Marriage has ever been closely allied to religion. It has had its altar, its offering, its rites, its invocation, its shrine, its mysteries, its mystical significance. "It is honorable," says the Apostle. "Precious," some commentators tell us, the epithet should be rendered—of great value, of highest price. In either sense, it would well denote what may be called, by way of eminence, the conservative institution of human society, the channel for the transmission of its purest life, and for this very reason, the object ever of the first and fiercest attacks of every scheme of disorganizing radical philosophy. In harmony with this idea there was a deep significance in some of the Greek marriage ceremonies; and among these none possessed a profounder import than the custom of carrying a torch, or torches, in the bridal procession. Especially was this the mother's delightful office. It was hers, in a peculiar manner, to bear aloft the blazing symbol before the daughter, or the daughter-in-law, and there was no act of her life to which the heart of a Grecian mother looked forward with a more lively interest. It was, on the other hand, a ground of the most passionate grief, when an early death, or some still sadder calamity, cut off the fond anticipation. Thus Medea—
I go an exile to a foreign land,
Ere blest in you, or having seen you blessed.
That rapturous office never shall be mine,
To adorn the bride, and with a mother's hand,
Lift high the nuptial torch.
Like many other classical expressions, it has passed into common use, and become a mere conventional phraseology. This is the case with much of our poetical and rhetorical dialect. Metaphors, which, in their early usage, presented the most vivid conceptions, and were connected with the profoundest significance, have passed away into dead formulas. They keep the flow of the rhythm, they produce a graceful effect in rounding a period, they have about them a faint odor of classicality, but the life has long since departed. As far as any impressive meaning is concerned, a blank space would have answered almost as well. The "altar of Hymen," the "nuptial torch," suggest either nothing at all, or a cold civil engagement, with no higher sanctions than a justice's register, or the business-like dispatch of what, in many cases, is a most unpoetical, as well as a most secular transaction.
The nuptial torch was significant of marriage, as the divinely appointed means through which the lamp of life is sent down from generation to generation. It was the symbol of the true vitality of the race, as preserved in the single streams of the "isolated household," instead of being utterly lost in the universal conflagration of unregulated passion. It was the kindling of a new fire from the ever-burning hearth of Vesta. It was the institution of a new domestic altar. The torch was carried by the mother in procession before the daughter, or the daughter-in-law, and then given to the latter to perform the same office, with the same charge, to children, and children's children, down through all succeeding generations. Such a custom, and such a symbol, never could have originated where polygamy prevailed, nor have been ever preserved in sympathy with such a perversion of the primitive idea. Neither could it maintain itself where marriage is mainly regarded as a civil contract, having no other sanction for its commencement, and, of course, no other for its dissolution, than the consent of the parties. Have we not reason to suppose that some such conception is already gaining ground among us. It would seem to come from that wretched individualism, the source of so many social errors, which would regard marriage as a transaction for the convenience of the parties, and subject to their spontaneity, rather than in reference to society or the race. The feeling which lends its aid to such a sophism, is promoted by the prevailing philosophy in respect to what are called "woman's rights." We allude not now to its more extravagant forms, but to that less offensive, and more plausible influence, which, in the name of humanity and of protection to the defenseless, is in danger of sapping the foundation of a most vital institution. We can not be too zealous in guarding the person or property of the wife against the intemperate or improvident husband; but it should be done, and it can be done, without marring that sacred oneness which is the vitality of the domestic commonwealth. In applying the sharp knife of reform in this direction, it should be seen to, that we do not cut into the very life of the idea—to use a favorite phrase of the modern reformer. No evil against which legislation attempts to guard, can be compared with the damage which might come from such a wound. No hurt might be more incurable than one that would result from families of children growing up every where with the familiar thought of divided legal interests in the joint source whence they derived their birth. There must be something holy in that which the apostle selected as the most fitting comparison of the relation between Christ and his Church; and there have been far worse superstitions (if it be a superstition) than the belief which would regard marriage as a sacrament. Be this, however, as it may, it is the other error of which we have now the most reason to be afraid. There is a process going forward on the pages of the statute book, in judicial proceedings respecting divorce, and in the general tendency of certain opinions, which is insensibly undermining an idea, the most soundly conservative in the best sense of the term, the most sacred in its religious associations, as well as the most important in its bearings upon the highest earthly good of the human race.
The opposing philosophy sometimes comes in the most plausible and insidious shape. It, too, has its religionism. It talks loftily of the "holy marriage of hearts," and of the sacredness of the affection; but in all this would only depreciate the sacredness of the outward relation. It affects to be conservative, moreover. It would preserve and exalt the essence in distinction from the form. It has much to say of "legalized adulteries." The affection, it affirms, is holier than any outward bond. But let it be remembered that the first is human and changeable, the second is divine and permanent. It is the high consideration, too, of the one that, more than any earthly means, would tend to preserve the purity of the other. The relation is the regulator of the affection, the mould through which it endures, the constraining form in which alone it acquires the unity, and steadiness, and consistency of the idea, in distinction from the capricious spontaneity of the individual passion. Let no proud claim, then, of inward freedom, assuming to be holier than the outward bond, pretend to sever what God has joined together. At no time, perhaps, in the history of the world, and of the church, has there been more need of caution against such a sophism than in this age so boastful of its lawless subjectivity, or in other words, its higher rule of action, transcending the outward and positive ordinance.
Charity is love—Liberality is often only another name for indifference. The bare presentation of the terms in their true relation, is enough to show the immense opposition between them. Charity is tenderness. "It suffereth long and is kind." But the same authority tells us, likewise, that "it rejoiceth in the truth." Except as connected with a fervent interest in principles we hold most dear, the word loses all significance, and the idea all vitality. Even when it assumes the phase of intolerance, it is a nobler and more precious thing than the liberality which often usurps its name. In this aspect, however, it is ever the sign of an unsettled and a doubting faith. He who is well established in his own religious convictions can best afford to be charitable. He has no fear and no hatred of the heretic lest he should take from him his own insecure foundation. His feet upon a rock, he can have no other than feelings of tenderness for the perishing ones whom he regards as struggling in the wild waters below him. How can he be uncharitable, or unkind, to those of his companions in the perilous voyage, who, in their blindness, or their weakness, or it may be in the perverse madness of their depravity, can not, or will not lay hold of the plank which he offers for their escape because it is the one on which he fondly hopes he himself has rode out the storm. They may call his warm zeal bigotry and uncharitableness; but then, what name shall be given to that greater madness, that fiercer intolerance, which would not only reject the offered aid, but exercise vindictive feelings toward the hand that would draw them out of the overwhelming billows?
One of the richest illustrations of the view here presented is to be found in the writings of that durus pater, Saint Augustine. We find nothing upon our editorial table more precious—nothing that we would send forth on the wings of our widely circulated Magazine, with a more fervent desire that it might, not only meet the eye, but penetrate the heart of every reader "How can I be angry with you," says this noble father, in his controversy with the Manichæans, "how can I be angry with you when I remember my own experience? Let him be angry with you who knows not with what difficulty error is shunned and truth is gained. Let him be angry with you, who knows not with what pain the spiritual light finds admission into the dark and diseased eye. Let him be angry with you, who knows not with what tears and groans the true knowledge of God and divine things is received into the bewildered human soul."