Wedded for Heaven
“jV TEXT to choosing the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour and guide, the most important choice a young man can make is that of a wife. Yet this most eventful step is too often regarded from first to last in the most trivial aspect. With many it is the merest matter of fancy or boyish caprice. Sometimes a wife is sought for the sole gratification of sensual appetite. Sometimes marriage is viewed entirely as a shrewd pecuniary speculation. Indolent, extravagant young men often intrigue through a marriage-vow for a wealth which they are too lazy or too thriftless to earn by honest toil. On the other hand, many an. ambitious parent has sought to purchase a splendid “establishment” with the sweetest charms that Heaven has bestowed upon a daughter. What baser bargain can be consummated And when a woman consents to sell her person without her heart to a rich suitor, what is it but the essence of prostitution without its loathsome name “? Only one man should be rich enough to win my daughter: it is he who can offer a love without a rival, and a character without a stain. True religion, common sense, industrious habits, and a warm heart, — when a young man can offer these, no daughter who is worthy of such a prize will be likely to” say him nay
With what a rash recklessness do millions rush into the momentous engagements that yield their inevitable retribution of domestic misery! How few seek by prayer for Divine guidance when choosing the companion of their heart, their home, and their destiny! Far oftener, we fear, is it passion than prayer that controls this great decision. The gratification of a fancy, the excitement of a courtship, and the frolic of a wedding are frequently the only preparations for the serious realities of wedded life.
Boyish caprice and girlish romance look vastly different in human eyes vehen they have crystallized down into the permanent forms of daily existence under the same roof, at the same table and fireside, year in and year out, for summer and winter, for sickness or health, for better or worse, clear on to the doorway of the tomb. When the novelty of wedded life has worn away, and perhaps the beauty of the fair face that inspired the early passion has quite faded out, then there must be something solid left behind, or marriage is a mockery and its coveted happiness but a dream. There must be mutual confidence, mutual respect, unity of aim, and old-fashioned love: there ought to be also a union of hearts in the love of Christ, in closet devotions, and at the communion-table. When these are the qualities of a nuptial union, it is a marriage in the Lord. It “shineth more and more” from the auroral dawn of first love unto the perfect day of rich and ripened bliss. When young hearts are wedded in Christ, they are wedded for heaven. It is a delightful act for a Christian minister to join such hearts and hands together; but the words sometimes stick in his throat when he attempts to pronounce a benediction on a marriage which neither common sense nor conscience have had a share in bringing about. His fee seems to come out of Judas’s bag.
The admirable Philip Henry, of Broad Oaks, England, sought the hand of an only daughter in a somewhat prominent family. Her father said to her, “This young man seems to be an excellent preacher, but I do not know whence he came.” “True,” replied the daughter; “but I know where he is going, and I want to go along with him.” The marriage proved eminently happy, and one of the children was the famous commentator. When his own son Matthew and his daughters asked his consent to their marriage, he said, “Please God, and please yourselves, and then you will be sure to please me.” At their weddings he saluted them with a fatherly kiss, and said, “Other people wish you much happiness, but I wish you much holiness: if you have that, you are certain to be happy.”
No two steps ill a man’s life are so solemn as those which join him to Christ’s church, and join him to a wife. Marriage is an ordinance of God. It has often proved a “saving ordinance” to those who had no other tie to Christianity. The men whom a Vidse marriage has saved (with God’s blessing) are innumerable. The men whom a reckless, wretched marriage have ruined, — are their histories not written in the “Book of the Chronicles” of prayerless homes and impenitent death-beds?
“Rebekah,” said a dying husband to the wife who bent over him in remorseful agony, — “Rebekah, I am a lost man. You opposed our family worship and my secret prayer. You drew me away into temptation, and to neglect every religious duty. I believe my fate is sealed. Rebekah, you are the cause of my everlasting ruin.” Terrible in eternity will be the reunion of those who helped each other on the downward road, partners in impiety, and wedded for perdition.
Oft the other hand, many a man has owed his conversion to the steadfast, noble, attractive godliness of a praying wife. “I never doubted the immediate answer of prayer since the conversion of my husband,” said a devoted Christian once to her pastor. He had lohg been a stranger to God, and bitter in his opposition to the Gospel. During a powerful revival in her church she attended a morning prayer-meeting. This annoyed him, and he denounced it as a waste of time, and forbade her to go again. Next morning she came down with her bonnet on to go to the meeting. He sternly said, “If you do dare to go, you will be sorry for it.” She could not speak: the rudeness of her husband crushed her into silence. But she determined not to retreat; and when she reached the meeting she could only bow her face on the desk before her, and pour forth her tears and prayers for the obdurate heart she had left behind her. There was certainly one praying woman in that gathering.
When evening came, the kind wife put away the children in the crib, took her needle, and sat down by the fire. Presently the husband came in. “Wife, are you not going to meeting to-night T’ “No,” she replied gently: “I thought I would stay home with you.” He sat awhile in guilty silence: the fire burned brightly in the grate, and a hotter fire burned in the poor fellow’s heart. “Wife,” he exclaimed, “I can’t stand this any longer. The words I spoke this morning to you have tormented me all day. I can’t get any peace till you have forgiven me and prayed for me. Won’t you pray for me “? Oh, what a life I have led!” They knelt together. “That night I shall remember through eternity,” said the happy woman, afterward. “There was no sleep for us. Before the dawn of day peace dawned into his soul: we went to the morning meeting together, and he rose and confessed Jesus as his Redeemer.” That man walked faithfully with God ever after: from that memorable day they two were wedded for heaven.
Happy are those who, like Aquila and Priscilla, are united in the Lord! Happy are they who walk the life-journey, — all the safer and all the happier for walking it hand in hand, keeping step to the voice of duty and of God. Wedded in time, they are wedded for heaven; and will sit down together, with exquisite rapture, at the “marriage-supper of the Lamb.”