St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-12-08
Rev. Vail Holds That Few
Marriages May Be Called
Such.
We Must Squarely Face and
Not Minify the Sit
uatiOn.
Domestic Collisions That Are
Really All on the Sur
face.
A Pretty Sermon Drawn From
Eliot'S "MiIl on the
Floss"


terday Rev. w. S. Vail preached on
Sunshine and Shadow of Home Life"
taking for his text the words: THAT
your Joy may be full" He maintained
that there WAS at the base of all social
life an undercurrent of power that came
from God; that we feel this impulse,
and cannot avoid trying to realize the
conditions imposed; that this divinity of
social relations being realized we find
more of sunshine than OF shadow in
home life.
l am first met by the Christian who
holds that naturally the world is all
wrong; that children must be run
through the prayer meeting process be-
fore they are to be considered as In
proper condition of life, and that all
progress depends Oh radical change.
He reminds ME that even when we 90
no further than childhood we find very
much more of pain than pleasure in the
experience of the world. He claims
that if men and women were hon
est we would confess at once
that most of the average family
life was so far from being happy
that it was Struggle and filled all the
time with dissenSions. or at least
by the scientific pessimist who feels
that all marriages have been lotteries,
that all children are only animals of
higher development, and that the de-
velOpment is not sufficient to conceal
the fact of the clash always existent or
incipient i'll the movement of the world
so far as its children and families are
concerned. TO be of any value we must
be honest i'll our presentation of the
thesis. We must not try to minify our
difficulties. We
Must Meet tI,e Issue.
1t will not do for Wellington to say
the enemy has no artillery, that he is
not skillful, or that his prestige counts
for nothing. 1t will not do for the man
who starts to the North pole to say that
summer clothing is all that is needed
And we must face the plain truth of
the issue. A very pretty illustration
was drawn from George ElliOt'S boy and
girl in Tom and Maggie Tulliver.
Then comes the man who claims that
the modern young lady is entirely I'M
fitted for the duties of wifehood; that
her Ideas are such as to render marriage
with her failure unless she has some
one to direct her. This may be true of
some. 1t was always true of some. and
in all ages there are marriages that are
sure to be failures. But there are very
many others which are made by the re-
SpOnsibility of motherhood. This mat
ter of motherhood goes back even far
Their than the experience of men. Byron
found the deepest example of grief, to
which he might compare Il mothers sor-
row. in the lioness robbed of her child
by the hunter. DR.. Kane told the most
pathetic story of the immense Polar
bear. fighting the battle of despair. as
she threw her own body between her
cub and the hunters. OF course, there
are exceptions. But my own humble
opinion is that nearly all the sacrifice
up to the present time comes to the
woman, and L think that nearly all the
talk INDUCED in by people about the
girl of the PERIOD is unjust. While
the instincts of the race are as they are,
it will not be necessary to make
ANY Sweeping Changes.
But there remains the still graver
charge that the whole marriage system
is failure. The claim is urged from
two points, and. strange to say. these
critics represent the extremes of relig-
say. is never what it promises to be.
We indulge dreams. and wake to find
ourselves mistaken. Impulse Or pas
sion dictates us, and we find we have
made mistake. And they say on one
hand that we should change our way Of
looking at the whole matter, and con-
slider it a failure. From this opinion [
beg leave to strongly dissent.
There are cases when brutality makes
the divorce of persons married a neces-
Sity. Common sense, justice and law
should decide when such action is nee
essary. But the average marriage is
n q nd mic fob hot
ever appearances may suggest. | know
that we come here face to face with the
difficulties of the situation. Man is
fighting animal. In the earlier ages of
our experience man is defenSeleSs. his
environments savage. Not only is
he exposed to beasts and floods, but
he is also at the mercy of strong
or tribes. He must be endowed with
power that will wake within him the
ability of resistance. He must be able
at the sound of the danger signal to
awake his best endeavors to stand
against encroaching danger. Resent
ment then enables man to become a
navigator, discovering new lands, new
resources, new privileges, new points
of vantage. Resentment allows man
to look after his own interests, to en-
gage in and carry out great business
projects. and, properly used, is bless
ing. But how often this very valuable
gift is our snare. 1t makes us irritable,
and brings thousand annoyanceS into
the home. In most cases the collisions
are
Only on the Surface,
and as soon as we return to normal
temperature our feelings are changed
to same conditions of respect and affec-
ton that we normally feel.
Dr,f I,f fl,a ,f,,,a -
fact that the promise of the best is in
the accomplishment of the highest, and
not of the multitude. The possibilities
of literature are in the works of Shake
Speare; the possibilities of art are
known because of Raphael and his
peers; the possibilities of life are
known because Jesus of Nazareth
lived the perfect life. We look
for the eminent examples of married
life as the earnest of what all life is
possible to be. We see the lives of
Wordsworth and his wife knitted to-
gether as one. We see Audubon and
forest jungle, tenting in the deep forest,
resting beside almost unknown oceans,
enduring hardship together. We see
Garibaldi accompanied to the verge of
battle by his wife. We see in all this
history of men made strong through
married life an example of the highest
kind of ideal development. And if our
principle is true IL teaches that what
we have seen in the ideal by the laws
of our constitution we are to strive to
attain.
Beyond this it was claimed that there
were many times in the life of each per-
son when for the moment the antagon-
ism of life disappeared. Then we saw
face to face. Then, as in sorrow, or
sacrifice, or some great crisis, we were
lifted into newness of vision. This
thought was illustrated from personal
experience. but more at length from the
experience of Tom and Maggie Tulli-
yer in the mill Oh the Floss" book
that had been quoted several times in
the sermon.
Made Heavy Investments.
Julian White and his brother, who re-
Il Al. r