condition of the parties themselves. It is generally essential to their
true life--to the proper development of their affections and faculties.
Under good Providence, it is the school of the heart, the motive to the
most laudable exertion and sacrifice. There are persons indeed whose
peculiar duties may exempt them from its cares,--scholars, devotees,
philanthropists, who may give their whole heart to their chosen
speciality, and make of science, religion or humanity their family and
home. Yet these are not the general rule, and even these generally prove
that the peculiar power acquired by concentrating their whole mind upon a
single pursuit gives them force at the expense of breadth of culture, and
may be morbid because preternatural. The monk and nun, in the convent or
out of it, have done noble things, and every faithful memory must bless
them for it--but not the noblest things. They have shown much mercy, yet
quite as much spiritual pride. If they have fed the poor, they have framed
the Mass Book and the Confessional. If they have cared for the orphan,
they have also invented infant damnation and the Inquisition, insisting on
hell hereafter for all not baptized by their priesthood, and devising a
hell here below for all heretics against their creed. Unmarried people
ruled Christendom for a thousand years, and that they did not rule in
wisdom, the Bible, history, and our best modern culture all declare. Nay,
the very sage of modern celibacy, Swedenborg, gave years of his life and
the chief labors of his pen to prove, that the best wisdom comes from
minds united conjugially, imbuing thought with affection, and informing
affection with thought, and so best interpreting the God in Christ. They
who may be puzzled by his mystical lore will have no difficulty with the
more practical argument, or refuse to allow that the most healthy thought
and feeling, the most comprehensive culture, frequents the home which a
true marriage makes.
"Marriage," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the mother of the world, and preserves
kingdoms and fills cities and churches and heaven itself. Celibate, like
the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but
sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage, like
the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower,
and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out
colonies, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the
interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath
designed the present constitution of the world."
To carry out the argument and show the necessity of this relation to due
provision for children, to the peace and purity of society at large, would
but lead us into common-places that can as well be spared. Better pass on
and speak of the nature and duties of the relation in question.
* * * * *
It differs from the other relations that we have thus far considered,
first of all in the fact, that it is elective or voluntary. The tie is one
of choice, not of blood, and of course this fact of itself speaks to
reason and conscience to stir themselves in the choice, instead of leaving
it to a giddy eye or a silly ear. The relation, moreover, is exclusive,
and in this fact it is distinguished from all ties of blood and all other
ties of choice. Again it is entire--extending to all the interests of
human life. Elective, exclusive, entire, marriage is thus the most
momentous of human relations. Decalogue, Gospel, Providence, experience,
all declare it such, and rest upon an act of choice the only obligation
that brooks no rival and allows no limitation.
In accordance with the tenderness and dignity of the relation, the ruling
sentiment and correspondent duties must be. Of the sentiment, more than
filial or parental love, more than brotherhood, for which friendship is an
inadequate name, and which at once fascinates by natural affinities and
binds with the sacredness of religion, I have no elaborate analysis to
give. We escape at once the peril of maudlin sentimentality and
metaphysical abstraction, by speaking of the sentiment in the practical
fruits, which best show its nature.
* * * * *
We say first of all, that husband and wife should be true to each
other--true first and last. Wo to them, if they begin their relation with
a lie, either spoken or acted. They promise to love, honor and cherish
each other, and they lie abominably in the sight of God and their own
consciences, if they nullify the solemn promise by capricious levity or
sordid selfishness. Full liberty of conscience must be allowed for the
action of various minds, temperaments, circumstances, and not all
dispositions are to be judged by the same degree of the moral thermometer.
Yet of all diversities of gifts, this statement holds good, that marriage
begins in an impious falsehood, if the parties do not regard each other
with affection and respect, and do not mean to be mutual helpers. An
earth-born impulse should not steal a sacred name, nor a mercenary bargain
intrude its traffic into precincts more sacred than the temple courts. The
sale of a human creature under the marriage ring is more degrading because
more voluntary than under the auctioneer's hammer, and God will not
withhold his verdict against the profanation of his altars by such outrage
against nature and the Gospel.
The beginning is true, when the bond is sincerely assumed, and spirit and
truth go fully together when the whole mind and heart agree in a
congeniality without alloy and without misgiving.
True in the beginning, husband and wife are to be true in their progress
together. Of that gross falsity against which God launches an express law
of the Decalogue, and of whose curse on the offender and the victim, so
many wretched lives and homes are the providential commentary, I need not
speak with minuteness. Fidelity demands more than any negative
policy--demands truthfulness throughout the whole relation, the confidence
that will not mask its face or thought in reserve, and will deem it a
fraud to confer with any third party upon any matter belonging in its
nature to the two. It is the beginning of bitter sorrow, when this limit
is overstepped, and that enamel of mutual confidence is broken, which kind
Heaven has given for the protection of so delicate a nerve.
Nor does truthfulness end here. It must be positive in word and in
action--prompting the parties to share their thoughts and plans together,
and to prove by devotion to each other's welfare the truth of what they
say. We spare the digression to many satirists so attractive, and saying
nothing of the cheats of married life, whether the frauds of selfishness
or the wiles of overfondness, we are better pleased to leave the other
aspect of the picture uppermost, and speak of God's blessing upon all who
keep their truth by being true as well as kind.
* * * * *
We add now a second duty of married persons--one that has a very prosaic
sound, touching a matter so near the springs of feeling. We say that
husband and wife should be reasonable--reasonable that they may be true in
fact as well as in purpose. Feeling of itself, even when healthy, is a
poor guide, sadly blind without reason. Whether it go with love or
indifference, folly carries misery into the home. The proverb is true
enough--
"A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
But a fool's wrath is heavier than both;"
and we might add, a fool's love is quite as heavy as his wrath. We speak
not of the folly, which is a natural misfortune, but that of minds
befooling themselves by levity, or dissipation, or idleness. Nothing
wears better than good sense, and nothing is more essential to permanent
congeniality and usefulness. It is sometimes a stern censor, but only
because it wishes to be an honest friend. Let married persons take it for
their counsellor and it will settle for them many questions, which inflame
self-will and disturb love itself. They need above all others to be
reasonable, to look to reason with all its revealed lights as the
interpreter of God's will to them, and of their own relation to each
other. It is a great thing for them to start in life with reasonable views
of the most common-place arrangements of the household. How much
disappointment, and bitterness, and sin, come from unreasonable views of
expense, and who will undertake to estimate the amount of domestic misery
resulting from household extravagance? The dress of many a wife, and the
wine account of many a husband has been the ruin of the family. Let every
couple start with a fair understanding as to what they can afford to
spend, and keep sacredly within the limit. If the world laughs at their
simplicity, they can well afford to laugh at the world's folly, and time
will be very likely to put the laugh upon the right side. Much might be
said of the deplorable influence of the extravagant notions of most young
women in preventing thoughtful men from taking the risks of marriage, and
we hazard nothing in saying that the worst vices of cities are closely
connected with the growth of feminine extravagance. America will lose her
birthright and have no trace of the old domestic order, if the folly runs
through the land, and most girls are brought up to exact more expense
than the average returns of industry and talent can earn.
Good sense, that honest counsellor, will save the parties from all
controversy about prerogative, will interpret their peculiar jurisdictions
duly; teaching the man to take the lead without magisterial assumption, to
be the guardian without playing the tyrant; teaching the woman to follow
his fortunes without being his slave, and to accept his deference without
becoming his imbecile toy; exhibiting both in their likeness and
difference, equals and not equals, so that the twain are made one by a due
balance of gifts and harmony of contrasts.
Is there not need of urging with some emphasis the worth of reasonable
relations between husband and wife? Are they not too ready to make a
compromise of follies--the one annoyed by having her tastes and habits
reviewed in the strong light of a masculine understanding--the other
irritated at having his hard worldliness criticised by feminine refinement
or sensibility--the two sometimes settling the difficulty by
non-interference--the one left to extravagance and frivolity, if she will
consent not to insist upon having her husband's time or thought--the other
allowed to drudge as he will, if he will not intrude his utilitarianism
into her sphere, or apply common sense to the charming follies that devour
the dollars and the days. It is all wrong, and no gifts of fortune can
make up for the want of thoroughly rational companionship between parties
so allied, and so apt to belittle each other by triviality. Both are
gainers by it, and intellectually as well as morally--the more gainers as
in generous studies of nature, art, history, society, they take a common
interest in the enlarging and ennobling fields of thought, and their
habitual confidence makes them educators of each other. Without being
alarmed by the valiant Minervas who brandish their flashing spears from
reform platforms, and declare an independence at which the old
Revolutionary signers would have stood aghast, we believe that the most
thorough practical discipline is to be found in this home school, and the
enlargement of feminine perception and the refining of masculine vigor,
would advance vastly under such a culture. There would be a better mutual
understanding of the two great domains of life, and a holy alliance
between the two great families of minds. In plain language, if husband and
wife would advise with each other fully on all important subjects, the
robust understanding would be much helped by the quick wit, and fewer
foolish things, far fewer evil things would be done in the world. In
phrase more ideal, yet equally true, if insight were better allied with
argument--ready sensibility with executive strength--nice perception with
comprehensive judgment, reason would have a new avatar on earth, and the
light of God would shine as never before in its beauty and its power into
each household, and over the great globe.
* * * * *
One more aspect of the class of duties before us now, we have to state,
and one that comprises and carries out every other. They who marry are to
live united in all the interests and purposes of existence.
The most obvious ground of union is the maintenance of the home and the
welfare of the family. The order of Providence seems to require the one to
provide by his labor or enterprise the means of livelihood, and the other
to see that they are properly used. As manners are simple, and fortunes
limited, the union of interests here is a very grave matter, and
inefficiency or self-will on either side brings discomfort, perhaps
wretchedness. As manners are refined, and luxuries abound, the same unity
of minds is equally essential to give grace and true worth to the home.
Let each respect the other in the several spheres, and combine to make
both what they should be. Let not a man's laborious gains be squandered in
folly, nor a wife's faithful care be disparaged as trivial. To use a
homely word with a sacred meaning, who will not ask a blessing on good
housekeeping? Is it not one of the fine as well as the useful arts--do not
its very utilities like the fountain of living water sparkle into beauty?
Happy they who know more of it than the tender mercies of hotels and
boarding-houses reveal. They do _not_ learn it well, unless they mingle
faith with their economies, and keep the home in divine peace, as well as
in worldly thrift. A home divided against itself cannot stand. Who shall
keep it one save He in whom alone all souls can have the unity of the
spirit and the bond of peace, and whose blessing is needed quite as much
in a ducal palace as in the plainest farm-house?
How shall we urge at length this point of union, or illustrate its bearing
upon all interests, plans, and hopes? It is a great thing for two frail
natures to live as one for life long. Two harps are not easily kept always
in tune, and what shall we expect of two harps each of a thousand strings?
What human will or wisdom cannot do, God can do, and His Providence is
uniting ever more intimately, those who devoutly try to do the work of
life and enjoy its goods together. For them there is in store a respect
and affection--a peace and power, all unknown in the heyday of young
romance. Experience intertwines their remembrances and hopes in stronger
cords, and as they stand at the loom of time, one with the strong warp,
the other with the finer woof, the hand of Providence weaves for them a
tissue of unfading beauty and imperishable worth. A blessing on the brave
and gentle spirit of the elect poet of our time, Alfred Tennyson, for
speaking in his exquisite verse a truth that might too much task our
prosaic analysis:--
"For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse; could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this
Not like to thee, but like in difference;
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breath, nor fail in childward care:
More as the double-natured Poet each:
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other even as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
Then springs the crowning race of humankind."
"It is the worst clandestine marriage," said old Thomas Fuller, "when God
is not invited to it, wherefore, beforehand beg his gracious assistance."
Equally bad, we add, is the marriage, where His presence is not retained,
and they who at first sought His blessing do not hold to it ever to keep
them true and thoughtful, to lift them into a union to which the Beloved
Son was not ashamed to compare His own communion with souls. Perfection on
earth we may not ask, nor call a hasty word or impatient thought
unpardonable. They who love much must expect to forgive something and
forbear sometimes. But this may be expected and is demanded, that they who
take each other's welfare in charge should never do any intentional
unkindness, or fail of aught that may be done for the other's welfare.
This may be expected and is demanded, that when the tie that binds them is
severed by the only power that can fitly part them, and they are to part
at death--they should look back with mutual blessing to the hour of their
first union, be assured that through all vicissitudes and infirmities,
they have tried to make each other better and happier, and that they have
learned of Him whose name at their Cana made their wedding sacred, to
trust in the realm where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but
are as the angels of God.
Shrink not from applying the truth now before us to ourselves. Parents,
apply it, and in training your sons and daughters use good sense upon a
subject so often left to utter folly. They talk and think about it enough
in a certain way, and with such poor aids as trashy novels and paltry
gossip. Let them think and talk about it wisely, and let them not, if you
can help it, learn wisdom at the cost of wretchedness. Respect Heaven's
own laws, and do not allow the world's fashions and tyrannies to get the
better of reason and conscience in controlling the most important of
destinies. Husbands and wives, apply the troth--allow no routine to chill
affection--no monotony to break down thoughtfulness. If the envious years
should not allow you to celebrate your golden or even your silver wedding,
live while you may in the wisdom which is the word of love, and the worth
of it is beyond silver or gold or rubies.
Our Friends.
OUR FRIENDS.
Every important word in human language is of itself a chapter of history,
and if we could read it rightly would tell us the mind of all the ages
that have shaped its form, and all the individuals who have given its
meaning. Starting from the beginning, every such word passes from century
to century, nation to nation, and makes of itself a medium as universal as
the air which forms its tones. We cannot open our mouths, in any kind or
honest way, without declaring the creed of humanity, that began with man's
creation, and has been enlarged or exalted by every sage and benefactor of
our race. What word that is applied to men expresses this creed more than
that of "friend?" From the very first, men have called each other friends,
and our Saviour did not create, but developed the sense of the term, when
he called his disciples friends. In the language in which Jesus was
educated, the word flowed in the melody of David so true to friendship and
to faith, and in the sentences of Solomon, never forgetful in his keenest
prudence of the worth of friends. In the language which the evangelists
borrowed from Greece, the word had won to itself many a classic charm, and
in passing from the conversations of Socrates to the gospel of Christ, it
deepened its meaning without damping its joy. St. John took from his
Master's lips more than Plato took from the mouth of Socrates, when that
evangelist penned the words, "I have called you friends." This holy
sanction has not been forgotten, nor has Christ's spirit left the word.
Every age fills it anew with meaning, as the golden chalice from age to
age is filled anew at the altar. Daily life and high art and letters show
its power. It is breathed in many a song and hymn of home affections and
fireside companionship. To what pathos it subdues the majestic muse of
Milton in his lament for Lycidas--to what solemnity it lifts the wayward
heart of Shelley in his elegy on Adonais--and when since the Hebrew harp
that thrilled such sorrow at the death of David's friend, has there been a
holier and lovelier tribute to friendship than in the offering which in
our utilitarian age the genius of Tennyson has laid on the tomb of Arthur
Hallam? These are great instances indeed, but they speak what all may
feel. Nay, what is the secret of the power of the poet or sage, except
that he can best say what comes home to us all?
Friends,--We have and must have some whom we call such. Happy are we if
they can be truly so called. It is not for us to choose, whether we shall
have friends at all or in any sense, but it is ours to choose, whether we
shall have them in the right sense. All people, however depraved, will
have some associates whose company they to some extent enjoy, and he who
cares for nobody and for whom nobody cares, may be set aside from the
human family as essentially monstrous. Of monsters we are not treating,
but of men, and with our common nature in view, I speak now of the duties
of friends.
* * * * *
This relation is founded in the will of God and the being of man. God has
made us dependent upon each other for protection and comfort. The
dependence is not limited by family ties alone, but extends to a large
circle, in some measure indeed to all with whom we deal or speak. Nor is
it confined to material interests. Friendship is as much a moral fact
under Providence as light or gravitation is a physical fact. We like to
see and talk with people for the pleasure of their society, and are
unhappy when long away from those we know best. God has made this to be so
in the structure of our nature, and His work as Creator has been
constantly carried out by His providential care for society and all its
affinities.
Our need of friends shows His designing will, and His designing will is
all the clearer as this need is well supplied. In fact, we cannot be truly
ourselves without society. Our thoughts and feelings cannot fully come out
apart from congenial companionship. It cheers us, it quickens our powers,
stirs our purposes, and the very best things that have been done in the
world prove its worth. Christ himself needed it, rejoiced in it,
consecrated it. As His disciples went forth two and two to found the
heavenly kingdom, the social element kept company with the religious in
their own hearts, and in their creed. The divine charity which the gospel
inspired, cherished personal friendships as well as general humanity. The
grim hermit, in an age whose faith gloried in sacrificing companionship to
piety, was glad to know that other persons like himself were in the same
wilderness, and would have been frantic at the very idea of being the only
person living in the world. His lonely cell was many a time lighted up by
images of friends still loved.
A freer age has brought out anew the friendship of the gospel, and little
as enlightened people nowadays may be inclined to put on the dress and
phrases of the Quaker, there has probably never been a time when so many
accepted the essential ideas which led George Fox, William Penn and their
associates to reject the old names and forms, and call the Christian
Church simply a society of friends. There is a kindly feeling over the
world now, and much of the best hope of humanity rests upon the fact, that
so many judicious and influential people of every land know each other
pleasantly and wish each other well. So friendship even in this sinful
world is showing God's will for us, bringing out our own faculties and
fulfilling the divine plans for mankind.
* * * * *
The sentiment, that animates the relation, needs little definition or
analysis. In some sense, all understand it, although its best sense a
true life only can teach. They are friends, who are attached to each
other, with any kind of liking or loving. The attachment may begin in
interest, as with parties in business or in pleasure, as with the votaries
of some art or science, and as the interest or the pleasure is low or
elevated, the attachment will shape its character. But however it begins,
it never continues well and becomes genuine, unless the parties stand upon
the same platform of principle, agree in what is highest and best, and in
some way come within the scope of the Master's sense of a true friend,
when he said, "I have not called you servants--I have called you friends."
Undoubtedly they are the best friends who differ much in incidental traits
and agree in the essentials of character. Their likeness and their
unlikeness brings them together. Their likeness makes them congenial, and
their unlikeness makes them instructive and interesting to each other.
Herein they follow the law of elective affinities, that runs through
nature, and which makes a certain contrast essential to true harmony.
Elective, yet not exclusive or entire, as the relation is, friends choose
each other freely without ties of kindred blood, and however cordial the
choice may be, it does not imply exclusive regard or entire union of
interests. Affection, as well as esteem, enters into the sentiment, but in
comparison with relations of blood and marriage, the element of esteem is
generally larger in its composition than that of affection. It is esteem
growing into affection rather than affection growing into esteem.
Come now to the practical point of view, and consider the duties of
friends for ourselves. We have and desire to have friends, those who are
such in general and those who are such particularly. What are we to do to
keep or make them?