Year: 1870

By ROBERT COLLYER.


Husband and wife is the most SACRED


relation of humanity. They stand fol


more than father and mother, or pa


rents and children, because they arr


the fountain from which these rela


tions spring; and, by changing the


mere man and woman into these sa
cred names, make that a glory which


were otherwise a shame.


Husband and wife is q relation as


old, according to the Bible, as hui


man history; and nothing out of the


Bible that know of contradicts this


testimony. Other old books cast the


matter into other forms, as they them


selves are the product of other races !;


but the whole story looks like this
when it is told: That in the Begin


ming the Divine Power made man and


woman, and set them on the throne


of the world, and gave them from the


first the grace to be husband and wife,


to find in each other the counterpart


and completion of their own being.


And, while the creation over which


they were given dominion followed
; its special instinct and sought its lair


or made its nest, then brought forth


its young, and before another spring


knew them no more for its own than


if they were on another continent,


this husband and wife made them a


home, reared family, were steadfast


not for few months, but for a life


time, to those that were born OF their


body; sent them out in due time to


do as they had done, but still counted


them and their children as an init


mate belonging of the old homestead;


and so this human race has never
evened itself with the beasts that
| perish, except as it has become lower
and worse. 1t is husband and wife


wherever you find them-he the weap-


on man and she the web-man, as the
old Anglo-Saxon Bible translates
those words of Jesus where he says:


''Have We not read that he which


made them at the beginning made
them male and female-he the weap-
on man, she the web-man; he the de-


fender, and she the clother; he the


warrior, and she the weaver; each in


dispensable to the other, and both in


dispensable to the whole"


And the divine alchemy, if may


use the word, that transmutes the


man and woman into husband and


wife is marriage. 1t always has been


so, and no doubt will be so. The OBJ
servance of marriage as q ceremony is
very different thing in different
countries and times, ranging all the


way from the custom of the Austria
liam black who beats the maiden he


will take until she is insensible, and
then carries her off to his hut, to the
pure and simple ceremonial used in the
best Protestant communions. In the
grOssest savagery marriage is as rude
and brutal as possible. As we rise in
the true scale of life it takes a nobler
and better form, and on the SUBMITS
of life it is sacrament, and certain, |
if we take it unworthily, to bring
damnation. But from the rudest and
most brutal savage to the truest Ameri- |
can marriage-the loftiest and best, as
l believe, on the planet-it is always |
in some sense the same thing that is |
done in this union. 1t turns the man |
and woman into husband and wife, |
creates the beginning of a home, in
sures true and welcome identify be- |
tween parents and offspring, binds |
life together between one generation |
and another, and out of the kingdom |
of Nature helps to bring the kingdom |
of God. "For marriage" Bishop |
Jeremy Taylor says, like the bee,
builds house and gathers sweetness,
labors and unites into societies and 4
republics, keeps order, exercises many
virtues, promotes the general interest
of mankind, and is that state of good
to which God has designed the pres
ent constitution of the world"


Marriage is, therefore, divine in
not only because there is
sanction for it in the Bible and bless
ing for it in the church, but especially
because there is divine reason for it
in our life. So when Jesus said, "a
man shall leave his father and mother
and shall cleaye unto his wife, and
they twain shall be one. What, there
fore, God hath Joined together let not
man put asunder," it was the sequel
aud conclusion to what he had said
before-that God had made it
so in the beginning. A true marriage
is, therefore, always religious act in
itself; because religion means the
of one to another, whether it
be on earth or in Heaven, in q true
and pure union. So the Scriptures
never command this relation; they :
only recognize and bless and guard it.
seems to be settled, once
for all, from their own beautiful and
holy vision of it; where the man
wakes before the fall, sees the woman ,
that God has brought to him, recog- .
nizes her as part of his very self, .
iakes her to his heart, and God is
here as a witness and blesses them .
Marriage in the Bible stands forth rs
/ divine fact rather than q divine COM
it is Intimately one with
our creator; the blessing of God is =
within that already on which the
calls the blessing of God to :
descend. Nothing can be added 10
rue wedding of two human souls and /
ives but religious ceremonial and the
proper social safeguards. The man =
md woman, in this true wedding, be- !
anne husband and wife because their
Ireator made them for each other,
ust as much as he made Adam and
Eve, and brought them face to face as
lie did those two in Eden. And 50,
when il is really true to those that =
axe part in it, the good old-fashioned = =
quaker wedding is nearest the truth
f God, in which the man and wo-
nan declare, as the ground of their . .,
nion, that they have been moved to -
his deed by the Holy Spirit. That v
eclaration not only brings the Lord q
D the marriage, but makes him also ,,
he matchmaker; and it must be for u
his cause, in its measure, that so large II
proportion of these Quakers matches y
urn out well. But eVry true match u
made in Heaven and all true men y
nd women who believe this and act u
n it find something of Heaven in N II,
heir match, so that John Brown, of l
was not so far wrong u
hen he felt the time had come for


i'm to enter the holy estate, and that
e had seen the woman the Lord had
lade to be his wife, and went to tell Of
er so; and the good soul knew what III
e had come about, and was just as All
Ire as he was that she was meant for w
i'm and he for her. Yet he said. ~
My dear madam, you know what l q,
N going to say but, if you please, 81
afOre say it, we will ask a bles- N
n.y." And that was what they did. \;
is the experience of all times, and w
o doubt of all peoples, that men and di
omen are made for each other, to be Of
usband and wife, are very often Of
rOught together by q providence they mn
.nnot account for, and can never be ~
parated in their souls any more. A 10,
1ung man goes into room with e.
cart as free as an minated swallow, no
Id comes out of it sixty minutes af- "
r a captive for life; and the maiden 10