no earthly relationship which has so much power to ennoble
and to exalt. Very strong language does the apostle use in this
chapter respecting it: "What knoweth thou, O wife, whether thou shalt
_save_ thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt
save thy wife?" The very power of _saving_ belongs to this
relationship. And on the other hand, there is no earthly relationship
which has so much power to wreck and ruin the soul. For there are two
rocks in this world of ours on which the soul must either anchor or be
wrecked. The one is God; the other is the sex opposite to itself. The
one is the "Rock of Ages," on which if the human soul anchors it lives
the blessed life of faith; against which if the soul be dashed and
broken, there ensues the wreck of Atheism--the worst ruin of the soul.
The other rock is of another character. Blessed is the man, blessed is
the woman whose life-experience has taught a confiding belief in the
excellencies of the sex opposite to their own--a blessedness second
only to the blessedness of salvation. And the ruin in the other case
is second only to the ruin of everlasting perdition--the same wreck
and ruin of the soul.

These then, are the two tremendous alternatives: on the one hand the
possibility of securing, in all sympathy and tenderness, the laying of
that step on which man rises towards his perfection; on the other hand
the blight of all sympathy, to be dragged down to earth, and forced to
become frivolous and common-place; to lose all zest and earnestness in
life, to have heart and life degraded by mean and
perpetually-recurring sources of disagreement; these are the two
alternatives, and it is the worst of these alternatives which the
young risk when they form an inconsiderate union, excusably
indeed--because through inexperience; and it is the worst of these
alternatives which parents risk--not excusably but inexcusably--when
they bring up their children with no higher view of what that tie is,
than the merely prudential one of a rich and honourable marriage.

The second decision which the apostle makes respecting another of the
questions proposed to him by the Corinthians, is as to the sanctity of
the marriage bond between a Christian and one who is a heathen. When
Christianity first entered into our world, and was little understood,
it seemed to threaten the dislocation and alteration of all existing
relationships. Many difficulties