The Real Union Is a Lifelong Experience. --To gain a proper understanding of
the marriage relation is the work of a lifetime. Those who marry enter a school
from which they are never in this life to be graduated.
However carefully and wisely marriage may have been entered into, few couples
are completely united when the marriage ceremony is performed. The real union of
the two in wedlock is the work of the afteryears.
As life with its burden of perplexity and care meets the newly wedded pair,
the romance with which imagination so often invests marriage disappears. Husband
and wife learn each other's character as it was impossible to learn it in their
previous association. This is a most critical period in their experience. The
happiness and usefulness of their whole future life depend upon their taking a
right course now. Often they discern in each other unsuspected weaknesses and
defects; but the hearts that love has united will discern excellencies also
heretofore unknown. Let all seek to discover the excellencies rather than the
defects. Often it is our own attitude, the atmosphere that surrounds ourselves,
which determines what will be revealed to us in another.
Love Must Be Tested and Tried. --Affection may be as clear as crystal and
beauteous in its purity, yet it may be shallow because it has not been tested
and tried. Make Christ first and last and best in everything. Constantly behold
Him, and your love for Him will daily become deeper and stronger as it is submitted to the test of trial. And as your love
for Him increases, your love for each other will grow deeper and stronger.
Though difficulties, perplexities, and discouragements may arise, let neither
husband nor wife harbor the thought that their union is a mistake or a
disappointment. Determine to be all that it is possible to be to each other.
Continue the early attentions. In every way encourage each other in fighting the
battles of life. Study to advance the happiness of each other. Let there be
mutual love, mutual forbearance. Then marriage, instead of being the end of
love, will be as it were the very beginning of love. The warmth of true
friendship, the love that binds heart to heart, is a foretaste of the joys of
heaven.
All should cultivate patience by practising patience. By being kind and
forbearing, true love may be kept warm in the heart, and qualities will be
developed that Heaven will approve.
The Enemy Will Seek to Alienate. --Satan is ever ready to take advantage when
any matter of variance arises, and by moving upon the objectionable, hereditary
traits of character in husband or wife, he will try to cause the alienation of
those who have united their interests in a solemn covenant before God. In the
marriage vows they have promised to be as one, the wife covenanting to love and
obey her husband, the husband promising to love and cherish his wife. If the law
of God is obeyed, the demon of strife will be kept out of the family, and no
separation of interests will take place, no alienation of affection will be
permitted.
Counsel to a Strong-willed Couple. --Neither husband nor wife is to make a
plea for rulership. The Lord has laid down the principle that is to guide in this matter. The husband is
to cherish his wife as Christ cherishes the church. And the wife is to respect
and love her husband. Both are to cultivate the spirit of kindness, being
determined never to grieve or injure the other. . . .
Do not try to compel each other to do as you wish. You cannot do this and
retain each other's love. Manifestations of self-will destroy the peace and
happiness of the home. Let not your married life be one of contention. If you
do, you will both be unhappy. Be kind in speech and gentle in action, giving up
your own wishes. Watch well your words, for they have a powerful influence for
good or for ill. Allow no sharpness to come into your voices. Bring into your
united life the fragrance of Christlikeness.
Express Love in Words and Deeds. --There are many who regard the expression
of love as a weakness, and they maintain a reserve that repels others. This
spirit checks the current of sympathy. As the social and generous impulses are
repressed, they wither, and the heart becomes desolate and cold. We should
beware of this error. Love cannot long exist without expression. Let not the
heart of one connected with you starve for the want of kindness and sympathy. .
. .
Let each give love rather than exact it. Cultivate that which is noblest in
yourselves, and be quick to recognise the good qualities in each other. The
consciousness of being appreciated is a wonderful stimulus and satisfaction.
Sympathy and respect encourage the striving after excellence, and love itself
increases as it stimulates to nobler aims.
The reason there are so many hardhearted men and women in our world is that
true affection has been regarded as weakness and has been discouraged and repressed. The better part
of the nature of persons of this class was perverted and dwarfed in childhood;
and unless rays of divine light can melt away their coldness and hardhearted
selfishness, the happiness of such is buried forever. If we would have tender
hearts, such as Jesus had when He was upon the earth, and sanctified sympathy,
such as the angels have for sinful mortals, we must cultivate the sympathies of
childhood, which are simplicity itself. Then we shall be refined, elevated, and
directed by heavenly principles.
Too many cares and burdens are brought into our families, and too little of
natural simplicity and peace and happiness is cherished. There should be less
care for what the outside world will say and more thoughtful attention to the
members of the family circle. There should be less display and affectation of
worldly politeness, and much more tenderness and love, cheerfulness and
Christian courtesy, among the members of the household. Many need to learn how
to make home attractive, a place of enjoyment. Thankful hearts and kind looks
are more valuable than wealth and luxury, and contentment with simple things
will make home happy if love be there.
The Little Attentions Count. --God tests and proves us by the common
occurrences of life. It is the little things which reveal the chapters of the
heart. It is the little attentions, the numerous small incidents and simple
courtesies of life, that make up the sum of life's happiness; and it is the
neglect of kindly, encouraging, affectionate words, and the little courtesies of
life, which helps compose the sum of life's wretchedness. It will be found at
last that the denial of self for the good and happiness of those around us constitutes a large share of the life record in heaven.
And the fact will also be revealed that the care of self, irrespective of the
good and happiness of others, is not beneath the notice of our heavenly Father.
A Husband Who Failed to Express Affection. --A house with love in it, where
love is expressed in words and looks and deeds, is a place where angels love to
manifest their presence and hallow the scene by rays of light from glory. There
the humble household duties have a charm in them. None of life's duties will be
unpleasant to your wife under such circumstances. She will perform them with
cheerfulness of spirit and will be like a sunbeam to all around her, and she
will be making melody in her heart to the Lord. At present she feels that she
has not your heart's affections. You have given her occasion to feel thus. You
perform the necessary duties devolving upon you as head of the family, but there
is a lack. There is a serious lack of love's precious influence which leads to
kindly attentions. Love should be seen in the looks and manners and heard in the
tones of the voice.
A Disappointing, Self-centred Wife. --The moral character of those united in
marriage is either elevated or degraded by their association; and the work of
deterioration accomplished by a low, deceptive, selfish, uncontrollable nature
is begun soon after the marriage ceremony. If the young man makes a wise choice,
he may have one to stand by his side who will bear to the utmost of her ability
her share of the burdens of life, who will ennoble and refine him, and make him
happy in her love. But if the wife is fitful in character, self-admiring,
exacting, accusing, charging her husband with motives and feelings that originate only in her own perverted temperament; if
she has not discernment and nice discrimination to recognise his love and
appreciate it, but talks of neglect and lack of love because he does not gratify
every whim, she will almost inevitably bring about the very state of things she
seems to deplore; she will make all these accusations realities.
Characteristics of a Companionable Wife and Mother. --Instead of sinking into
a mere household drudge, let the wife and mother take time to read, to keep
herself well informed, to be a companion to her husband, and to keep in touch
with the developing minds of her children. Let her use wisely the opportunities
now hers to influence her dear ones for the higher life. Let her take time to
make the dear Saviour a daily Companion and familiar Friend. Let her take time
for the study of His word, take time to go with the children into the fields and
learn of God through the beauty of His works.
Let her keep cheerful and buoyant. Instead of spending every moment in
endless sewing, make the evening a pleasant social season, a family reunion
after the day's duties. Many a man would thus be led to choose the society of
his home before that of the clubhouse or the saloon. Many a boy would be kept
from the street or the corner grocery. Many a girl would be saved from
frivolous, misleading associations. The influence of the home would be to
parents and children what God designed it should be, a lifelong blessing.
Married life is not all romance; it has its real difficulties and its homely
details. The wife must not consider herself a doll, to be tended, but a woman;
one to put her shoulder under real, not imaginary, burdens, and live an understanding, thoughtful life, considering that there are other things to be
thought of than herself. . . . Real life has its shadows and its sorrows. To
every soul troubles must come. Satan is constantly working to unsettle the faith
and destroy the courage and hope of every one.
Counsel to an Unhappy Couple. --Your married life has been very much like a
desert--but very few green spots to look back upon with grateful remembrance. It
need not have been thus.
Love can no more exist without revealing itself in outward acts than fire can
be kept alive without fuel. You, Brother C, have felt that it was beneath your
dignity to manifest tenderness by kindly acts and to watch for an opportunity to
evince affection for your wife by words of tenderness and kind regard. You are
changeable in your feelings and are very much affected by surrounding
circumstances. . . . Leave your business cares and perplexities and annoyances
when you leave your business. Come to your family with a cheerful countenance,
with sympathy, tenderness, and love. This will be better than expending money
for medicines or physicians for your wife. It will be health to the body and
strength to the soul. Your lives have been very wretched. You have both acted a
part in making them so. God is not pleased with your misery; you have brought it
upon yourselves by want of self-control.
You let feelings bear sway. You think it beneath your dignity, Brother C, to
manifest love, to speak kindly and affectionately. All these tender words, you
think, savour of softness and weakness, and are unnecessary. But in their place
come fretful words, words of discord, strife, and censure. . . .
You have not the elements of a contented spirit. You dwell upon your
troubles; imaginary want and poverty far ahead stare you in the face; you feel
afflicted, distressed, agonized; your brain seems on fire, your spirits
depressed. You do not cherish love to God and gratitude of heart for all the
blessings which your kind heavenly Father has bestowed upon you. You see only
the discomforts of life. A worldly insanity shuts you in like heavy clouds of
thick darkness. Satan exults over you because you will have misery when peace
and happiness are at your command.
Mutual Love and Forbearance Rewarded. --Without mutual forbearance and love
no earthly power can hold you and your husband in the bonds of Christian unity.
Your companionship in the marriage relation should be close and tender, holy and
elevated, breathing a spiritual power into your lives, that you may be
everything to each other that God's word requires. When you reach the condition
that the Lord desires you to reach, you will find heaven below and God in your
life.
Remember, my dear brother and sister, that God is love and that by His grace
you can succeed in making each other happy, as in your marriage pledge you
promised to do.
Men and women can reach God's ideal for them if they will take Christ as
their helper. What human wisdom cannot do, His grace will accomplish for those
who give themselves to Him in loving trust. His providence can unite hearts in
bonds that are of heavenly origin. Love will not be a mere exchange of soft and
flattering words. The loom of heaven weaves with warp and woof finer, yet more
firm, than can be woven by the looms of earth. The result is not a tissue
fabric, but a texture that will bear wear and test and trial. Heart will be bound to heart in the golden
bonds of a love that is enduring.