The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-05-10
w. C. T. U.

w, ~. ', " DLF NEN WLiN
society could be maintained under such
circumstances. Is it for happiness alone,
for pleasure, or freedom from care and
suffering then perhaps it may be a failure.
But if it is for education and discipline, and
that there may be thrown around the man
and woman those conditions which will
best promote their growth i'll unselfishness
and virtue, and in all ennobling moral
qualities, also to surround them with those
environments which will best enable them
to discharge their duties to their offspring
upon whom the well being and continuance
ofthe race depend. Then il these last be the
prime objects for which marriage is insti-
tuted, I think the universal history of
mankind bears testimony to the fact that
although the ideal marriage may not
always b. reached, yet the homogeneous
marriage is as great a success as any other
ordinance of God or man. We might as
well say Of life or humanity as of marriage,
that it is a failure because all do not reach
its highest ideal. 1t could be said with
equal truth of the church, that it IS a fail
ure because there are among its members
blind bigots and hypoerites; or of society
and government, because there is an in
completeness in them which belongs to all
things temporal, transient. and human.
JosEPHCooK.
Marriages of convenience, hypocrisy and
heedlessness are always failures, for they
are not real marriages at all. The nature
OF things requires that there should be no
marriage without an adequately tested
supreme affection. No affection has been
adequately tested unless the parties to it
have had full opportunity to know the
worst of each other, and have tried in a
reasonable degree the effect Of absence,
rivalry, aud time. \ really supreme af-
lection will have the assent of the other
powerful passions. It will transmute
sel~fslness into delight in self-sacrifice for
the person beloved.
love took up the harp of life
And smote on all its chords with might,
smote the chord of self, which trembling
Passed in music out of sight"
nut olIiAtil VI II iCiiuS III MUM bhI
whole case, the advice of sciences as to
mental and physical adaptation, willing
ness to renew an engagement If it be sup
posed to be broken off, are tests which a
supreme affection will easily bear. Only
| those who have for each other an affection
which will bear these or equivalent tests
are authorized by natural law to marry.
| Those whose affection will bear these tests
will know the difference between love and
fancy, will not ask for opportunities of
easy divorce, and will not need them.
When society and civil law give warning
that marriage is i~ndissolable, and when
science proelaims that only a union which
desires to be for life is natural, those who
rush into false marriages of convenience,
hypocrisy or hecdlessness, and ascertain
their mistake afterwards, must in Justice
be required to bear the weight Of their
own folly, and not throw the burden of it
upon society. Divorce must not violate
children's rights, The necessities of chill
dren and the rights Ct society are such that
the only grounds of divorce justifable in
the eyes of science, are adultery and mali
cious desertion.
1t is a severe truth of experience that a
supreme affection, such as is the only justi-
f~ication of marriage, is possible only to a
soul capable Of utter s~elf-surrender to the
moral sentiment, that is, only to the con-
sc%ientious. Providence carefully studied,
will be found to send to most persons the
double gift of a supreme affection and a
corresponding opportunity of marriage. If
TO any this gift is not sent. they arc not
called to marriage.
DIR. j. Z. RANKIN, ORANGE, NJ r..
Is marriage a success? OF course it is;
else God would not have ordained it. Give
it the conditions He intended, and how can
it be otherwise? 1t is like asking, Is the
sun a success? Even the sun has spots on
it, and suppose they are not to be set
down to the fall of human nature, as may
be the spots on marriage; God cursed the
ground for mans sake, but not the sun.
Bat in order to make the sun a success, it
must not be abused. Beneficent as the sun
is, as God intended it to be, it kills men by
its own beneficence. In order to give a
man corn and wheat for his bread, it's rays
are sometimes so hot as to produce a sun
stroke. But instead Of cursing the sun for
the sumstroke, think of the million acres of
corn and wheat that are coming to matur-
ity in a million different harvest fields.
The ideal marriage, the marriage as God
intended it, is always a success. Given
two creatures Of God, male and female, as
God made them, to supplement and CON-
plement each other, when He said, SIT is
not good that man should be alone" Let
them understand that they are made for
each other; to complete each others happi-
ness and usefulness; yes, and complete each
others holiness; for | believe God intended
marriage as a means of grace; that they are
made to help each other on TO Heaven, and
how can marriage be other than a success?
| appeal to every one who reads this article