It is this mistaking _lust_ for _love_ which begets so many unhappy marriages. The considerations leading to the union are not unfrequently of a lustful character altogether. Thus the young man seeking a wife is constantly trying the question of use. She will administer to his comfort in this way and that, and upon the whole she will be the means of making him very happy. It will not be denied that in a vast majority of cases the man, in seeking a wife, is seeking after his own happiness, and he will cherish her while she conduces to that end. But if he finds himself disappointed—finds that she fails to fulfill his expectation—the ardor of his love begins to abate; and just in proportion as he is disappointed in his expectations will he grow cold and neglectful. So common is this that it has arrested the attention of universal man. The difference between the fondness manifested while yet the newly-wedded pair have met with no disappointments, and that which is manifested a few weeks or months later, has given rise to the expression “_the honey-moon_,” meaning that the age of a single moon is usually sufficient to reveal the imperfections of the loving pair, and consequently to cause the ardor of their love to abate. The husband does not find in the wife all that he anticipated. She is not so perfectly adapted to making him happy as he had hoped. Consequently he is disappointed. And as his happiness was the object of his pursuit when he was seeking a wife, and he mistook that lust for self-gratification for love for the wife, being disappointed in his lust, he finds little or nothing of love left. It is thus, by mistaking lust for love, that so many disappointments take place, and so many unhappy unions are formed; and while the individuals are under this lust for self-gratification, there is little hope of their doing better a second time. It was in reference to this lustful and selfish love that Jesus said unless a man loved him or his doctrines with a better and purer love than that with which he loved wife, children, parents, etc., he could not become his disciple. The simple truth of the expression was, that man’s love, or the love of the world, was lustful; and unless man loved God and truth with a purer love than that lustful love, he could not be a true disciple. The same lustful impulse is found in the parental and fraternal relation. Man is so naturally selfish and lustful, that it is found in every relation, leading him into the broad road to disobedience and sin. And herein is manifested the deep excellence of the morality of Jesus, that it aimed a fatal blow at the lust itself, and thus “laid the axe at the root of the tree.” “His fan was in his hand, and he thoroughly purged his floor,” “gathering the wheat into the garner, and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.”