Now let me earnestly beg of you to think of what you are going to promise in the Marriage Service. You take each other, as those words so beautifully express it, "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish," _until death parts you_. Remember this--marriage is not merely a passing engagement you can enter into for a short time and give up when you like. It is not like courtship. No, it is lifelong. Some, alas! do not look upon it as binding. But never allow yourself to forget how God looks upon such a sin; and the Bible tells us that the most terrible judgment awaits those who have broken their marriage vow. God’s laws are written in the Bible, and no Act of Parliament can change them. The Bible must be the Christian’s rule of life, and its precepts he must follow. Let yours, then, be _a Christian marriage_--one on which you may trust God’s blessing will rest. Try throughout your life to fulfil what you then promise, and to make your wife a good, true, and loving husband. Be good-tempered and forbearing with her. When troubles come, try and share them bravely together; so that she who has helped to bear your burden, when the troubles are past, may also be "a helper of your joy." Your wife has often much to put up with--home cares, troubles with the little ones, delicate health, a hard struggle, perhaps, "to make both ends meet;" therefore, when you come home after your day’s work, always have a kind word ready for her. Do not keep an undue share of your wages for yourself, for amusement, or for drink, but share it with her, giving her enough to make her home and the children comfortable. In short, learn to take your rule of life straight from God’s Holy Word, where it is written, "Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ[#]." [#] Gal. vi. 2. But, above all, try and help each other on the way to Heaven, and to live not for yourselves, but for God and for others. Then, indeed, you will be, as the Marriage Service says, "heirs together of the grace of life;" not merely of the few short years spent together in this life present, but of that blessed life beyond the grave, where "there is neither marrying, nor giving in marriage, but they are as the angels of God[#]." [#] S. Matt. xxiv. 38. *KINDNESS.* "I ask Thee for a thoughtful love, Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes: And a heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathise." _A. L. Waring._