As to Marriage : Part 2

How to Get on in the World: A Ladder to Practical Success
by Major A.R. Calhoon

(Page 8 of 26)

A man's real character will always be more visible in his household than anywhere else; and his practical wisdom will be better exhibited by the manner in which he bears rule there than even in the larger affairs of business or public life. His whole mind may be in his business; but, if he would be happy, his whole heart must be in his home. It is there that his genuine qualities most surely display themselves - there that he shows his truthfulness, his love, his sympathy, his consideration for others, his uprightness, his manliness - in a word, his character. If affection be not the governing principle in a household, domestic life may be the most intolerable of despotisms. Without justice, also, there can be neither love, confidence, nor respect, on which all true domestic rule is founded.

It is by the regimen of domestic affection that the heart of man is best composed and regulated. The home is the woman's kingdom, her state, her world - where she governs by affection, by kindness, by the power of gentleness. There is nothing which so settles the turbulence of a man's nature as his union in life with a high-minded woman. There he finds rest, contentment, and happiness - rest of brain and peace of spirit.

He will also often find in her his best counselor, for her instinctive tact will usually lead him right when his own unaided reason might be apt to go wrong. The true wife is a staff to lean upon in times of trial and difficulty; and she is never wanting in sympathy and solace when distress occurs or fortune frowns. In the time of youth, she is a comfort and an ornament of man's life; and she remains a faithful helpmate in more mature years, when life has ceased to be an anticipation, and we live in its realities.

Luther, a man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her." Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God can confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom he may live in peace and tranquility - to whom he may confide his whole possessions, even his life and welfare." And again he said, "To rise betimes, and to marry young, are what no man ever repents of doing."

Some people are disappointed in marriage, because they expect too much from it; but many more because they do not bring into the co- partnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindliness, forbearance, and common sense. Their imagination has perhaps pictured a condition never experienced on this side of heaven; and when real life comes, with its troubles and cares, there is a sudden waking-up as from a dream.

We have spoken of the influence of a wife upon a man's character. There are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower character in a wife. If she do not sustain and elevate what is highest in his nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own level. Therefore a wife may be the making or the unmaking of the best of men. An illustration of this power is furnished in the life of Bunyan, the profligate tinker, who had the good fortune to marry, in early life, a worthy young woman, of good parentage.

On hearing of the death of his wife, the great explorer, Dr. Livingstone, wrote to a friend: "I must confess that this heavy stroke quite takes the heart out of me. Every thing else that has happened only made me more determined to overcome all difficulties; but after this sad stroke I feel crushed and void of strength. Only three short months of her society, after four years' separation! I married her for love, and the longer I lived with her I loved her the more. A good wife, and a good, brave, kind-hearted mother was she, deserving all the praises you bestowed upon her at our parting dinner, for teaching her own and the native children, too, at Kolobeng. I try to bow to the blow as from our Heavenly Father, who orders all things for us . . . I should do my duty still, but it is with a darkened horizon that I again set about it."

Besides being a helper, woman is emphatically a consoler. Her sympathy is unfailing. She soothes, cheers, and comforts. Never was this more true than in the case of the wife of Tom Hood, whose tender devotion to him, during a life that was a prolonged illness, is one of the most affecting things in biography. A woman of excellent good sense, she appreciated her husband's genius, and, by encouragement and sympathy, cheered and heartened him to renewed effort in many a weary struggle for life. She created about him an atmosphere of hope and cheerfulness, and nowhere did the sunshine of her love seem so bright as when lighting up the couch of her invalid husband.

Scott wrote beautifully and truthfully:

"Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light, quivering aspen made, When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou."

Published by the Christian Herald, Louis Klopsch, Proprietor, Bible House, New York.
Copyright 1895 by Louis Klopsch.