Year: 1874

"Mercifully ordaln that we may grow
aged together.


Still we have to see how this cry would
be of no more use then than 1t is now
sometimes, if it did not stand through all
the time to come at once as a safeguard
and an inspiration; a safeguard against
some things that prevent our growing
aged together. and an inspiration to some
that help US. 1t was natural and most
beautiful longing just then voicing itself
out of their pure hearts love. They felt
sure they had been made for each other,
and while they knew that time must
turn the raven to white, furrow the brow,
blench the bloom, and touch all their
faculties with its wintry frost if they
should live still they wanted the good
God to deal them out an even measure
together. This seems to me to be the
binding word of the whole story: to-
gether then as now; in the autumn as in
the spring: in taking as in giving, until
they-were borne away, not far apart, into
the life to come.


But touching the most outward things
of our life. l can see danger, if they do
not take care, that their prayer will not
and cannot be answered. They may both
grow aged; that may be as God ordains,
and they may live together while their
life lasts; that must be as they ordain,
yet this day must be, for all that the enc
of their equality in age. For if he were
one of those men we have all known,
whose life and soul is given over to busi-
ness, who rise early and sit up late, and
work like galley-slaves to make for
tune, and she were one of those women
who take life easy, and run no risks, he
might be broken-down old man with a
fortune, while she was still young enough
to enjoy it. Or, if he had a secret vice,
such as keeping ice water on the side
board and a sample-room in the closet,
or any other of those subtle and danger
Gus devils that are always watching for
chance to draga man down, while she
held her life sweet, and pure, and true,
then, long before their silver wedding, he
may be in his grave, or be fit for very lit
tie out of it an old man in mid-age, with
the warning finger of paralysis on his
shoulder or the splints of inhammatory
rheumatism in his marrow-a broken
man she has to nurse like fretful child
Or if she, poor girl, is beginning this we'd
ded life, as so many of our girls do, with
out the fine, sturdy womanhood of the
open air, with a bloom on her blessed
face like that you see on the blossoms III
a hot-house, while he has in him the
strong vitality of the desert and the hills.
then, by the time she has borne those
six sons we hear of afterward, she will
have aged two years to his one. know,
if he has a mans heart in his breast he
will love her and cherish her all the more
for her lost beauty and broken health
and some blessing may be found in this
altered relation which might never have
! come to their perfect equality. But this
! is not the real kernel of the question
| This blended being of the man and wo-
man is, first of all, a piece of exquisite
mechanism, ordained of heaven tor a GER
tain work on this earth, and it is the first
condition of it that all the arms of its
! power shall be equal to their design
| Now where this power fails by our folly,
on either side, the thing in that shape is
past praying for; we can only pray then
! for power and grace to make the best of
| it, and, thank God, that prayer can al
ways be answered. So l hope, when they
cried, "Mercifully ordain that we may
! grow aged together" this outward condi-
! ton of equality in health and strength
was there in her nature or they might as
well pray. that the wheels of a watch
! one-half pewter and the other half steel,
might be of equal endurance and worth.


And so to-day, if young men are not
! honest and wholesome clean through,
and if young women will not train them
| selves to the finest and sturdiest woman
|
will not eat brown bread, and work in
| the garden-if they have one-with some
more grip than a bird scratching, and
quit reading novels in a hot room, and
devouring sweetmeats if they dare not
face the sun and wind and try to out
walk, aye and out-run their brothers,
and let our wise mother Nature buckle
their belt, they had better not say amen
when the stalwart young husband cries.
"Mercifully ordain that we may grow
/ aged together.


| This, however, is the most outward
condition; reaching inward, we find 9TH
ers more delicate and divine These
] young people have now to find each other
out, and they may spend lifetime in
doing that Some married folks find
| each otheJ out, as l have read of mari
ners finding out the polar world. They
leave the shores of their single life in the
| spring days, with tears and benedictions,
sail on awhile in sunshine and fair
weather, and then find their way little by
| little into the cold latitudes, where they
see the sun sink day by day. and feel the


frost creep in, until they give up at last,
and turn to ice sitting on the same table.


Others again, find each other out as we
have been finding out this continent.
They nestle down at first among the
meadows, close by the clear streams; /;
then they go on through belt of shad-
ow' lose their way and find it again the
best they know, and come out into a
larger hoIizon and better land; they
meet their difficult hills and climb them
together strike deserts and dismal places,
and cross them together; and so at last
they stand on the further reaches of the
noun tains, and see the other ocean, sun
ming itself, sweet and still, and then their
journey ends. But through shadows and
shine, this is the gospel for the day; they
keep together right on to the end. They
allow no danger, disaster, or difference to
divide them, and no third person to in
terfere, for if they do it may be as if Will
liam and Mary, of England had permitted
the great Louis to divide their throne by
0rst dividing their hearts.


Did you ever hear my definition of
marriage? A wise and witty man'says
at resembles pair Of shears so joined
that they cannot be separated; often
moving in opposite directi ons, yet always
Furnishing any one who comes between
I them.P The definition is as witty as it
is wise; and he might have added, part


the shears and then all you have left is
two poor daggers.


So it is possible we may grow aged in
| finding each other out, and wonderin g
why we never saw that trait before, or
struck that temper but if there be be


tween US true heart, If the riUet holds,


then the added years will only bring
added reasons for perfect union, and


life: