Holy Spirit can enlighten the heart and mind of a Christian and show him the will of God about marriage plans. It is important that a young man or woman should not cling to his own will. One should be willing to say, “ Lord, I give up my sweetheart if she is not the woman You have for me.” Every girl ought to be able to say, “ Lord, I do not want any man who is not the husband You have selected for me. If I feel the pull of love toward him, then, Lord, You overcome it and help me to learn to love the man that I ought to marry.” I feel that God answered and led me in my decision as I walked up and down a country road one night, asking Him if the girl I loved was the right one for me. I believe that God is glad to give guidance to all of those who wait upon Him and are willing for His will. If there is an unrest, a sense of unease and fearfulness, then wait on God until that is settled before you say, “ Yes,” to the plans made for marriage. Genuine Heart Agreement The Bible standard for marriage is that “ they twain shall be one flesh” (Matt. 19:5). How often marriage goes on the rocks and lives are blighted because people married only for love! Love alone is a very poor basis for a happy and suc cessful marriage! That may sound strange to Americans who get all their conception of love and marriage from the moving picture screens and from current novels. Nevertheless, the wisdom of the ages proves that what I say is true. I mean that the attraction that one person may have for another naturally is not enough for marriage. If love is to include agreement about all great essential matters of life, a oneness of mind and heart, then, of course, love would be in itself the one all-covering requirement for marriage. But usually what people call love is not that at all. Those who marry principally on the plane of physical attraction often find that they have joined themselves in wedlock to a person who is wholly different from them, or with whom attraction is' a fleeting thing, and at best by itself unsatisfactory, so that the woman who was once very attractive may later be hateful or the man who once so thrilled may become ab horrent. If one mate is a worldly Christian who sees no vharm in picture shows, dances, cocktails, and gambling, and the other is a fervent Bible believer, a separated Christian who believes that he ought to keep himself apart from worldliness and sin, how can such a couple be happy? Suppose the husband wants children, and his wife feels that the bearing of children in volves too much responsibility. They are not of one mind. If a couple really expects to be happy and prosperous in their marriage, they should make sure that they are in agreement on matters of conscience, where happiness necessarily is en tailed. That truth is involved in the nature of marriage itself and in the Bible requirement that the husband and wife be come one. Bible Standard for the Home The Bible tells how to make a happy home; then those who want a happy home should set out to follow the Bible. The home where the Bible is read daily, where there is family worship, and where God’s Word is taught to the children, where thanks are given at meals and little children are taught to pray, kneeling at mother’s knee or by their beds, is likely to be a nappy home. A Bible standard for the home means that a husband should set out to be the head of the home and take the responsibility which is given him by God. He should remember that his wife is the weaker vessel, and give honor to her, for they are “heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Pet.. 3 :7). He should feel he is God’s deputy. He should be the leader in matters of morals, in religion, in the example of the Christian life be fore the children, and in exercise of authority and discipline. A wife who accepts the Bible standard for a Christian home would necessarily set out to be subject to her husband and to obey him, as is so many times commanded in the Bible. Happy is the young couple who finds ahead of time God’s plan for the home and sets out to follow it.
A guest at a wedding! It touches my heart To read of the wedding in which Christ took part.” Simple and human the need that He met. Down through the ages the story lives yet. Often I think of those two that were wed, Telling their children, as fleeting years sped, "You know at our wedding the Lord was a guest, And the wine that He made was the sweetest and best."
Lasting the marriage and blessed the way If Christ were invited to weddings todayl
—Martha Snell Nicholson.
"Until Death Do Us Part" Marriage is not intended as a brief experiment. One should never enter marriage except with the wholehearted vow that it is for a lifetime and that the marriage is to be broken only by death. Those who feel that they can be married and if they do not get adjusted, if they are not compatible, if they do not “make a go of it,” they can then get a divorce and try someone else, are headed for heartbreak and ruin. That is no attitude of mind that God can bless. That is no adequate arming to meet the problems of marriage. No, those who marry are dishonest and cannot mean their marriage vows if they do not set out to make marriage a permanent matter. Every girl should say to herself: “ If my husband turns out to be a drunkard, I must live with him until one of us dies. If he beats me, I must love him still and obey him and be his wife and bear his children and wait on him when he is sick and keep my vows until death parts us.” Every man ought to say in his heart: “ This is my wife, and I must love her, whether she deserves it or not. I must love and keep her as my wife whether the beds are made, whether the meals are attractive, whether her tongue is sharp or not. This marriage is for better or for worse and to last until death shall part us.” Nobody has a right to marry on any other basis; to do so is to invite disaster. When poverty comes, when sickness comes, when youth flees, when the personal attraction of husband and wife are gone, then it will often take more than a high-hearted ex perimental attitude to guarantee the happiness of the home; a holy resolution to be all that the marriage vows involve is absolutely essential. When marriage is not considered per manent, the hearts of those who enter it are adulterous and dishonest, and the vows are unholy and insincere in the sight of God. No doubt many hasty marriages would be prevented if it were clearly understood that this is the one chance for hap piness in marriage and we must make good or live in misery. The foolish propaganda to make divorce easy and to withdraw the odium that has attached to it encourages many people to marry who are not fit to marry, who are not committed to the principles involved in the marriage vows. A marriage cannot be broken decently by anything but death; that attitude in itself will go far toward insuring a happy marriage. The Blessing of Children In Psalm 127:3-5 we read: “ Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As ar rows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the ene mies in the gate.” Statistics in every divorce court in the country show that couples who are not willing to have children are more likely to find their marriage going on the rocks than those who follow the plan of God and have children. Children give the Page Seven
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