Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/191

Rh of parents thus situated, and sad are the results that too often flow therefrom.

If what we have alleged in regard to marriage be really so, as we certainly believe it to be, then true internal marriage cannot take place between those who think differently in matters of religion. A man is truly a man by virtue of his ability to grow wise, and the true internal union which takes place between a husband and wife, is in her love of his wisdom and his love of her, because she is the love of his wisdom, or of those things that his intellect sees to be wisdom, and which he, by a life corresponding thereto, acquires to himself. By wisdom is not here meant mere knowledge of things, as of natural sciences. A man may possess the most extended knowledge, and yet not be truly wise. A wise man is a just man, and regards the good of all. He not only sees what is true, but he conforms his life to the truth. He seeks to gain all knowledge within his ability to acquire, in order that he may be useful to his fellow-man. Now, it is this kind of wisdom in a man that a woman truly loves in a true marriage relation; and this is what conjoins them—this is what makes their union an internal one. And, if this be so, how is it possible for a woman to love her husband’s wisdom, if, at the very outset, she cannot believe