COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE by David Paulson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 29.

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

By David Paulson

BY DAVID PAULSON, M.D.

There are some young people who possess such superficial minds, that it is apparently impossible for them to regard the subject of engagement and marriage in any other light than as being suitable topics for their cheap jokes and silly jests. This article, however, is written for that class of young people who are determined to make an eminent success both of this life and the one which is to come. This class of youth regard all of God's arrangements as being too sacred to be treated in a light, trifling, or commonplace manner. The marriage relation is regarded by God as being so sacred that He could properly select it as a fit illustration of His own relation to His church. And this it always would be if young people would allow God to carry out His plan in every step which leads up to marriage, and then continue to maintain the same attitude toward Him ever afterward.

It is utterly impossible for any young couple after allowing the enemy to control them at almost every turn of the road during courtship, to expect that God will then suddenly take the helm and guide them the moment the marriage ceremony is performed. Engagements that are persistently cultivated from a cheap, chaffy, worldly basis, account to a large extent for the present comparative scarcity of typical and ideal marriage relations.

It is God's purpose that a Christian home should have in it as one of its attractions such a liberal instalment of heaven that, if some storm-tossed wanderer should tarry in it for even a short time, he would get such a breath of the fragrant atmosphere of heaven that he could immediately determine whether he should really desire to bask continually under the fulness of such blessed influences throughout all eternity. Instead of this being the case, in altogether too many homes we find abundant evidence that they are being cursed more or less with half-concealed friction and often in addition, serious plague spots that only the records of God will eventually fully reveal.

Many who would scorn to utter a falsehood in reference to any other subject apparently suffer no pangs of remorse for telling frequently the most deliberate untruths with reference to their own intentions regarding marriage. Thousands of young people who at least pretend to be guided by principle in other less important things are perfectly willing to be led by impulse and sentiment in regard to this question which has the greatest

possible bearing upon their present happiness, as well as upon their future destiny.

In marriage, as well as in other things, there is only one way of being absolutely right; while there are thousands of ways of being wrong. Just to the extent that we succeed in living out the program that God has ordained for us, just to that extent we shall find that our lives are crowned with both happiness and success. On the other hand, just to the degree that we deviate from the path that Providence has arranged for us, just to that degree we shall reap trouble, misery, and sin. Those who recognize this truth the most clearly are the ones who will have the least desire to take a single step in any direction without having the blessed assurance that it has the divine approval. Such individuals soon tower head and shoulders over their fellow-men. They unconsciously lead a long procession of humanity to higher and still higher mental, moral, and physical attainments. Their selfish associates soon begin to regard them as objects of envy because of the inexplicable large number of good fortunes which befall them, often without any apparent effort on their part to secure them. All those who are willing to place all their plans freely in God's hands, and are determined to recognize the same guiding Hand in the selection of what should be their closest associate throughout all time and eternity,—such young people will secure heights of permanent happiness and usefulness which those who are guided merely by impulse and sentiment can never experience, even temporarily.

God, who alone knows our entire future career, and who only can understand all our needs, and who is intimately acquainted with every human soul, He alone is fully qualified so to guide two human beings that such a union shall result as will add to the sum total of their usefulness, and to the happiness of all those who shall be brought in contact with them.

Some will undoubtedly say that this is altogether too much to expect here in this sinful world; but it is well for such to remember that it is no greater miracle to be divinely guided eventually as was Elijah, even from this earthly life into our heavenly existence.

It is safe to say that those who would be willing to deal with their own soul's salvation in the same frivolous manner that the average couple conduct their engagement would be certain to make a dismal failure of their salvation; but this is equally true of the large number of wretched and unsatisfactory marriages that are so easily recognized on every hand.

God bestows happiness in a literal manner upon His children, but they are never going about seeking their own happiness, but instead, that of others. So the first question that must be raised with reference to marriage is this: Will this step that I am contemplating increase my usefulness in serving humanity? There are scores of what were once most excellent workers, who can readily trace the decline of their missionary usefulness to their courtship and marriage. Complications which they either did not anticipate, or refused to recognize, gradually entangled themselves about their feet, and possibly souls have gone down to ruin because a certain young couple were determined to be united, regardless of all consequences. God who can make even the wrath of men to praise Him, undoubtedly in His infinite wisdom and love will bring some great good out of these ill-matched marriages, if those who have entered into these unsuitable relations will begin at once to seek for the necessary supplies of grace to enable them to make their little desert “blossom as the rose.”

There is another question which is closely connected with this one, and that is, Will this step increase my spirituality? There are hundreds of young people who know full well that their Christian experience received its deadly wound during their courtship, and that it was still further paralyzed by the unhappy and unsatisfactory marriage that followed.

Another question which every young person should ask themselves before taking a single step in the path that leads to the marriage relation is: Am I a mature individual, or am I only a child? Premature marriages are, with very few exceptions, physiologically wrong, and therefore they must necessarily be wrong in other respects; for the Author of physiological law is the Author of moral law, and neither can be violated with impunity. Our divorce courts are overflowing with the wretched results of child marriages.

Shall we who are living in an age of such possibilities be content to trail after the devil's banner in engagements and marriages? or shall we commit this question into God's hands just as we do the keeping of our souls, and then resolutely cultivate such noble principles in regard to the marriage relation that even our wicked associates will intuitively avoid speaking of it in our presence in a low and vulgar manner?

The young people who cultivate each others' acquaintance from a noble, dignified, and Christian standpoint, would not dread to have the last trumpet call them to their better home at any stage of it. If the admonition, “To live each day as tho it were the last” does not include the engagement period, then why not? Those who, by God's grace, are determined to live up to those principles which apply before marriage will find it perfectly natural to adhere to those divinely-appointed principles which apply after marriage.

The step from earth to heaven will not change our characters. Some will find when too late that heaven has no place for those who have persisted in perverting any God-given functions of the human body from their divinely-appointed purposes. Sin will have no place in heaven, for God has allotted us a sufficient length of time here below to become everlastingly cured of the disposition to sin. Just to the extent that the spirit of serving self is eradicated from our lives, just to that extent the spirit of genuine love for humanity will fill its place, and heaven will begin to bud and blossom in our hearts, for we shall never be fitted to enjoy heaven outside of ourselves until we have first begun to experience some of its satisfying joys within ourselves.