The Husband's Part

In home-making each member of the family has a part, and the fullest happiness and blessedness of the home can be attained only when each one’s part is faithfully fulfilled. If any one member of the family fails in love or duty, the failure mars the whole household life, just as one discordant voice in a company of singers spoils the whole music, though all the others sing in perfect accord.

One person cannot alone make a home what it ought to be, or what it might be. One sweet soul may spread through the home the spirit of love, even though among the other members there be bitterness and strife, just as ttbe perfect

one fragrant flower may spread a breath of perfume through a hedge of thorns. The influence of one gentle and unselfish life may also in time soften rudeness or melt selfishness, and pervade the home-life with the blessedness of love. Yet it is still true that no one member of a household can make the household life full and complete. Each and all must do a part. The husband has a part, all his own, which no other one can do; the wife has a part; the children, the brothers, the sisters — each has his own part. Just as the different parts in music combine to produce harmony that pleases the ear, or as the artist’s colours unite on his canvas to please the eye, or as the different parts of a machine work together to produce some effect of power, of motion, of delicacy, of skill; so, when each member of the family is faithful in every duty and responsibility, the result will be harmony, joy, and blessedness. What is the husband’s part? How

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does the word of God define the duties of a husband? What is involved on his part in the marriage relation? What does he owe to his wife? When he stands at the marriage altar and takes the hand of his bride in his own, and makes solemn vows and pledges in the presence of God and of human witnesses, what is it that he engages to do?

There is one word that covers all — to love. “Husbands, love your wives,” comes the command, with all the divine authority, from the Holy Scriptures. The counsel is very short in words, but very long and broad in spirit and in observance.

The art of the photographer is now so perfect, that he can take the whole face of a great city newspaper on a plate small enough to be worn in a little pin; yet as you look at it under the microscope you find that every word is there, every point and mark. So in this word “love” we have a whole

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volume of thoughts and suggestions of life and duty closely packed; and, as we study it minutely and carefully, every one of them appears distinctly and clearly written out. What are some of the things that are embraced in a husband’s love?

One is fondness, affection. When a man offers his hand in marriage to a woman, he says by his act that his heart has made choice of her among all women, that he has for her a deeper and tenderer affection than for any other. At the marriage altar he solemnly pledges to her a continuance of that love until death. When the beauty has faded from her face and the lustre from her eyes, when old age has brought wrinkles, or when sickness, care, or sorrow has left marks of wasting or marring, the faithful husband’s love is to remain deep and true as ever. His heart is still to choose and cling to his wife among all women, and to find its truest delight in her.

But the word implies more than mere emotional fondness. The Scriptures give the measure of the love which husbands are to bear to their wives: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it.”

There is no earthly line long enough to fathom the depths of Christ’s love for His Church, and no mortal can love in the same degree; yet in so far as that love can be imitated on earth, every husband is required to imitate it. Christ gave Himself for His Church; the husband is to give himself, to deny himself, utterly to forget himself, in simple and whole-hearted devotion to his wife. In the true husband who realises all that this divine command involves, selfishness and self-absorbedness die at the marriage altar. He thinks no longer of his own comfort, but of his wife’s. He takes the storm himself and shelters her from its blast. He toils to support her. He denies himself, that he may bring new pleasures and comforts to her. He counts no sacrifice too great to be made which will bring benefit to her.

There is something very sacred and almost awe-inspiring in the act by which a wife, at her entrance into the marriage state, confides all the interests of her life to the hands of him whom she accepts as her husband. She leaves father and mother and the home of her childhood. She severs all the ties that bound her to her old life. She gives up the friends and the friendships of her youth. She cuts herself off from the sources of happiness to which she has been accustomed to turn. She looks up into the face of him who has asked her to be his wife, and with trembling heart, yet with quiet confidence, she entrusts to him and to his keeping all the sacred interests of her life. It is a holy trust which he receives when she thus commits herself into his hands. It is the lifelong happiness of

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a tender human heart capable of ineffable joy or unmeasured misery. It is the whole future well-being of a life which may be fashioned into the image of Christ, or marred and its beauty shattered for ever.

“I wonder did you ever count

The value of one human fate,
Or scan the infinite amount

Of one heart’s treasures, and the weight Of life’s one venture, and the whole Concentrate purpose of a soul?”

The wife yields all up to the husband, gives herself in the fullest, completest sense. Will he be faithful to the holy trust reposed in his hands? Will he love her with an undecaying love? Will he shelter her from the blast, and protect her in the day of peril? Will he cherish her happiness as a precious jewel, bearing all things, enduring all things, for her sake? Will he seek her highest good, help her to build up in herself the noblest womanhood? Is he worthy to receive into his keeping all that her confiding love lays at his feet? Will he be true to his trust for ever?

Miss Procter has put these words into the lips of an expectant bride — “A Woman’s Question “:

“Before I trust my fate to thee,

Or place my hand in thine;
Before I let thy future give

Colour and form to mine: Before I peril all for thee, Question thy soul to-night for me;

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel

A shadow of regret; Is there one link within the past

That holds thy spirit yet? Or is thy faith as clear and free As that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams

A possible future shine, Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,

Untouched, unshared by mine? If so, at any pain or cost, Oh, tell me before all is lost,

Look deeper still. If thou canst feel

Within thy inmost soul That thou hast kept a portion back,

While I have staked the whole, Let no false pity spare the blow, But in true mercy tell me so!

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Is there within thy heart a need

That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand

Could better wake or still? Speak now — lest at some future day My whole life wither and decay!

Lives there within thy nature hid

The demon-spirit Change,
Shedding a passing glory still

On all things new and strange? — It may not be thy fault alone — But shield my heart against thine own!

Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day

And answer to my claim That Fate, and that to-day’s mistake —

Not thou — had been to blame? Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou Wilt surely warn and save me now.”

It is a solemn thing for any man to assume such a trust, and take a life, a gentle, delicate, confiding young life, into his keeping, to cherish, to shelter, to bless, until death either takes the trust out of his hands or strikes him down.

Alas! how many never realise the sacredness of the responsibility they so

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lig-htly assume! How many fail, too, to keep the holy trust! How many trample with rude feet upon the delicate lives they swore at the altar to defend and cherish till death! How many let selfishness rule instead of love! How many fail to answer the needs of the tender hearts they have pledged themselves to sustain and satisfy with love! Every husband should understand that when a woman, the woman of his own free and deliberate choice, places her hand in his and becomes his wife, she has taken her life, with all its hopes and fears, all its possibilities of joy or sorrow, all its capacity for development, all its tender and sacred interests, and placed it in his hand, and that he is under the most solemn obligations to do all in his power to make that life happy, beautiful, noble, and blessed. To do this he must be ready to make any personal sacrifice. Nothing less than this can be implied in loving as Christ

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loved His Church when He gfave
Himself for it.

This love implies the utmost gentleness of manner. One may be very faithful and true, and yet lack that affectionateness in speech and act which has such power to satisfy the heart. One of the special scriptural admonitions to husbands is, that they love their wives and be not bitter against them. It is a counsel against all display of ill-temper, all bitter feelings as well as angry words and unkind acts. The teaching of the passage, strictly interpreted, is that all bitterness should be suppressed in the very workings of the heart and changed into sweetness.

Are all husbands blameless in this respect? Are there none who are sometimes bitter against their wives? Are there none who sometimes speak sharp words that strike and sting like arrows in their hearts? It must be in thoughtlessness, for no true man who really loves his wife would

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intentionally cause her pain. The poet Cowper suggested a very subtle test of character when he wrote —

“I would not enter on my list of friends, Though graced with manners and fine sense (Yet wanting- sensibility), the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.”

Yet there are men who would not willingly tread upon a crawling insect or a worm, who would not injure a dumb animal nor needlessly hurt any of the lowest of God’s creatures, who every day bring many a pang to the heart of the tender, faithful, loving wife of their bosom by their sharp words or their impatient looks or deeds.

The trouble is that men fall into free and careless habits at home. They are not so in society; they are gentle to other women. They pride themselves on their thoughtfulness. They are careful not even by tone or look to hurt a sensitive spirit. But too often at home they are rude, careless in speech, and heedless of the effect of

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their words and actions. They blurt out in their own houses the ill-humour they have suppressed all day in the street. They answer proper questions in an irritated tone. They speak impatiently on the slightest provocation. They are sullen, morose, and unsocial. They forget that their own wives are women with gentle spirits, easily hurt. A man thinks that because a woman is his wife she should understand him, that she should know that he loves her even if he is rude to her, that she should not mind anything he says or does, even if it is something that would sorely hurt or offend any other woman. There never was a falser premise than this. Just because she is his wife, he owes her the loftiest courtesy that it is in his nature to pay. There is no other woman in all the world that feels so keenly the sting of sharp or thoughtless words from his lips as does his own wife, and there is no other of whose feelings he should be so careful so Cbe perfect Dome

and whom he should so grieve to hurt. No other has the claim upon his thoughtfulness and affection that she has Love gives no licence for rudeness or incivility to the one who is loved. The closer the relationship, the more are hearts pained by any look, tone, gesture, or word that tells of bitterness or even of thoughtlessness.

But it is not enough that men be not bitter against their wives. The mere absence of a fault or vice is not a virtue. Silence is no doubt better than bitterness. Even stateliness, though cold as a marble statue, is possibly better than rudeness. A garden without weeds, though having neither plant nor flower, is better than a patch of weeds; but a garden beautiful and fragrant with flowers is better still. It is a step in the right direction when a husband is not bitter against his wife, but it is a good deal farther in the right direction when, instead of being bitter, his words and tlbc Ibusban&’s ipart

acts and whole bearing- are characterised by gentleness and affectionateness. There are men who speak no bitter words, no sharp, petulant words, and yet but few kindly, tender sentences fall from their lips. The old warmth of the lover and the newly-wed husband has died out, and the speech is business-like and cold. No one needs to be told that there is nothing in such a bearing to satisfy a heart that craves the richest things true love can give.

Words seem little things, so fleeting and evanescent that apparently it cannot matter much of what sort they are. They are so easily spoken that we forget what power they have to give pleasure or pain. They seem so swiftly gone that we forget they do not go away at all, but linger either like barbed arrows in the heart where they struck, or like fragrant flowers distilling perfume. They seem so powerless for good or ill, and we do not remember that they either tear down

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or build up fair fabrics of joy and peace in the souls of those to whom we speak them. They drop from our lips and are gone for ever, as it appears to us; —

“Yet, on the dull silence breaking

With a lightning flash, a word,
Bearing endless desolation

On its blighting wings, I heard; Each can forge no keener weapon,

Dealing surer death and pain;
And the cruel echo answered

Through long years again.

I have known one word hung starlike

O’er a dreary waste of years,
And it only shone the brighter

Looked at through a mist of tears, While a weary wanderer gathered

Hope and heart on life’s dark way, By its faithful promise shining

Clearer day by day.”

While gentleness should always mark a husband’s bearing toward his wife, there are occasions which call for peculiar thoughtfulness and sympathetic expression. Sometimes she is very weary. The cares of the day have been unusually trying. Matters have not gone smoothly at home. Her ’s ipart 53

quivering” nerves have been sorely overtaxed. She has heard sad news. A child has been sick all day, or, worse still, has by some disobedience or some wrong-doingf almost broken her heart. What is a husband’s part at such times? Surely, if he is capable of tenderness, he will show it now. He will not utter a word to add to the load the overburdened spirit is already carrying. He will seek rather, by every thoughtful help his love can give, to lighten the burden, to quiet the trembling heart, and to impart strength and peace.

Walking in the street one day in a violent and sudden storm, I was passing under a tree, from which a weary bird fluttered down from among the branches, and alighting on my bosom, crept under my coat. It was seeking a refuge from the fierce storm. Every wife should know that she will always find in her husband’s love a safe and quiet refuge when she is perplexed and

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tried. She should be sure that he will understand her, that he will deal most gently with her, that he will give his own strength to shelter her, that he will impart of his own life to build up the waste in hers. She should never have to doubt that he will sympathise with her in whatever it may be that tries her. She should never have to fear repulse or coldness or rebuke when she flees to him for shelter. What Christ is to His people in their weariness, their sorrow, their pain, their alarm, every husband in his own little measure should be to his own wife.

There is one place where we shall remember every unkindness and every neglect shown to those who lean upon us for support and for sympathy, and then the pain will be ours if we have failed in tenderness. Ruskin says: “He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companions on whom it has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent there is

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the wild love or the keen sorrow to give one instant’s pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.” Yet how slow we all are to learn this lesson!

It is of little avail to bring flowers to a wife’s coffin, when you failed to strew flowers on the path while her weary feet were painfully walking over it. It is of little avail to speak her praises now in every ear, to recount her excellences and dwell upon her virtues, when in her lifetime you never had a word of praise for her own ears, nor a loving compliment, nor any token to show to her how much you prized her.

“You placed this flower in her hand, you say, This pure, pale rose in her hand of clay? Methinks, could she lift her sealed eyes, They would meet your own with a grieved surprise.

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When did you give her a flower before? Ah well, what matter, when all is o’er?

But I pray you, think, when some fairer

face

Shines like a star from her wonted place, That love will starve if it is not fed — That true hearts pray for their daily bread.”

The time to show love’s tenderness is when it is needed; if we have failed then, the duty never can be rendered at all. No after-atonement of lavish affection can brighten the hours that were left unbrightened in passing, or lighten the burdens that were left unlightened when the weary spirit was bowing under them.

The spirit of this love requires a husband to honour his wife. He honoured her before she was his wife. He saw in her his ideal of all that was noble, lovely, and queenly. He showed her every mark of honour of which his soul was capable. Now that he has lifted her up to the throne of his heart, will he honour her the less? Not less,

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but more and ever more, if he be a true husband and a manly man. He has taken her now into the closest and holiest relation of earth. He has linked her life with his own, so that henceforward whatever affects one affects both. If one is honoured, the other is exalted; if one is dishonoured, the other is debased. There is infinitely more reason why he should honour her now than before she was his wife!

The ways in which he should show her honour are countless. He will do it by providing for her wants on as generous a scale as his position and his means will justify. He will do it by making her the sharer of all his own life. He will counsel with her about his business, advise with her concerning every new plan, and confide to her at every point the results of his undertakings. A true wife is not a child. When he chose her to be his wife, he believed her to be worthy. She may not have all of his wisdom with regard to perfect fjome

the affairs of business, but she may be able to make many a suggestion which will prove valuable, for women’s quick intuition often sees at a glance what men’s slow logic is long in discovering. Many a man owes to his wife’s wise counsel a large measure of his success. And there is many another man whose success would have been greater, or to whom failure would not have come, if he had sought or accepted his wife’s help.

But even if she is not qualified to give him great aid in his business plans, she loves him, and is deeply interested in everything that he is doing. She is made happy by being taken into all his counsels, and thus lifted up close beside him in his life-work; and he is made stronger, too, for energetic duty and for heroic achievement by her warm sympathy and by the inspiration of her cheerful encouragement. Whether the day bring defeat or victory, failure or success, he should confide all to her in the evening1. If the day has been prosperous, she has a right to share the gratification; if it has been adverse, she will want, as a true wife, to help her husband bear his burden, and to whisper a new word of courage in his heart. Not only then does a man fail to give his wife due honour when he shuts her out of his own business life, but he also robs himself of that inspiration and help which every true wife is able to minister to her husband.

It need scarcely even be said, further, that a husband should honour his wife by being- worthy of her. Love has been the inspiration that has lifted many a man from a lowly place to lofty heights of worth or power. Many a youth of humble origin and without rank or condition has worshipped at the feet of a maiden far above him in social standing-, and, incited by his ardent affection, has made himself worthy of her and then won her as his bride.

Quintin Matsys, the celebrated painter, was in his youth a blacksmith at Antwerp. He loved the beautiful daughter of a painter and was loved in return; but her father was inexorable. “Wert thou a painter,” he said, “she should be thine; but a blacksmith — never! “The young man was not discouraged. The hammer dropped from his hand. A new life began to stir within him. A thousand glorious conceptions began to flit like shadows across his brain. “I will be a painter,” he said. He thought of his utter ignorance of art, the absence of all technical knowledge on his part, and was cast down at first. But he began, and his first efforts encouraged him. He took the pencil, and the lines that came were the features of the face that glowed in his heart. Inspired by love, he wrought on. “I will paint her portrait,” he said; and the colours flashed upon his canvas till the likeness was perfect! He took it to the father. “There,” said he, “I claim the prize, ftusbanD’s part 61

for I am a painter now.” He won his bride by making himself worthy of her. Under the inspiration of love he continued to paint, gaining- new victories of genius, becoming eminent among artists, and when he died, was buried with high honours in the cathedral of his native city. The grand motive of his life was to become worthy of her whom he desired to win, and whom he won. ’

Every true-hearted husband should seek to be worthy of the wife he has won. For her sake he should reach out after the noblest achievements and strive to attain the loftiest heights of character. To her he is the ideal of all that is manly, and he should seek to become every day more worthy of the homage she pays to him. Every possibility in his soul should be developed. Every latent power and energy of his life should be brought out. His hand should be trained under love’s inspiration to do its most skilful work. Every fault in

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his character should be eradicated, every evil habit conquered, and every hidden beauty of soul should burst into fragrant b’oom for her sake. She looks to him for her ideal of manhood, and he must see to it that the ideal is never marred — that he never falls by any unworthy act of his own from the high pedestal in her heart to which she has raised him. Among all sins, few are worse than those by which a man draws down shame and reproach upon himself; for, besides all the sorrow he brings upon her in so many other ways, he thus crushes in his wife’s heart the fair and noble image of manhood which she had enshrined there next to her Saviour’s.

In the spirit of this love every husband should be a large-hearted man. He should never be a tyrant, playing the petty despot in his home. There is no surer mark than this of a small man. A manly man has a generous spirit, which shows itself in all his life, but

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nowhere so richly as within his own doors. There are wives whose natures do not blossom out into their best beauty, because the atmosphere in which they live is chill and cold. A lady who is always watching for beautiful things and gathering them about her, brought from the mountain-side a sod of moss. She put it in her parlour, and after awhile, in the genial warmth, there sprang out from the heart of the moss a multitude of sweet, delicate spring- flowers. The seeds had lain long in the moss, though in the cold air of the mountain they had never been able to burst into life. There are noble wives in homes humble and homes stately who are just like this moss. In their natures there are the germs of many excellences and the possibilities of rich outcome, but the home atmosphere is repressing and chilly, and in it none of these richer qualities and powers manifest themselves. The bringing of new warmth into the home will draw out these latent germs of unsuspected loveliness. The husband who would have his wife’s nature blossom out into its best possibilities of character, influence, and power must make a genial summer atmosphere for his home all the year round.

Then this large-heartedness will impart its spirit to the home itself. A husband who is generous within his own doors will not be close and niggardly outside. The heart that is always used to be open at home cannot be carried shut through this suffering world. The prosperous home of a generous man sends many a blessing and comfort out to less favoured ones. Every true home ought to be a help to a great many struggling lives. Every generous and large-hearted man scatters many a comfort among the needy and the suffering as he passes through this world.

There is nothing lost by such scattering. No richer blessing can come upon

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a home than the benedictions of those who have been helped, who have been fed at its doors, or sheltered beneath its roof, or inspired by its cheer and kindly interest. There is no memorial that any man can make for himself in this world so lasting and so satisfying as that which a life of unselfish kindness and beneficence builds up.

There is the old legend of the White Hand. There was a king who gloried not in pomp and power, but in deeds of love. He scattered blessings everywhere. He took the food from his own table and gave it to the poor. Nothing in his possession was withheld when human need cried in his ear He would give the last he had to help some suffering one.

One day a bishop seized the royal hand and blessed it, saying, “May this fair hand, this bounteous hand, never grow old!” Soon after this, war came, and the king was slain in battle. His conqueror gave command to sever his

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limbs and expose them to view, according- to the cruel custom of the time, on poles and stakes. It was done, but that hand which had thus been blessed, and which had wrought so many beautiful deeds of love, when all else had perished in the bleaching sun, remained unblemished, unwasted, wondrous white and fair, pointing still upward toward heaven as if raised in prayer.

The legend teaches that the hands and hearts which give our blessings to others in the Master’s name and for His sake, that minister comfort, joy, help, healing, and uplifting, that make others happier, stronger, safer, better, shall remain for ever pure and white in the heaven of glory, when earthly honours have faded, and crowns and jewels have mouldered.

One thing more may be said: Every husband of a Christian wife should walk with her in common love for Christ. There are some husbands, however, who fail in this. They love their wives

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very sincerely, and make many sacrifices for their sakes. They carefully shelter them from life’s rude blasts. They bless them with all tenderness and affectionateness. They honour them very highly, bringing many a noble achievement to lay at their feet, and showing them all homage and respect. They do everything that love can suggest to make their earthly happiness full and complete. They share every burden, and walk close beside them in every way of trial. But when they come to the matter of personal religion, they draw back and leave them to go alone. While the wife goes into the sanctuary to worship, the husband waits without. At the very point where his interest in her life should be deepest, it fails altogether!

Surely it is a great wrong to a woman, tender and dependent, to leave her to walk alone through this world in her deepest life, receiving no sympathy, no companionship, no support from him who is her dearest friend? She must leave him outside the most sacred part of her life. She must be silent to him concerning the experiences of her soul in its spiritual struggles, aspirations, yearnings, hopes. She must bear alone the responsibility of the children’s religious nurture and training. Alone she must bow in prayer before God. Alone she must sit at the Lord’s table.

It cannot be right that a husband should leave his wife to live such a large part of her life without his companionship and sympathy. His love should seek to enter with her into every sacred experience. In no other way could he give her such joy as by taking his place beside her as a fellow-heir of the same grace. It would lighten every burden, since he would now share it with her. It would bring new radiance to her face, new peace to her heart, new zest to all life for her It would make their marriage more perfect, and unite their

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hearts in a closer union. Then it would also introduce the husband himself to sources of blessing” and strength of which he has never known before; for the religion of Christ is a reality, and brings the soul into communication with God and with infinite springs of comfort, help, and blessing. In sharing her life of faith and prayer he would find his own life linked to heaven. United, then, on earth in a common faith in Christ, their mutual love mingling- and blending in the love of God, they shall be united also in heaven in eternal fellowship. Why should hearts spend years on earth in growing into one, knitting life to life, blending soul in soul, for a union that is not to reach beyond the valley of shadows? Why not weave for eternity?