18
Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce
to associate with. Her conversation is cheap and frequently without
depth.
No Marriage Preferable to a Mismatch—Nellie A will not be as
much prepared by cultivated manners and useful knowledge to marry
at twenty-five as some girls would be at eighteen. But men generally
of your age have a very limited knowledge of character, and no just
idea of how foolish a man can make himself by fancying a young girl
who is not fit for him in any sense. It will be far better not to marry
at all than to be unfortunately married, but seek counsel of God in all
these things. Be so calm, so submissive to the will of God, that you
will not be in a fever of excitement and unqualified for His service by
your attachments.—
Letter 59, 1880
.
Need of Similar Temperaments—I learned that you thought of
marrying a sister named Anna Hale. This aroused me to hasten out
the things which I had seen. Your organization is not of that refined
order that you can make a woman of her fine, sensitive nature happy.
It is not at all in God’s order that such temperaments as hers and yours
should unite. You possess a large proportion of the animal. You have
strong animal passions which have not been controlled as they should
have been. The more noble, elevated powers of the mind have been
servant to the lower, or baser, passions. You have failed to be sanctified
through the truth which you profess, have failed to be a partaker of
the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world
through lust.
[24]
Anna Hale is not a person who can endure the roughs of life. She
is a frail flower and would soon droop and die if exposed to storm and
neglect. You have not in your previous marriage understood the wants
of a woman. You have not appreciated her delicate organism. You
failed, greatly failed, with your first wife. She possessed a powerful
constitution which can scarcely be equaled for power of endurance,
but she presumed too much. Your anxiety to acquire led you both to
overtax yourselves and be swallowed up in the cares of this life, and to
neglect present happiness and comfort, looking ahead to a time when
you should have more of this world’s goods, and then you could afford
to look after the comforts of life.
You have made a sad mistake. The life of your wife was sacrificed.
She might have lived. She ought to have lived. But you knew so little
of woman’s organism that you failed to have care, and neglected the