LOVE.
Love is an actual need, an urgent requirement of the heart. Every properly constituted human being who entertains an appreciation of loneliness and looks forward to a home of happiness and content, feels the necessity of loving.
Without love, life is unfinished; hope, without aim; nature defective, and man miserable. Love is the ruling element of life; the great instrument of nature; that soft, subduing sun against whose melting beams there is not one human soul in a million, not a thousand men in all earth’s domain, whose hearts are hardened. Love, if pure, unselfish and discreet, constitutes the chief happiness of human life. No man or woman is complete in their experience of life until they have been subdued into union with the world through their affections. The bosom which does not feel love is cold; the mind which does not conceive it is dull; the philosophy which does not accept it is false; the only true religion in the world has pure, undying love for its basis. Look back over your life; if there is a bright spot to be seen, it is where the star of love shed its light; if there is a plant, flower or any beautiful thing visible it is where the smiles and tears of your affections were spent; where some fond eye met your own; where some endearing heart was clasped to yours.
Love, to make your life and home beautiful, must shine on through years, and its radiance linger till the shadows of death darken altogether.
COURTSHIP
Is the first turning point in your life, crowded with perils and temptations. The rose tints of affection dazzle and bewilder your imagination. You should not trust too much to the impulse of the heart, or be too easily captivated by a winning exterior.
Not once in a hundred times do two natures, brought side by side, harmonize in every part. While always bearing in mind that life without love is a wilderness, it should not be overlooked that true affection requires solid support. Your object in courtship should not be to charm, gratify, nor please simply for the present pleasure, but for the selection of a companion who must bear, suffer and enjoy life with you in all its forms; one who will walk pleasantly, willingly and confidingly by your side through all the intricate and changing vicissitudes incident to mortal life; one possessed of a constitution of soul similar to your own; of similar age, opinions, tastes, habits, modes of thought and feeling; one who under any given combination of circumstances would be affected as you would; one who would approve what you approve and condemn what you condemn; not for the purpose of agreeing with you but of her own free will; one who is already united to you by the ties of spiritual harmony. In the selection of a wife, a pure, loving heart and good common sense are many times more valuable than personal beauty or wealth, for once installed in the affections of such a woman, you have a life claim on her good offices, and no sacrifice that she can make is too great, no adversity so strong that it can shake her firmness. True courtship is withal a beautiful sight. Only the coarse and illiterate can see there aught for ridicule or jest. It is the flowing together of two separate lives that have heretofore been divided, now mysteriously brought together, to flow on through all time, and only God in His infinite wisdom knows how far in the shadowy hereafter.
MARRIAGE.
For all professions, trades and callings in life, men and women prepare themselves by previous attention to their principles and duties. They study them, devote time and money to them. Every imaginable case, difficulty or trial is considered and duly disposed of according to the general principles of the trade or profession. But marriage, the most important and holy relation of life, involving the most sacred responsibilities and influences, social, civil and religious, that bear upon men and women, is entered upon in hot haste or blind stupidity by a great majority of the men and women of to-day.
No man has a right to ask a woman to enter matrimonial bonds with him unless he is thoroughly acquainted with the female constitution and character, for he who knows not her nature knows not how to gratify or satisfy that nature. It is ignorance in these matters that causes a great amount of matrimonial infelicity. Marriage, to be a blessing, must be properly entered. It has its fundamental laws, which must be obeyed.