ERRORS IN MARRIAGE

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 24, 1881

ERRORS IN MARRIAGE.

MANY of the errors of life admit of remedy. A loss in one business may be repaired by a gain in another; a miscalculation this year may be retrieved by special care the next; a bad partnership may be dissolved, an injury repaired, a wrong step retraced.

But an error in marriage goes to the very root and foundation of life. It is said that no man is utterly ruined until he has married a worthless wife; and so every woman has a future before her until she is chained, in a wedlock which is a padlock, to a wretched and unworthy man. The deed once done can not be recalled. The wine of life is wasted and the goblet is broken, and no tears and toils can bring back the precious draught. Let the young think of this, and let them walk carefully in a world of snares, and take heed to their steps lest in the most critical event of life they go fatally astray.

But here we must guard against another error. Many people think they have made a mistake in marriage, when the mistake is only in their own behavior since they were married. Good husbands make good wives, and good wives make good husbands; and the scolding or intemperate, or slatternly partner often has but himself or herself to blame for the misery that clouds the life and desolates the home. Multitudes who feel that their marriage was a mistake, and who make their existence a life-long misery, might, by a little self-denial, and forbearance, and gentleness and old-time courtesy, make their home brighten like the gates of Eden, and bring back the old love that blessed the happy, golden days gone by.

Suppose the wife does not know quite so much as you do; well, you showed your great judgment when you thought her the chief among ten thousand! Or, if your husband is not the most wonderful man in the world, it simply illustrates the wit and wisdom of the young woman who once thought he was, and could not be convinced to the contrary! So perhaps you are not so unevenly matched after all; and if one has had better opportunities since married, then of course that one should teach, and cultivate, and encourage the other, and so both journey on together. But if one has grown worse and sunk lower than at the beginning, perhaps even then, patience and toil and sunshine may bring back the erring one

to duty, lift up the fallen, rescue the perishing, and save the lost. How glorious for a wife to pluck her husband from the jaws of ruin and bring him safely to the heavenly home! How blessed for the husband to bring back to the gates of paradise the woman who, through weakness, may have been led astray.—Methodist Advocate.