The Wedding Ring: A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating MatrimonyTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
The Wedding Ring: A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating Matrimony
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Marriage
Why did you not have that put in the bond, O domestic Shylock? Why did
you not have it understood before you were pronounced husband and wife
that she should have only a part of the dividend of your affections;
that when, as time rolled on and the cares of life had erased some of
the bright lines from her face, and given unwieldiness to her form,
you would have the reserved right to pay obeisance to cheeks more
rubicund, and figure lither and more agile, and as you demanded the
last pound of patience and endurance on her part you could, with the
emphasis of an Edwin Forrest or a Macready, have tapped the eccentric
marriage document and have said: "It's in the bond!" If this modern
Rebekah had understood beforehand where she was alighting she would
have ordered the camel drivers to turn the caravan backward toward
Padan-aram. Flirtation has its origin either in dishonesty or
licentiousness. The married man who indulges in it is either a fraud
or a rake. However high up in society such a one may be, and however
sought after, I would not give a three-cent piece, though it had been
three times clipped, for the virtue of the masculine flirt.
TONE UP.
The most worthy thing for the thousands of married men to do is to go
home and apologize for past neglects and brighten up their old love.
Take up the family Bible and read the record of the marriage day. Open
the drawer of relics in the box inside the drawer containing the
trinkets of your dead child. Take up the pack of yellow-colored
letters that were written before you became one. Rehearse the scenes
of joy and sorrow in which you have mingled. Put all these things as
fuel on the altar, and by a coal of sacred fire rekindle the
extinguished light. It was a blast from hell that blew it out, and a
gale from heaven will fan it into a blaze.
Ye who have broken marriage vows, speak out! take your wife into all
your plans, your successes, your defeats, your ambitions. Tell her
everything. Walk arm in arm with her into places of amusement, and on
the piazza of summer watering places, and up the rugged way of life,
and down through dark ravine, and when one trembles on the way let the
other be re-enforcement. In no case pass yourself off as a single man,
practicing gallantries. Do not, after you are fifty years of age, in
ladies' society, try to look young-mannish.
RESPECT HER PIETY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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