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
Sometime in the winter holiday, when we are accustomed to gather our
families together, old times have come back again, and our thoughts
have been set to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." The old folks were so
busy at such times in making us happy, and perhaps on less resource
made their sons and daughters happier than you on larger resource are
able to make your sons and daughters happy. The snow lay two feet
above their graves, but they shook off the white blankets and mingled
in the holiday festivities--the same wrinkles, the same stoop of
shoulder under the weight of age, the same old style of dress or coat,
the same smile, the same tones of voice. I hope you remember them
before they went away. If not, I hope there are those who have recited
to you what they were, and that there may be in your house some
article of dress or furniture with which you associate their memories.
I want to arouse the most sacred memories of your heart while I make
the impassioned interrogatory in regard to your pedigree: "Whose son
art thou, thou young man?"
I. First, I accost all those who are descended of a
CHRISTIAN ANCESTRY.
I do not ask if your parents were perfect. There are no perfect people
now, and I do not suppose there were any perfect people then. Perhaps
there was sometimes too much blood in their eye when they chastised
you. But from what I know of you, you got no more than you deserved,
and perhaps a little more chastisement would have been salutary. But
you are willing to acknowledge, I think, that they wanted to do right.
From what you overheard in conversations, and from what you saw at the
family altar and at neighborhood obsequies, you know that they had
invited God into their heart and life. There was something that
sustained those old people supernaturally. You have no doubt about
their destiny. You expect if you ever get to heaven to meet them as
certainly as you expect to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.
That early association has been a charm for you. There was a time when
you got right up from a house of iniquity and walked out into the
fresh air because you thought your mother was looking at you. You
have never been very happy in sin because of a sweet old face that
would present itself. Tremulous voices from the past accosted you
until they were seemingly audible, and you looked around to see who
spoke. There was an estate not mentioned in the last will and
testament, a vast estate of prayer and holy example and Christian
entreaty and glorious memory. The survivors of the family gathered to
hear the will read, and this was to be kept, and that was to be sold,
and it was share and share alike. But there was
AN UNWRITTEN WILL
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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