e I mentioned the shattered and desolated bride was in two
years happily married to a second husband.

The overwhelming passion of love is certainly rapture, and marriage is
its most satisfying consummation. But true love is not so expressive in
desire for possession as it is in consideration for the welfare of the
beloved object. "Oh, how I love you!" may not mean as much as "Don't go
out without your rubbers on." Do you remember that passage in Guy de
Maupassant where the husband said just that to his wife? And they were
astounded when the maiden aunt, who had lived with them for years
without a word of dissatisfaction, who had gone in and out of the room
as unremarked as the family cat, who was thought to be incapable of
emotion, suddenly burst into a storm of weeping and cried, "No one has
ever cared whether or not I had my rubbers on!"

Yet expressions of love and passion, embraces and caresses, are also
essential. I told my students, "After you are married never leave the
house, even if only to post a letter at the corner, without kissing your
wife." This very simple act is a tremendous preservative of married
happiness.

I also advised them during the first twenty years of marriage to occupy
the same bedroom. Quarrels and even insults given in the heat of anger
are certain to happen in nine marriages out of ten. It is supremely
important not to let these flames of resentment become a fatal
conflagration. They must not last. Never go to sleep with resentment in
your hearts.

"And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love,
And kiss again with tears!"

Although happy marriages are common (unhappy ones are still news), the
only ideal, flawless marriages I ever heard of were those of the
Brownings and the Hawthornes; in both instances the husbands were men of
genius and the wives positively angelic.

Since the greatest of all the arts is the art of living together, and
since the highest and most permanent happiness depends on it, and since
the way to practice this art successfully lies through character, the
all-important question is how to obtain character.

The surest way is through religion--religion in the home. All that we
know for certain of every person is that he is imperfect. Human
imperfection means a chronic need for improvement. The most tremendous
and continuous elevating, purifying, strengthening force is religious
faith.