The record-union., 1893-01-25

SACRA MI
which he lives. 1t is one sublime phase
of marriage that it brings out the finest
tendencies that can exist in man or
woman. 1t is a very serious thing when
a man and woman give themselves to
each other. Their two lives are 10
BLEND INTO EACH OTHER,
To fold up into one, each to become better
and nobler. The man or woman who
marries and lives married life for one,
or ten, or fifty years, and is not nobler
and better and purer for it, has not made
success of the relation. That is the
only failure of marriage.
There is just one little thing that unites
man and woman; not patriotism that
binds States and binds great bodies of
men together under COM mon nag; 1t IS
not intellectual genius, nor intellectual
sympathies; it is the one word love-
mysterious, profound God is love, and
love is and must be the only fundamental
structure. Men and women can marry
for convenience, for Intellectual sympa-
thies, but love must be the primary
structure upon which the marriage re-
lation is based; il is for man ana woman
to love each other profoundly.
CAUSE OF UNHAPPINESs.
a
happy in this world is that she marries
seeking to widen her range of society
life, and she hopes by marriage to obtain
it; and because her husband was unSuc-
cessful, because he could not make a dol
lar turn into ten quickly, and kept on
earning only few dollars and putting a
little in the bank now and then for
rainy day, his wife,. with her high no.
tions. coveting the wealth of others,
Oh
who is rich now. There is no love in
heart like that; there could not possibly
be, because love is absolutely blind as
far as these things are concerned.
II is one of the beautiful things of this
world that married happiness does not
live in a palace. You can go down the
back streets, or go out to a little farm
house away off by itself, and there see
husband and wife, her hair all streaked
with gray, his face mass of wrinkles,
his hands unsteady with age; all these
years they have lived together, and do
not understand anything but happiness
peace from DAY to day. Speak to them of
palace, they know nothing of it, care
nothing for it. No other thought than
making each other happy constitutes
their happiness; and that strikes the key
note of married life. 1t isn't making
yourself happy, it's Eve making Adam
happy, and Adam making Eve happy.
LOVE Is EVERYTHING.
Whenever tarnish comes over the
word love" then comes the divorce
court, with its frightful laws and
frightful possibilities. Better that the
burial service be pronounced than that.
My only theory is (and l speak from
experience, of course), that happiness is
largely the result of man allowing a
woman to rule him. Every man under
stands and comprehends that to woman's
life belongs finer and nobler nature;
yet while a man may understand all the
great forces OF nature and their operation,
no man ever lived who couldEunderstand
woman-she is utterly incomprehensibl
Man marries a mystery, and some day
the mystery becomes part of the fact, and
the fact part Of the mystery; each takes
something of the others nature. A man
has never any business to marry a woman
unless he considers her infinitely his su-
perior-that she has the power 10 purify
and elevate him.
LOVE Is A DIVINE THING.
And marriage is a divine thing, a sacred
thing. 1t is not tor man to pronounce
people married-it is love itself that
unites.
There is something significant
in this story of the creation of
Eve from the rib of Adam. The rib
Of mans life, his heart. God made
woman as protection for the noblest
parts of mans life, and that is the rea-
son of that influence which every true
woman has as protection-a barrier be-
tween man and his misdeeds.
All the progress of the world is based
on the elevation of the home. France to-
day, as nation, is reeling and staggering,
for, in the words of one of our great Amer
lean statesmen: ALAS, France has no
homesW And in France marriage is but
a convenience. But the home can never
be elevated until you elevate woman.
When you
ELEVATE woMANHoOD,
Then the realm of civilization is elevated
accordingly. 1t is for the home that men
love their flag. That word 'home" spells
'love," and that word "love' SPELLS
patriotism" and that word patriot
ism" spells flags" and "democracv."
In the history Of every nation that has
merged from savagry to civilization you
will find the marriage altar and the tenn
pie, and there you will find nobility and
grandeur surrounding the marriage rela-
ton. The marriage altar is what has
made the words ''sister," ''wife,"
mother" ''womanhood," noble words
throughout the whole realm of civiliza-
ton. For that reason / insist that the
word religion" is based on the word
"home." When God gave his benedic-
ton to Adam and Eve that was the be-
ginning of religion.
PERFECT HAPPINESS.
Practical people as we are, it is mar
velous thing to see man come home at
night after hard days work in shop or
store, his muscles tired and body worn
out-just one smile, one loving glance,
and all that WEAKNESS vanishes and home
is there, wife is there. That one word
"homer' 1t keeps him from despair and
makes life worth living. The wife's
smile, the wite's comfort and sympathy.
the husbands love, their efforts to make
each other happy-wherever you find
these things. there is perfect happiness.
And when l turn to this Bible, find
four great words-God, Christ, Christian.
Heaven. l interpret these words with
regard to the marriage relation-God, the
father; Christ, the lover; Jesus, lover of
my SOUL" the Christian. Now we are
the sons of God;' Heaven, "Our home,
our abiding place, the tabernacle not
made with hands-eternal."