Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/282

 That there are marriages in heaven may further appear, if we consider the highest use of marriage here on earth. Its first use, like the first use of houses, garments and all material things, is natural and temporal. But its principal and highest use ts spiritual and eternal. This is obvious from the fact, that the most unhappy marriages are those where there is the least spiritual affinity between the parties—the least approach to a union of souls; and where the deepest want of the spirit in this relation, therefore, is not met. Outward circumstances may be of regal splendor; honor, wealth and station may crown the wedded pair; but if there be no internal and spiritual union, the bonds of external marriage will be felt as a heavy burden grievous to be borne—all the heavier and more grievous, perhaps, for the splendor of the outward life. Neither of the parties knowing aught of the sweet peace and comfort of love, they will feel no support from, and no joy or delight in, each other. On the contrary, they will both feel an unsatisfied want, a corroding canker, a gnawing worm, a wasting consumption at the heart; and nothing but a firm faith and well-grounded religious principle, will prevent them from fretting life away in anxious longing for a more congenial mate.

So deeply and so obviously is man's immortal part involved in this sacred relation! So much does the soul demand for itself in the marriage relation even on earth! And so greatly does it suffer, too, when defrauded of its just demands! And so egregiously do those parents err, and such a fearful weight of responsibility do they assume, who undertake to decide for their sons and