Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-02-10
their special gatherings if they be women,

their special gatherings if they be women.
to chatter and giggle over what was said
to them in confidence. Condign punish-
ment is apt 10 come upon them. and they
you to score whom society has let drop
very hard in return for their base traffic in
human hearts. As to such men, they
walk around in their celibncy, after their
hair is streaked with gray, and pretending
they are naturally short-sighted when
their eyes are SO old in sin that they need
the spectacles of aseptuagenarian, IN eye
glass about No. s. and think they are be-
witching in their stride and overpowering
in their glances, although they are simply
laughing stocks for all mankind. And if
these base dealers in human hearts be fe-
males, they nre left after awhile severely
alone, striving in very desperation
of agony of cosmetics to get
back to the attractiveness they
had when they used to brag how
many masculine affections they had
slaughtered. Forsaken of God and honest
men and good women are sure to be oil
such masculine and female trihers with
human and yet immortal affections. oh
man, ON woman, having pligbted your
| troth, stick to it!
And here my idea widens and I. have to
say not only to those who have made mis-
take IN solemn promise of marriage, but to
those who have already at the altar been
pronounced one when they were two, or in
diversity of tastes and likes and dislikes
are neither one nor two but dozen-make
the best you can of an awful mistake.
And here let me answer letters that come
from every State of the American Union,
and from across the sea, and are coming
year after year from men and women who are
territically allianced and tied together in a
hard knot, very hard knot. The letters
run something like this: "What ought
to do, my husband is a drunkard?" "My
wife is o gad-about and will not stay at
home" "My companion is ignorant and
hates books and revel in Them" II like
music and piano sets my husband crazy"
II am fond of social life and my COM
panion is recluse." II am trying to be
good and my lifelong associate is very bad.
What shall do?" My answers. there are
certain good reasons for enforcement. The
Bible recognizes them. Good society re-.
cognizes them. But it must be the very
last resort, and only after al reasonable
attempts Mt reclamation and adjustment
have proved dead failure. Whom such
attempts fail it is generally because of
meddlesome outsiders, aud women tell the
wronged wife how she ought to stand on her
rights, and men tell the wronged husband
how he ought to stand on his rights. And
let husband and wife in an unhappy mar.
riage relation stand punctiliously on their
rights, and there will be no readjustment,
and only one thing will be sure to them,
and that is hell on earth.
If you are unhappily married, in most
cases advise you to make the best you can
of an awfully bad bargain. Donot project
your peculiurities more than is necessary.
Perhaps you may have some faults of your
own which the other party in the marital
alliance may have to suffer. You are in
the same yoke. If you pull aside the yoke
will only twist your neck. Better pull
ahead. The world is full of people who
made mistakes about many things, and
among other things about betrothal and
marriage, and yet have been tolerably
happy and very useful in the strength Of
God, and by the grace promised in every
time of need if those who seek it conquer
the disadvantageous circumstances. I am
acquainted with lovely women married to
contemplate men, and genial men yoked
with termagants inspired of the devil. And
yet under these disadvantages my friends
are useful and happy. God helps people
in other kinds of martyrdom and to sing in
the flame, and he will help you in your life
long misfortune.
Remember the patience of Job. What a
wife he had! At time when he was enc
great blotch of eruptions, and his property
was destroyed by q tornado, and, more than
all, bereavement had come and the poor
man needed all wise counsel, she advises
him to go to cursing and swearing. She
wanted him to poultice his boils with bias
phemy. But hs lived right on throug Oh his
marital disadvantages, recovered his health
and fortune and raised splendid fnmily,
and the closing paragraph of the Book of
Job has such a jubilance that wonder
!; people do not oftener read it:
so the Lord blessed the latter end of
Job more than his beginning, for he had
fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand
camels, and thousand yoke of oxen, and
a thousand she asses. He had also seven
sons and three daughters. And he called
the name of the first Jamima, and the
name of the second Kezia, and the name
of the third Kerenhnppuch. And in all the
land were no woman found SO fair us the
daughters of Job, and their father gave
them inheritance among their blethern.
After this lived Job one hundred and forty
years, and saw his sons, and his sons sons
even four generations. SoJob died, being
old and full of days."
Now, my badly married friend of either
sex, if Job could stand it by the help of
God, then you can stand it by the same
divine enforcement. You have other
relations, oh woman, besides the wifely
relation. If you are a mother, train up
you children for God and Heaven. If you
are a member of church, help move on
its enterprises. You can get SO much of
the grace of God in your heart that oil
your home trials will seem insignificant.
How little difference does it make what
your unrighteous husband calls you, if God
calls You his child and you are an heiress
of whole kingdoms beyond the sky?
Il TmmarSn vCursa1f i'm Soma kind Of ont.
. side usefulness, something that will enlist
your prayers. your sympathies, your hand,
your needle, your voice. Get Your heart
on fire with love to God and the Olsen
thrallment of the human race, and the
troubles of your home will be blotted out
in the glory of your consecrated life.
cry out to you, oh woman, as Paul ex-
claims in his letter to the Corithians
"What knowest thou, oh wife, whether
thou shalt save thy husband?" And if you
cannot save him you can help in the
grander, mightier enterprise of helping
save the world. Out of the awful mistake
of your marriage rise into the sublimest
life of self-sacritice for God and suffering