To One About to Be Married
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Dear friend,
It is good of you to tell me about your happiness. It makes me feel that I have been one of your best friends for a good while. Let me wish you the sweetest blessing in your wedded life. You remember that the first public act of Jesus was to attend a wedding feast. You remember, also, that we are told he was invited to the wedding. If he had not been invited, he would not have been there. He will be at your wedding, too, for I am sure that you will invite him. You remember, also, that Jesus did not cast a gloom over the wedding.
Sometimes it is said that ministers cause a sort of restraint upon social and festive occasions by their solemnity. Evidently Jesus did not cast any such shade over the wedding feast at Cana. Instead, he entered into all the gladness and in a time of great embarrassment, helped on the joy by working his first miracle. Jesus is not a friend merely for sick rooms and times of sorrow — he is quite as much a friend for our most joyous days. Whatever other guests you may have at your wedding — be sure to have Jesus there. I am sure you will.
I wish I might have a little talk with you before your wedding. I would like to say some things to you about your life. Marriage is always a serious matter, for, however well acquainted two people may have been as lovers — when they enter the wedded life, they have new lessons to learn, and sometimes they make mistakes. I never can forget what a young wife said to me once, about a year and a half after her marriage. She had been sick with typhoid fever, and I was visiting her in her convalescence. One day she pointed to a little card in a frame on her table, and said, "That little card saved my life." I asked her how, and she told me that when she was married, both she and her husband were wilful and persistent.
As a result they had little tiffs from the very beginning, little tests of temper. One day at luncheon they had quite a serious difference about something and neither would yield. The husband arose from the table and went to his business in anger, slamming the door behind him, and the wife went upstairs to her room to cry — a woman's refuge in trouble. Her eye fell upon this little card which a child in her Sunday-school class had sent to her before her marriage.
She had never noticed it particularly before — but now the question on the card went right to her heart, like a voice from Heaven. The question was, "What would Jesus do?" She tried to put the question away — but it would not be put away. It demanded an answer. At last she faced it, saying, "What would Jesus do if he were in my place just now?" Her answer was that he certainly would not be so wilful and obstinate and show such temper as she had been showing. She fell upon her knees and told the whole matter to Christ. She saw that she had been acting unchristianly, that her Master would have borne her little trials differently altogether.
When her husband came home in the evening she met him at the door with a kiss, as if nothing had happened. After dinner she took him up to her room and showed him the card and told him the whole story. He saw how foolish he had been, too, how unlike Christ. They both fell on their knees and pledged themselves before God that they would show no more fretfulness and impatience and childish resentment, but would keep love in their hearts and be thoughtful, forbearing, forgiving.
"So you see this little card has saved my wedded life. You are not surprised when I say that it is one of the most precious things in the house."
Excuse this long recital — but I want to give it to you as a little suggestion toward the perfect happiness which I know you want to have in your home and life.
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