living and acting continually from religious principle; the necessity of looking to the Lord and following after Him, of imbibing and cherishing a Christian spirit, and of performing all their duties with religious fidelity; in a word, of making the upbuilding of the kingdom of heaven in their hearts the ruling purpose of their lives. Having this for their grand and constant aim, they will indeed be helpmeets to each other in the highest and best sense; for they will be perpetually helping each other on their way to heaven. They will not strive to please by ministering to each other's natural proprium—pride, ambition, vanity, or love of self—for thus they would shut out from each other's hearts the Lord and heaven and all true love; but by kindness and gentleness, yet with perfect frankness one towards the other, by affectionate counsel, encouragement and reproof, by mutual aid in revealing and overcoming their evils, the soul of each will gradually become more closely conjoined to Him from whom all true love descends, and the golden chain that binds their hearts to each other, will grow continually brighter, stronger, and more golden.
Let married partners here on earth accept and adopt these heavenly views of marriage, let them be ever mindful of its spiritual design and uses, and never forget or turn away from Him who is the source of all love truly conjugial, and they will experience, in the internal wedding of their souls, a bliss which the world can neither give nor take away. And the pains, disappointments, bereavements, and manifold ills of life, instead of weakening their attachment, will serve to bind their hearts
