Now let me earnestly beg of you to think of what you are going to promise in the Marriage Service. You take each other, as those words so beautifully express it, "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish," until death parts you. Remember this--marriage is not merely a passing engagement you can enter into for a short time and give up when you like. It is not like courtship. No, it is lifelong. Some, alas! do not look upon it as binding. But never allow yourself to forget how God looks upon such a sin; and the Bible tells us that the most terrible judgment awaits those who have broken their marriage vow. God's laws are written in the Bible, and no Act of Parliament can change them. The Bible must be the Christian's rule of life, and its precepts he must follow.
Let yours, then, be a Christian marriage--one on which you may trust God's blessing will rest. Try throughout your life to fulfil what you then promise, and to make your wife a good, true, and loving husband. Be good-tempered and forbearing with her. When troubles come, try and share them bravely together; so that she who has helped to bear your burden, when the troubles are past, may also be "a helper of your joy." Your wife has often much to put up with--home cares, troubles with the little ones, delicate health, a hard struggle, perhaps, "to make both ends meet;" therefore, when you come home after your day's work, always have a kind word ready for her. Do not keep an undue share of your wages for yourself, for amusement, or for drink, but share it with her, giving her enough to make her home and the children comfortable. In short, learn to take your rule of life straight from God's Holy Word, where it is written, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ[#]."
[#] Gal. vi. 2.
But, above all, try and help each other on the way to Heaven, and to live not for yourselves, but for God and for others. Then, indeed, you will be, as the Marriage Service says, "heirs together of the grace of life;" not merely of the few short years spent together in this life present, but of that blessed life beyond the grave, where "there is neither marrying, nor giving in marriage, but they are as the angels of God[#]."
[#] S. Matt. xxiv. 38.
KINDNESS.
"I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes:
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathise."
A. L. Waring.
A little kindness goes a long way! There are many people in the world, nay about our own homes, whom respectable people have given up, as being hopelessly bad; and who have become what they are because they have never known what kindness meant. If you were to go through our prisons, you would find that there is a vast number of criminals in them who can trace their first step on the road to ruin to the want of a word kindly spoken. They have never known, what you and I, reader, have enjoyed perhaps from our childhood up, a mother's tender love. The word "home" suggests to their minds thoughts of a drunken father, more a beast than a man; and of a mother who was so taken up with the cares of this world, that she had no love to give to her children. Yes, I have often heard of cases, in which a word of kindness, spoken at the right moment, might have gladdened the whole afterlife. I have known some cases in which even murder might have been prevented, if only a kind word had taken the place of an angry one.
Reader, a kind word costs very little, and goes a very long way. Even a kind look will do something. I once knew a deaf and dumb man, whose look was so kind that little children would run up to him in the street, though he was quite powerless to speak kindly to them. I have spoken of forgiveness of others--kindness and forgiveness are very nearly connected. A really kind man is always a forgiving man; and he who knows how to forgive is always a kind-hearted person.
Kindness shows itself in all the relations of life. A kind man is kind to his wife, kind to his children, and kind to his friends. But nowhere does real kindness show itself more strongly in a man, than when he is kind to animals. They quickly understand and are thankful for kindness; and in their way repay it. For instance, everybody who has had anything to do with horses knows how far a little kindness will go with them. Very often a horse's temper is upset for a whole day, because he was unkindly treated at starting. Then there are numbers of horses whose tempers have been completely ruined by their having been ill-treated when they were young. Oh! yes, a little kindness goes a long way; and it amply repays the bestower to see how gladly and how thankfully it is received.