higher ends, it is yet a real effort to give a new and more democratic guidance through favorable circumstances, rather than through personal will or family rule, to the marriage choice of youth. The reason why one is chosen and another not is never clear to any but the ones who make the choice. To them, indeed, it may be a mystery, but one they are sure must have its source in the necessity of things. To others it is often a puzzle past understanding because so many of the friends of each of the twain "would have chosen so differently, you know." Something of racial need both for mixture and for persistency of type, something of hidden demand of temperament for a complementary personality, something of easy awakening of passion and easy holding of attention, something of requirement for a larger sympathy than most friends can give and the favored one seems able to supply-all these enter into the selection of the chosen one from all the rest of one's friends. The need is for as wide a range of personalities and for as large a chance to make friends with the suitable and truly congenial as can be given to youth in order that the choice may be really free and the result happy. The Value of the Church in Social Life.-In our day the best opportunities for such a choice within social ranges most likely to offer the right choice is found in the churches. Whatever they may lack in power of leadership, the churches have a social activity to-day which gives the very best opportunity to youth in its quest for the perfect other half. It is not necessary or best to do as the Friends have done, turn out of the communion those who "marry out of meeting." It is not a wholesome sign when religion puts bars before the marriage altar, for one's true mate may be found in another temple than that in which one was consecrated in infancy. It is often the very difference in family faith that unites two people whose religious inheritance has slipped away from bondage and gives only a reminiscent glow. It is, however, true that like beliefs, like forms of worship, like use of the same tabernacle, Sunday after Sunday, which bring parents and elders of families together, give chances for the young to form wide and strong attachments of friendship within a circle of like quality and tastes. In spite of the fact that many people bridge vast social chasms with high success in a marriage venture, the majority of happy marriages are of those who do not have to engage an outside interpreter in order to understand each other in reaction to social habit, ethics, and culture. It is often made a reproach to the modern church that it is so much a supplement of the home, so largely a social opportunity rather than a controlling moral force. In some sense the reproach may be a just one, but in a very real meaning of human service, the church that aids young people to find themselves and each other in a friendly circle of the like-minded, like-mannered, and likespirited, within the circle of whom a really good marriage choice may be made, can claim recognition as of those functionaries that meet a need not met so well by any other social agency. The straining of this point by advertised "courting parlors" for the friendless and homeless may not be the right thing, but what is needed is an opportunity providing the right atmosphere and chaperonage for easier acquaintance among young people away from home. The sad fact that so many young men and young women never meet the right mates in youth and marry perforce, if at all, any one that "comes along," makes any organization that naturally and simply enables those who need it to make acquaintance with those among whom a congenial mate may easily be found socially useful. Either as substitute for home surroundings or as supplement to unhappy or inadequate family life, the church home may be a benefactor in this direction of enabling young people to find what all need, friends and possible chosen ones among those friends. The prophetic mission of the church, laments an earnest reformer, is now too much in eclipse. Perhaps so, but it may be truer to say that the prophetic mission has now escaped all walls, even of grandest cathedrals, and is now busy at organizing that mission into specialties of social reform and social progress. However that may be, the church as a home-extension meeting-place of the higher, broader, and finer friendly association, in which all ages can come together, in a friendly spirit and for worship of all that is lovely and of good report;-the church as such a homeextension service has a noble place to fill in modern life. Easy Divorce Does Not Lessen Marriage Responsibility.At any rate, by whatever means of help, or however left to struggle alone with its problems, the youth of to-day has taken all life's choices in its own hands, especially the choice that puts one friend above all others and takes the first step in the founding of a home. If any one thinks that it is so slight a thing to do this now, since if one is not satisfied one can get a divorce, he or she is not giving the choice a fair chance. It must be held within the heart and purpose as a permanent bond or the marriage will not be likely to realize its own possibilities. The real lover is sure that he will love forever the same. It is that feeling that consecrates the marriage and gives most assurance of its success. If we could get rid of romantic love we should have no good start toward married happiness. If we got rid of the ideal of life-long devotion we should not build the home on sure foundations. The psychology of permanence is an essential of true marriage. On the other hand, if we tried to put the family back into the bondage of the old time, when youth was subject and could never exercise its own power of choice, we should lose the one precious gift of freedom to love, the power to find and keep one's own. If we fear the future of the family because now the spiritual essence of marriage is demanded, even if the form of its first enclosure prove too strait for its growth, we cannot turn back to the harsh practice and coarse ideals that once made all unions seem right that preserved a legal bond and all men and women wrongdoers who sought freedom from intolerable ills. New and Finer Marriage Unions.-There is a way of life, full of difficulties and not yet clear, a way of life that leads to such a noble comradeship and such a type of loving union as the world. could rarely see in the older days. Our children and our children's children will know how to use freedom for service, and service for mutual growth, and mutual growth for community betterment, in those "world's great bridals, chaste and calm," which the future shall make the common glory of the home. QUESTIONS ON FRIENDS AND THE CHOSEN ONE 1. Does youth now take its own way in choice of companionship as never before? If so, does it mean better or worse choices in marriage? 2. Should early marriages be encouraged? If so, how should the social opportunity for wise choices be secured to youth? If not, how can the social dangers of postponement of marriage be minimized? 3. Should young people in shops and manufactories, in college, in school, in recreation centres, and elsewhere, be guided into social circles in which marriage choices are likely to be wisely made? If so, how can this be done? 4. How can the disproportion in numbers of men and women in given localities, which is an acknowledged cause of late marriages and failure to marry at all, and which is largely due to economic conditions, be mitigated? 5. Is the "revolt of youth," so called, a passing phase of rapid social changes, or is it evidence that old institutions in which the elders had superior power are becoming permanently outgrown? CHAPTER VII. HUSBANDS AND WIVES "FIRST, the love of wedded souls; next, neighbor loves and civic, All reddened, sweetened from the central heart." -E. B. BROWNING. "Two shall be born the whole wide world apart And those o'er unknown seas to unknown lands And bend each wandering step to this one end— "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the level of every day's I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. "A home is not an accidental or natural coming together of human souls under the same roof in certain definite relationships; it is a work of art, to be builded upon fixed principles of life and action."-HENRY WARE, in Home Life. |