ADVICE FOR TWO | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1889

ADVICE FOR TWO.

THAT quality of intimacy which breaks down all the barriers to politeness should never be tolerated. Young wives and husbands cannot be too strongly reminded of the probable shipwreck they will make of their happiness if they yield to that ill-temper which exposes itself in discourtesy, want of compliance, unnecessary opposition, and, above all, that most disastrous amusement of "nagging" and creating a quarrel.

Hundreds of homes have gone wrong for the mere want of checking, in time, the habit of annoying, as a relief to a momentary feeling of irritation or discomfort. The wife who gets in the way of contradicting or checking her husband, of opposing him in small things and standing out in large ones; the husband who is sneering, contemptuous, and fault-finding—perhaps neither side knowing the whole extent of its folly, but just giving way to it as more easy than to fight and conquer it—these young people are doing their best to dig the grave of their married peace; and some day poor, pale, fainting, little love will fall into it, stark and plumeless, and will never rise again.

In the beginning, these tiffs and confabs are made up with a kiss from her to cement the reconciliation. By and by these tiffs get more and more acrid, and the reconciliation is less warm. By still further time this never comes at all, and things get into that chronic state when there is never an open breach and never a formal healing, but an ever-widening rift and a never-ending coolness. Then the two live ajar, and grind like rusty hinges—locks which misfit the slot—wheels where the axle is stiff—or anything else which should work together in harmony and smoothness, but which for want of care to keep the adjustment exact—perhaps for want of oil to the joints—creaks and chafes and hangs and does not fit—to the annoyance of the by-standers, the grief of the family, and the disgust of all beholders. The end is not far to seek. "Therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with." —Selected.