Part 18 (1/2)

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Love.

But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.--MOORE.

All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever.--Sh.e.l.lEY.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.--SHAKESPEARE.

Let those love now who never loved before, Let those that always loved now love the more.--PARNELL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.]

1. LOVE BLENDS YOUNG HEARTS.--Love blends young hearts in blissful unity, and, for the time, so ignores past ties and affections, as to make willing separation of the son from his father's house, and the daughter from all the sweet endearments of her childhood's home, to go out together, and rear for themselves an altar, around which shall cl.u.s.ter all the cares and delights, the anxieties and sympathies, of the family relations.h.i.+p; this love, if pure, unselfish, and discreet, const.i.tutes the chief usefulness and happiness of human life.

2. WITHOUT LOVE.--Without love there would be no organized households, and, consequently, none of that earnest endeavor for competence and respectability, which is the mainspring to human effort; none of those sweet, softening, restraining and elevating influences of domestic life, which can alone fill the earth with the glory of the Lord and make glad the city of Zion. This love is indeed heaven upon earth; but above would not be heaven without it; where there is not love, there is fear; but, ”love casteth out fear.” And yet we naturally do offend what we most love.

3. LOVE IS THE SUN OF LIFE.--Most beautiful in morning and evening, but warmest and steadiest at noon. It is the sun of the soul. Life without love is worse than death; a world without a sun. The love which does not lead to labor will soon die out, and the thankfulness which does not embody itself in sacrifices is already changing to grat.i.tude. Love is not ripened in one day, nor in many, nor even in a human lifetime. It is the oneness of soul with soul in appreciation and perfect trust. To be blessed it must rest in that faith in the Divine which underlies every other motion. To be true, it must be eternal as G.o.d himself.

4. LOVE IS DEPENDENT.--Remember that love is dependent upon forms; courtesy of etiquette guards and protects courtesy of heart. How many hearts have been lost irrevocably, and how many averted eyes and cold looks have been gained from what seemed, perhaps, but a trifling negligence of forms?

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[Ill.u.s.tration: LOVE MAKING IN THE EARLY COLONIAL DAYS.]

5. RADICAL DIFFERENCES.--Men and women should not be judged by the same rules. There are many radical differences in their affectional natures. Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for s.p.a.ce in the world's thoughts, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her ambition seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if s.h.i.+pwrecked her case is hopeless, for it is bankruptcy of the heart.

6. WOMAN'S LOVE.--Woman's love is stronger than death; it rises superior to adversity, and towers in sublime beauty above the n.i.g.g.ardly selfishness of the world. Misfortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it; temptation cannot enslave it. It is the guardian angel of the nursery and the sick bed; it gives an affectionate concord to the partners.h.i.+p of life and interest, circ.u.mstances cannot modify it; it ever remains the same to sweeten existence, to purify the cup of life, on the rugged pathway to the grave, and melt to moral pliability the brittle nature of man. It is the ministering spirit of home, hovering in soothing caresses over the cradle, and the death-bed of the household, and filling up the urn of all its sacred memories.

7. A LADY'S COMPLEXION.--He who loves a lady's complexion, form and features, loves not her true self, but her soul's old clothes. The love that has nothing but beauty to sustain it, soon withers and dies. The love that is fed with presents always requires feeding. Love, and love only, is the loan for love. Love is of the nature of a burning gla.s.s, which, kept still in one place, fireth; changed often, it doth nothing. The purest joy we can experience in one we love, is to see that person a source of happiness to others. When you are with the person loved, you have no sense of being bored. This humble and trivial circ.u.mstance is the great test--the only sure and abiding test of love.

8. TWO SOULS COME TOGETHER.--When two souls come together, each seeking to magnify the other, each in subordinate sense wors.h.i.+ping the other, each help the other; the two flying together so that each wing-beat of the one helps each wing-beat of the other--when two souls come together thus, they are lovers. They who unitedly move themselves away from grossness and from earth, toward the throne of crystaline and the pavement golden, are, indeed, true lovers.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: CUPID'S CAPTURED VICTIM.]

The Power and Peculiarities of Love.

LOVE IS A TONIC AND A REMEDY FOR DISEASE, MAKES PEOPLE LOOK YOUNGER, CREATES INDUSTRY, ETC.

”All thoughts, all pa.s.sions, all desires, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, Are ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.”

1. It is a physological fact long demonstrated that persons possessing a loving disposition borrow less of the cares of life, and also live much longer than persons with a strong, narrow and selfish nature. Persons who love scenery, love domestic animals, show great attachment for all friends; love their home dearly and find interest and enchantment in almost everything have qualities of mind and heart which indicate good health and a happy disposition.

2. Persons who love music and are constantly humming or whistling a tune, are persons that need not be feared, they are kind-hearted and with few exceptions possess a loving disposition. Very few good musicians become criminals.

3. Parents that cultivate a love among then children will find that the same feeling will soon be manifested in their children's disposition.