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