep; and while
they slept, there arose a swell in the river,
and the flood swept them both away.
As for the third, whose name was Eu-
phemius, when he heard the admonitions,
they made deep impressions upon his
mind, and filled him with awful apprehen-
sions ; he was convinced of the pernicious
consequences which would attend such
company, and appeared solicitous to avoid
them ; but how it was, I have now forgot,
whether, before these considerations, he had
contracted a correspondence, or whether
afterwards, by dalliance and giving latitude
to his fancy, he forgot himself, and was
entangled with a daughter of the Chaldees
which, betwixt the instructions he had re-
ceived, and his own misguarded affections,
caused some strugglings of his mind: for
the person was of a complaisant disposition,
nor seemed at all reluctant to the things he
had in view. Yet he plainly perceived, she
had no taste to them, and that her innate
disposition was more to Babylon than Ca-
naan ; she had never been convinced of the