The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1909-03-12
DIR. MACK PLEADS
FOR HIGHER IDEALS
IN LIFE'S MATING
SECOND SERMON OF WEDDING
RING" SERIES DELIVERED
SUNDAY.
SAYS MARRY FOR LOVE ONLY
Don't Turn Down The Young Man
:. With One Thousand Per Merely For
Financial Reasons.-War Against
Paganism.

/ FHahS'ai NnSSeOHSs-"aI HSaHst
Pasanism.
Marriage Ideals and Ambitions"
This was the theme of DR.. Mack, pas
tor of the Cumberland Presbyterian
church, Sunday, in the second of his
lectures on the Wedding Ring" DIR.
Mack eloquently advocated the ele-
walton of the matrimonial standard
and pointed out the agencies which
we're constantly striving to lower it.
A synopsis of his sermon follows:
Text, Heb. 1874, Let marriage be
had in honor among all"
Among other things he said:
The period of life we speak Of now
is that in which the young man feels
quite settled in his life and sees a
proper support in prospect; when the
girl, now a young woman, is the
bridesmaid for her friends. 1t is a
time when ideals are formed and am
billions are fixed for ones own mar
ried life. 1t is the golden age OF
love" and love is the guiding star.
This is the time so interesting to all.
Fiction portrays it, and we consider
that story dull that has no thread OF
love in it, Poets sing it and the
sonnet becomes the form Of the lovers
expression. Music, too, voices the
varied hopes and passions of the time.
whether it is sung by the troubadour
of France, the minstrel of Scotland,
the serenader of Spain or the ballad
singer of our modern stage "All the
world loves a lover"
And in personal experience it is the
time when the cup of life's joy runs
full. One lives in the warm summer
glow of a happy experience, an ex-
perience that is refining, enrolling
This is what romanticism and Chris
tian civilization has done for love and
marriage. For note that at bottom
marriage is mating upon the human
plane and of higher order than OF
the creation below, but still mating.
But while recognizing the part the
physical plays and being obedient to
the commands of God written in these
physical forces, the man, who today
responds to the results of Christian
culture, sees the higher elements in
volved and lives for them.
Other ideals may obtain in other
races and peoples. Romantic love
may find no place where parents de
rect the mating on the basis of family
or wealth as in China; low standards
may obliterate the wedding and the
home in the lowest tribes; or the Mos
lem NAV still get his wife on the bar
ter and sale plan. Ours are different
and we believe much higher standards,
maintaining a sacred institution and
nourishing noble sentiments. The
question that every young person has
to answer today is whether he Will
espouse the higher or gravitate to the
lower.
For even in our boasted new centu-
ry civilization we have to fight pagan
ism. We are Christian only in spots.
The family, the source of much human
happiness, is greatly endangered. Let
me mention three sets of forces at
work against it.
One is the commercial spirit which
here as elsewhere in our modern life
is forcing it's way. A father buys a
fine home on the fashionable street,
or if he owns millions, moves to New
York, to put his daughters in society,"
The young man thinks he cannot mar
nv until he is able to give his wife all
that she had in her fathers home.
And a girl finds it impossible to love
young man with no more than a
thousand regardless of the nobility or
his character or of his future pros
poets. Who can conceive of happy
home built on financial calculations
What chance has joy and happiness
in such brassy atmosphere? 1t Is
in the soil of common labors and COM
mon sacrifices that love devotion and
high purpose grow.
Then many look toward married life
with a selfish ideal. What one can
get out of it for oneself is the ques-
ton. He expects to be served and
made comfortable in everything; she
will have attention and ease. Or 1t
may go further, under the attractions
of modern social life, and the purpose
of mating be thwrated. Unnatural
daughters OF Eve, unworthy daughters
OF their own sacrificing mothers, they
seek himsy excuses for avoiding ma