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How to Keep Love Alive, November 22
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in
the fear of God.
Ephesians 5:20, 21
.
How much trouble and what a tide of woe and unhappiness would be saved
if men, and women also, would continue to cultivate the regard, attention,
and kind words of appreciation and little courtesies of life which kept love
alive, and which they felt were necessary in gaining the companions of
their choice. If the husband and wife would only continue to cultivate these
attentions which nourish love, they would be happy in each other’s society
and would have a sanctifying influence upon their families. They would have
in themselves a little world of happiness and would not desire to go outside
this world for new attractions and new objects of love....
If the hearts were kept tender in our families, if there were a noble,
generous deference to each other’s tastes and opinions, if the wife were
seeking opportunities to express her love by actions in her courtesies to her
husband, and the husband manifesting the same consideration and kindly
regard for the wife, the children would partake of the same spirit. The
influence would pervade the household, and what a tide of misery would
be saved in families! Men would not go from home to find happiness; and
women would not pine for love, and lose courage and self-respect, and become
lifelong invalids. Only one life lease is granted us, and with care, painstaking,
and self-control it can be made endurable, pleasant, and even happy.
Every couple who unite their life interest should seek to make the life
of each as happy as possible. That which we prize we seek to preserve and
make more valuable, if we can. In the marriage contract men and women
have made a trade, an investment for life, and they should do their utmost to
control their words of impatience and fretfulness, even more carefully than
they did before their marriage, for now their destinies are united for life as
husband and wife, and each is valued in exact proportion to the amount of
painstaking and effort put forth to retain and keep fresh the love so eagerly
sought for and prized before marriage.—
Letter 27, November 22, 1872
, to
Brother Burton, an early church member in San Francisco, California.
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