I used to smile at John Brown of Haddington because when he was about
to offer his hand and heart in marriage to one who became his lifelong
companion, he opened the conversation by saying, "Let us pray." But I
have seen so many shipwrecks on the sea of matrimony, I have made up
my mind that John Brown of Haddington was right. A union formed in
prayer will be a happy union, though sickness pale the cheek, and
poverty empty the bread tray, and death open the small graves, and all
the path of life be strewn with thorns, from the marriage altar with
its wedding march and orange blossoms clear on down to the last
farewell at that gate where Isaac and Rebecca, Abraham and Sarah, Adam
and Eve, parted.
And let me say to you who are in this relation, if you make one man or
woman happy you have not lived in vain. Christ says that what He is to
the Church you ought to be to each other; and if sometimes through
difference of opinion or difference of disposition you make up your
mind that your marriage was a mistake, patiently bear and forbear,
remembering that life at the longest is short and that for those who
have been badly mated in this world, death will give quick and
immediate bill of divorcement written in letters of green grass on
quiet graves. And perhaps, my brother, my sister, perhaps you may
appreciate each other better in heaven than you have appreciated each
other on earth.
In the "Farm Ballads" our American poet puts into the lips of a
repentant husband after a life of married perturbation these
suggestive words:
"And when she dies I wish that she would be laid by me,
And lying together in silence, perhaps we will agree.
And if ever we meet in heaven, I would not think it queer
If we love each other better because we quarrelled here."
And let me say to those of you who are in happy married union,