Chapter VI - Marriage
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difficulties. From the very logic of events, we learn
difficulties. From the very logic of events, we learn
the selfish and impure are all that is fleeting, and that
Wisdom will ultimately separate what it hath not
joined together.
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Marriage should improve the species, become a bar-
Marriage should improve the species, become a bar-
rier to vice, a protection to woman, a strength to man,
and a center for the affections. This, however, in a
majority of cases, is not its present tendency; and be-
cause the education of our higher natures is neglected
for other considerations, frivolous amusements, adorn-
ments of the person, passion, display, and pride. An
ill-attuned ear calls discord harmony, not apprehend-
ing concord; so personal sense, discerning not the true
happiness of being, places it on a false basis; but sci-
ence corrects the discord and teaches us Life's sweeter
harmonies. Soul hath infinite resources wherewith to
bless mankind, and happiness were more readily at-
tained and secure in our keeping if sought of Soul.
The higher order of enjoyments is all that satisfies the
cravings of immortal man; we cannot circumscribe our
happiness within the limits of wealth or fame. The
good we possess should have ascendency over the evil,
and the spiritual over the animal, or happiness is never
reached. This would improve progeny, diminish crime,
give higher aims to ambition, and prepare the way for
science. The offspring of such parents would inherit
more intellect, better balanced minds, and sounder con-
stitutions. If some fortuitous circumstance places in
the arms of gross parents a more spiritual offspring, the
beautiful child early droops and dies, like a tropical
flower dropped amid Alpine snows; or marrying re-
produces in the helpless offspring the grosser traits of
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her ancestors. What hope of happiness, or noble am-
her ancestors. What hope of happiness, or noble am-
bition hovers around the child inheriting propensities
that must be overcome, or reduce him to a loathsome
wreck. For propagating the human species, is there
not greater responsibility than for your garden culture,
or the stock of your flocks and herds? Nothing should
be transmitted to offspring unworthy to perpetuate.
The formation and education of even mortal mind,
must improve before the millennium. The most im-
portant education of the infant is to keep it mentally
free from impurity, and let mind develop the body har-
moniously; mind, and not matter, should govern the
physical. For parents to create a desire in their child
for incessant amusement, always to have some demand
on hand to be fed, rocked, tossed, or talked to, and
afterwards complain of their child's fretfulness, or in
after years of its frivolity,– all of which they have oc-
casioned, is an error.
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Yielding one's thoughts to contemplate physical wants
Yielding one's thoughts to contemplate physical wants
surely produces them. A single requirement beyond
what is necessary to meet the most modest needs of the
babe is hurtful. The condition of the stomach, bowels,
food, clothing, etc., is of no serious import to your
child. Your views regarding them will produce the
only result they can have on the health of your child.
The daily ablution of an infant is not more natural or
necessary than to take a fish out of water and cover it
with dirt, once a day, that it may thrive better in its
natural element. Cleanliness is next to godliness, but
washing should be only to keep the body clean, and
this can be done with less than daily scrubbing the
whole surface.