The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-05-23

From his cradle to his grave man
relies for his happiness upon the love of
woman, says Southern writer. His
light, his joy, his very life, depends
blIndingly and trustingly upon the
mother love that nurses his infant years,
tends his childhood, trains his youth,
and rejoices in his manhood. Infinite
ly holy, utterly self-sacrifcing, pure,
noble, beautiful is the maternal in
stinct'-and knowing the heights OF it,
proving its strength, seeing its abnega-
ton of self, men call it divine-and so
realize the love of God unto all human
ity. Yet even from this fount of ex-
quisic tenderness they turn their steps
to love more alluring, more entranc-
ing, more absorbing; they leave all
and cling to their wives, possessing in
them everything. Wonderful and Pc
culiar is the great mingling of human
hearts, of organisms irresistably attrac-
ted, of souls that feel with and for each
other, of two brains forming one mind,
of two lives and loves from which spring
other lives and yet another love-paren-
tai affection.
This is true marriage, and in the
state woman is most lovely. Standing
on an equality with her husband, she is
adviser and aSsiStant-the Sharer of his
happiness and his troubles, his help
meet, his comfort, mis- joy.
That there are marriages far different
from this is true, most unhappily; but
even here woman shows her power-for
evil if she chooses to curse, or good, if
she desires to bless and ennoble the life
thus brought beneath her personal in
1uence. A great poet says tnat
As the husband is the wife is thou art mated
with clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight
to drag thee down.
This is entirely fallacious. 1t will
always be the strongest that leads,
whether their strength be of an intellec-
tual or moral force, and a woman of
mind, of refinement, of honorable ma
ture, of ideality, could not fail to mod
ify and even correct the materiality
that may exist in her husbands
thoughts, feelings, or action, as his
very coarseness would serve to lessen
his power. A wife need not sink to
the level of the clown to whom she is
mated She can raise him, perhaps
slowly, but still surely to her own
standard. Let her first touch his heart
through pity, through shame, or even
through his own mere passions, but
once posses power over that and it will
not be difficult to influence the brain.
If the soul can be made to respond to
beautiful and refining agencies, the
battle is won. 1t may take lifetime,
but woman can afford to spend even
a lifetime in such ennobling endeavor.
A man finds his warmest, his most
tender, his most unselfsh friend in
woman. Possessing no interests that
clash with his, she believes in him
thoroughly and hopefully, and her
great faith in his powers encourages
him to be up to her standard of belief.
She makes him feel that she truly likes
him. Her affection is free, and he ap-
preciates her sympathetic interest, her
| fy ways tnat make all her surroundings
in harmony with herself. Ifweary, her
sensible, quiet talk rests him; if dis
couraged, she finds thousand ways to
cheer him if elated, her sound COM
mon sense gives him the needed bal
ance. The lamp of friendship burns
clear and bright between man and
woman-lit by an emotion springing
from the best impulses of human ma
/ fure