Part 8 (1/2)
In the vast majority of cases of domestic infelicity coming to exposure in the courts, the trouble began by the accidental opening of a letter which implied correspondence which was never suspected. In the conjugal relations, secrets kept one from another are nitro-glycerine under the hearthstone, and the fuse is lighted!
IV. Again: in order to your happiness there must be a spirit of
FORBEARANCE.
In the weeks, the months, the years that you were planning for each other's conquest, only the more genial side of your nature was observable, but now you are off guard, and the faults are all known the one to the other. You are aware of your imperfections, unless you are one of those self-conceited people who are quickly observant of faults in others, but oblivious to faults in yourself; and now having found out all of each others imperfections, forbear.
If the one be given to too much precision, and the other disorderly in habits; if the one be spendthrift and the other oversaving; if the one be loquacious, and the other reticent, forbear. Especially, if you both have inflammable tempers, do not both get mad at once. Take turn about! William Cowper put it well when he said:
”The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear; And something every day they live To pity, and perhaps forgive.”
V. Again: in order to your happiness, let there be no interfering with each other's peculiar
RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS.
If you are a Baptist and your wife a Pedo-Baptist, do not go to splas.h.i.+ng water into each other's faces! If you are a Presbyterian and your husband is a Methodist, when he shouts ”Hallelujah!” do not get nervous.
If you have strong denominational proclivities, one of you had better go to one church, and the other had better go to another church; or, surrendering some of your intensity on that subject, as in hundreds of cases, come to some such church as the Brooklyn Tabernacle, where, while we adhere to the fundamentals of the Gospel, we do not care a rye straw for the infinitesimal differences between evangelical denominations--putting one drop of water on the brow, if that is enough baptism, and if not, then plunging the candidate clear out of sight, if that is preferred--not caring whether you believe you have been foreordained to be saved or not, if you are only saved; nor whether you believe in the perseverance of the saints or not, if you will only persevere; nor whether you prefer prayer by Episcopal liturgy or extemporaneous supplication, if you only pray.
Do not let there be any religious contests across the breakfast table or the tea table. It makes but little difference from what direction you come toward the riven heart of Christ, if you only come up to the riven heart. Yet, I know in many families there is constant picking at opposite religious beliefs, and attempt at proselytism. You, the father, fight for Episcopacy, and you, the mother, fight for Presbyterianism, and your children will compromise the matter and be Nothingarians!
VI. Again: I counsel you, in order to your domestic happiness, that you
CULTIVATE EACH OTHER'S RELIGIOUS WELFARE.
This is a profoundly agitating thought to every fair-minded man and woman. You live, together on earth; you want to live together forever.
You do not want ten, or twenty, or fifty years to end your a.s.sociation, you want to take your companion into the kingdom of G.o.d with you. If this subject is irritating in the household, it is because you do not understand Christian stratagem.
Every Christian companion may take his or her companion into glory.
How? Ask G.o.d, and he will tell you how. Perhaps by occasional religious remark. Perhaps by earnest prayer. Perhaps by a consistent life. More probably by all these things combined. Paul put it forcefully when he said: ”How knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” In this house, how many have been remarried for the skies!
It has become so much the general rule that when in my congregation, as I often do, I find a family in which the wife is a Christian, and the husband is not, I just say frankly to him: ”Now you have got to come in. You might just as well try to swim up against Niagara rapids as against the tide of religious influence which in this church is going to surge you into the kingdom of G.o.d. You must come in. You know that your wife is right in this matter of religion. She may be quick of temper, and you may sometimes lose your patience with her, but you know she is better than you are, and you know when she dies she will go as straight to heaven as a shot to a target.
”And, if to-day, on the way home, a vehicle should dash down the street, and she should fall lifeless, with no opportunity for last words, you might have a doubt about what would become of you, and a doubt about what would become of the children, but you would have no doubt about her eternal destiny. Somewhere under the flush of her cheek, or under the pallor of her brow is the Lord's mark. She is your wife, but she is G.o.d's child, and you are not jealous of that relations.h.i.+p. You only wish that you yourself were a son of the Lord Almighty. Come and have the matter settled. If I die before you, I will not forget in the next world how you stood together here, but I will expect both of you. You must come.
”I say it in all Christian love and emphasis, as a brother talks to a brother. You must come. You have been united so long, you cannot afford to have death divorce you. How long it is since you began the struggle of life together! You have helped each other on the road, and what you have done for each other G.o.d only knows. There have been tedious sicknesses, and anxious watching, and here and there a grave, short but very deep; and though the blossoms of the marriage day may have scattered, and the lips that p.r.o.nounced you one may have gone into dust, you have through all these years been to each other true as steel.
”Now, to-day, I am going to remarry you for heaven. This is the bridal day of your soul's peace. Here is the marriage altar. Kneel side by side, take the oath of eternal fidelity, clasp hands in a covenant never to be broken. I p.r.o.nounce you one on earth, I p.r.o.nounce you one for eternity. What G.o.d by His grace hath joined together, let not earth or h.e.l.l put asunder. Hark! I hear a humming in the air--an anthem--a wedding march--organs celestial played upon by fingers seraphic.”
I do not think I ever read anything more beautiful and quaintly pathetic than
COTTON MATHER'S DESCRIPTION
of the departure of his wife from earth to Heaven: ”The black day arrives. I had never seen so black a day in all the time of my pilgrimage. The desire of my eyes is this day to be taken from me at a stroke. Her death is lingering and painful. All the forenoon of this day she was in the pangs of death, and sensible until the last minute or two before her final expiration. I cannot remember the discourse that pa.s.sed between us, only her devout soul was full of satisfaction about her going to a state of blessedness with the Lord Jesus Christ.