August 2

Second Friday after Trinity

I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. S. Luke 14:20.

HUSBANDS and wives, make not this excuse, but look to that in one another which shall live on and shine on in the heavenly courts. Live, day by day, for that day; love, day by day, with that day before you; love, as ye shall wish ye had loved in that day; love that which shall abide in that searching day, when wood, hay, stubble, shall be burnt up. Love with a tender, forbearing love, as Christ is tender and compassionate with us, bearing with our decay, and beholding us as what, by His grace, we shall one day be; cherishing one another, encouraging one another, helping one the other along the narrow road which leadeth unto Him; denying, each self for the other, as Christ loved our souls more than Himself. This love shall grow with years, as the love of Christ and the grace of Christ, which is the beauty of the soul, grows and is enlarged in each. This love shall be refined and purified by sickness and the wasting of the body, as the soul shall through God's chastening, purifying Hand, lay aside its dross, and glow the more with the beauty of the grace of Christ. This love shall not die, even after the body's death. Souls which are united in Christ, shall not be separated from Christ; they shall live on still, one in the one love of Christ. In heaven there shall be "neither marrying nor giving in marriage," but there shall be love, pure, holy, happy.

Love in heaven will shine more bright; Therefore, give us Love.