Husbands and wives.
I. CHRISTIANITY CONSECRATES AND ELEVATES THE UNION OF HUSBAND AND WIFE.
1. Christianity sanctions marriage. St. Paul, though an unmarried man, casts no slight on marriage. It is true that he discourages it under temporary trying circumstances (1 Corinthians 7:1), but it is also true that he plainly teaches, not only the lawfulness, but especially the dignity of Christian marriage in itself. The ascetic view of celibacy as a more holy state than marriage is not found in the New Testament. "Let marriage be had in honor among all" (Hebrews 13:4).
2. Christianity elevates marriage. St. Paul compares it with the union of Christ with his Church. He does not take the marriage relation to illustrate that union—an illustration that was familiar with the prophets in explaining the relation of God to Israel. He makes the comparison in the opposite way, taking the union of Christ and the Church as the true and perfect union, and therefore as the type of what marriage should be, viz.
Further, it is to be observed that Christianity elevates marriage
II. THE HIGH CHRISTIAN IDEA OF MARRIAGE LAYS GREAT RESPONSIBILITIES ON HUSBANDS AND WIVES. Care and effort are necessary to realize so magnificent an ideal as a human copy of the mystical union of Christ and the Church. Care should be given in particular to the following requisites:—
1. Mutual sympathy. It is not right that husbands and wives, in dividing the home life into separate departments, should fail to take interest in one another's cares and works. The husband should show sympathy for the wife's domestic hopes, and fears, and joys, and troubles, and the wife for the husband's schemes and achievements and disappointments.
2. Mutual confidence. This is essential to mutual sympathy. There should be no secret between husband and wife. Surely it is a mistake for a husband to hide his trouble from his wife out of a desire to spare her pain, and equally so for the wife to do the same in regard to her husband. The separation thus caused is a more serious evil than the pain that is prevented.
3. Mutual forbearance. Each must be prepared to meet with faults in the other. But each would be less provoked by those faults if the husband would think rather of what his wife has to endure in him than of what he may be annoyed at in her, and if the wife would reflect in the same way on her own failings.
4. The consecration of marriage through union with Christ. Such a truly Christian marriage is safe from shipwreck. It is sad to see how rarely the Christian idea of marriage is realized; but little better can be expected till men and women are aiming throughout at a higher life than what is now prevalent in society—a life of spiritual union with Christ.—W.F.A.