ardor of his love begins to abate; and just in proportion as he is disappointed in his expectations will he grow cold and neglectful. So common is this that it has arrested the attention of universal man. The difference between the fondness manifested while yet the newly-wedded pair have met with no disappointments, and that which is manifested a few weeks or months later, has given rise to the expression "the honeymoon," meaning that the age of a single moon is usually sufficient to reveal the imperfections of the loving pair, and consequently to cause the ardor of their love to abate. The husband does not find in the wife all that he anticipated. She is not so perfectly adapted to making him happy as he had hoped. Consequently he is disappointed. And as his happiness was the object of his pursuit when he was seeking a wife, and he mistook that lust for self-gratification for love for the wife, being disappointed in his lust, he finds little or nothing of love left.
It is thus, by mistaking lust for love, that so many disappointments take place, and so many unhappy unions are formed; and while the individuals are under this lust for self-gratification, there is little hope of their doing better a second time. It was in reference to this lustful and selfish love that Jesus said unless a man loved him or his doctrines with a better and purer love than that with which he loved wife, children, parents, etc., he could not become his disciple. The simple truth of the expression was, that man's love, or the love of the world, was lustful; and unless man loved God and truth with a purer love than that lustful love, he could not be a true disciple.
