“I am in deep trouble and know of no one to turn to but you, dear Miss Shirley. I have been engaged to a young man for over a year, and we expected to be married this winter. Last night he told me that he did not want to marry me unless I knew everything about him, and then he told me that he had once stolen a large sum of money from his employer, and that he had been arrested, but his father paid the money back and he was released. Since then he has paid his father back and has been upright and made his way in the world; but it seems awful to me to marry a man with almost the shadow of a crime hanging over him. Won’t you tell me what you think about it? “Minnie A.” The poet says: “I hold it truth with him who sings— That men may rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things.” That a man has stepped aside and repented is the best possible proof of his integrity. If you cannot value a lover who is honest enough to want to come to you with his whole life open as a book for you to read, you cannot have much appreciation of true manliness. The man who can live down a thing like that and make his way in the world afterward is a man to be proud of, and we judge that he is well worthy of any girl’s true affection. If you loved him you would not hesitate a moment, but would help him to forget the past and to “go forward to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.” We wish that we knew the young man personally so that we could clasp his hand in friendship and tell him that we would stand by him in his earnest endeavor. “I am at variance with my lover on a subject that I am afraid deeply concerns our future happiness. My lover is a Unitarian while I and my family have always been Episcopalians. We differ on religious matters now, and I am afraid that our differences will be more serious after marriage. My family and myself have all been at him to join our church, but he won’t do it. “Ought I to insist upon his accepting my faith with me or should that be left open for discussion after we are married? “Grace P.” If the question of a belief is more important to you than the affection of your lover we advise you to relinquish him at once. True love will not let such subjects as religion or politics interfere with its tranquillity. No doubt your lover’s belief is quite as precious to him as yours is to you and if you cannot win him over by intelligent, kindly arguments you had better allow him to follow his own inclinations. Always remember that the right to disagree belongs to every individual, but there is no reason for such disagreement being a source of misery. In a general way, we would advise settling all such matters before marriage. Bickering is bad enough when people are not bound to each other by any tie, but it is ten-fold worse when there is a compact between them.