This theory of presumed confidence in the persistence of affection is one of the sad phases of married life. We should have roses of love, ever-blooming, ever-breathing perfume, instead of dried roses pressed in the family Bible, merely for reference, as a memorial of what was, instead of guarantee of what is. Matrimony too often shuts the door of life and leaves sentiment, consideration and chivalry on the outside. The feeling may possibly be still alive, but it does not reveal itself rightly; the rhymed poetry of loving has changed to blank verse and later into dull prose. As the boy said of his father: "He's a Christian, but he's not working much at it now." Love without manifestation does not feed the heart any more than a locked bread-box feeds the body; it does not illuminate and brighten the round of daily duties any more than an unlit lamp lightens a room. There is often such a craving in the heart of a husband or a wife for expression in words of human love and tenderness that they are welcomed no matter from what source they may come. If there were more courtships continued after marriage, the work of the divorce courts would be greatly lessened. This realization is often one of the things that come too late. There are more people in this world hungering for kindness, sympathy, comradeship and love, than are hungering for bread. We often refrain from giving a hearty word of encouragement, praise or congratulation to some one, even where we recognize that our feelings are known, for fear of making him conceited or overconfident. Let us tear down these dykes of reserve, these walls of petty repression, and let in the flood of our feelings. There have been few monuments reared to the memory of those who have failed in life because of overpraise. There is more chiseled flattery on tombstones than was ever heard in life by the dead those stones now guard. Man does not ask for flattery, he does not long for fulsome praise, he wants the honest, ringing sound of recognition of what he has done, fair appreciation of what he is doing, and sympathy with what he is striving to do. Why is it that death makes us suddenly conscious of a hundred virtues in a man who seemed commonplace and faulty in life? Then we speak as though an angel had been living in our town for years and we had suddenly discovered him. If he could only have heard these words while living, if he could have discounted the eulogies at, say even sixty per cent, they would have been an inspiration to him when weary, worn and worried by the problems of living. But now the ears are stilled to all earthly music, and even if they could hear our praise, the words would be but useless messengers of love that came too late.