married happiness continued view of marriage from an outsider looking in. Some have reached the conclusion, from their observation of Christian couples in public and in their homes, that many, instead of en joying the married state, are merely enduring it “ until death does them part.” Are these cynics right, that in some cases while married people would not resort to a divorce court to settle their difficulties, their life together is a kind of armistice? With tongue in cheek, Robert Louis Steven son called marriage “ a field of battle, not a bed of roses.”
equally demonstrative, but the lover ever “finds the way” to express him self satisfactorily to his mate. Many a Christian man considers himself a model husband because he provides his wife with an attractive home and a checking account, and many a wife believes she is a success ful wife because she takes good care of the children and the house. These things, desirable in themselves, have little to do with satisfying the human heart. All human beings long above all things to be loved, not for what they can give, but for what they are. Human love has no power to meet the inner spiritual longings of the soul—that is the prerogative of God Himself—but human love was de signed by a loving Creator to satisfy a craving for affection and under standing that is the nearest thing to contentment on this earth. Any husband or wife who deprives his mate of the constant assurance of his love is failing in his marriage, no matter what other benefits are bestowed. Almost all strife over the petty details of life and living is traceable to a doubt that one is truly loved. There need not be a question as to the mate’s faithfulness in deed or in thought; it may not be a matter of unkind word or act. Things unsaid are often more cruel than harsh ex pressions. One should study his mate with the selfless purpose of making him happy. It will pay great dividends in pure heart satisfaction. Many peo ple have an inferiority complex about love; it is difficult for them to believe they could be loved above all others. They need constant reassurance that they are still first in the hearts of their beloveds. Why are married peo ple so niggardly in their expression of love for each other? As sweet hearts, they are not so reluctant to demonstrate their fondness for each other! Why should it not be obvious to all that a married couple is still in love, even if her hair is gray, and his has long since departed? Life is very short at best; couples have so little time together. There may not be a tomorrow in our atomic age. I read of a woman who heard the clock striking 13 in the night. She nudged her husband, and exclaimed, “ John, get up! It’s later than I have ever known it to be!” Maybe we need the sense of urgency that young cou ples during the late war seemed to feel as they held hands on street corners, in buses and as they walked along the street. They knew they were to be parted soon; they could not bear to waste one moment of love’s brief day. In Dickens’ great novel, Bleak
will be any more successful or longer- lasting than any other relationship. In fact, marriage is such a delicate matter, requiring so much in the ad justment of personalities, that it is a wonder that any union between un saved people ever survives the exigen cies of our civilization. With real Christians the case is quite different. True, they are im perfect human beings, and as such, unable to establish anything perfect. But, having been born again by the Spirit of God, and having recourse to the throne of grace, they have help from above the world knows nothing about. They should be able at least to approximate the purpose of Him “ which . . . at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh . . . Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” If the critics of married Christians are correct that there is something wrong between many Christian cou ples, what is the cause, and what is the cure? In these outspoken times, one of the chief causes of married unhappi ness advanced on all sides is that of physical incompatibility. No one can deny that the sex factor is important, for marriage is a union of body as well as of heart. But it is still true that “mind, not body, makes mar riage last.” If this were not so, with sex “ the god of our day,” fewer mar riages would dissolve. Almost without exception, and that exception is fre quently actual physical or mental ill ness, when other causes of marital discontent are removed, the physical relationship takes care of itself. The enemies of true and virtuous love are many: pride, neglect, indif ference, selfishness, harshness and above all, the invasion of the “ other” silly woman or unscrupulous man into the sacred realm of marriage. But beneath, above, and around these reasons for married unhappiness is but one real cause: the loss of genu ine affection, the alienation of heart from heart, the extinction of that spark with which all romance begins and is maintained. When the fire of love goes out on the nuptial altar, the real integrity of the marriage is in jeopardy. No one can make a success of mar riage who does not truly love and make known his love. All are not
Obviously, the fault is not with marriage, but the married. He who “ spared not his own Son, but deliv ered him up” for our redemption de cided in the beginning: “ It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” And through the writer of Hebrews the Holy Spirit declared at a later date: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled.” Martin Luther indignantly de manded: “ On what pretense can man have interdicted marriage, which is a law of nature? It is as though we were forbidden to eat, to drink, to sleep.” Samuel Johnson stated bluntly: “Marriage is the best state for man in general; and every man is the worse man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married state.” In M idd lem a rch George Eliot writes movingly: “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each other in all la bors, to rest on each other in all sor row, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the last moment of parting?” Why, then, if there is nothing wrong with marriage itself; if it is, as the marriage service reads, “ an honorable estate, instituted of God,” cannot two people who love the Lord make a genuine success of it and find perfect contentment therein? Was John Keble wrong when he sang: “Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source of human offspring, the voice that breathed o’er Eden that earliest wedding day the primal mar riage blessing, it hath not passed away” ? Was Tennyson merely pen ning a poet’s idle dream when he de scribed marriage as “ two lives bound fast in one with golden ease . . . their mutual love compared to Heaven” ? Of course, it is not to be expected that marriage between non-Christians
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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