Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/207

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My Sweetheart and I
195

ABOUT YOUR RELIGION

Sometimes you tell me that you and your sweetheart get into heated religious discussions. If I were you I wouldn't do this. No man was ever convinced of the beauty of religion by argument. You must make your faith a living one to impress your lover with its beauty and worth. Your religion must show itself in your every-day life, and by your works he will know how great and beautiful a thing it is. I do not think that happy marriages ensue when people have exactly opposite opinions, and very decided ones, about their beliefs, and for that reason I should not advise your acceptance of a man whose faith is different from your own. Many a girl will tell you that she knows of such marriages, but a happy marriage presupposes similarity of thought about matters of great importance, and certainly one's religion is the most important. Faiths in which people have been born and educated mean much to them, and a house divided against itself is certain to fall. Into the religious question about you and your sweetheart comes the consideration due to your father and mother, and I must say, in answer to many of my girls, that I cannot advise them to marry against the wishes of their parents. I believe that if a girl will tell her father that she be-