All love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.--SHELLEY.

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.--SHAKESPEARE.

Let those love now who never loved before,
Let those that always loved now love the more.


1. LOVE BLENDS YOUNG HEARTS.--Love blends young hearts in blissful
unity, and, for the time, so ignores past ties and affections, as to
make willing separation of the son from his father's house, and the
daughter from all the sweet endearments of her childhood's home, to
go out together and rear for themselves an altar, around which shall
cluster all the cares and delights, the anxieties and sympathies, of
the family relationship; this love, if pure, unselfish, and discreet,
constitutes the chief usefulness and happiness of human life.

2. WITHOUT LOVE.--Without love there would be no organized households,
and, consequently, none of that earnest endeavor for competence and
respectability, which is the mainspring to human effort; none of those
sweet, softening, restraining and elevating influences of domestic
life, which can alone fill the earth with the glory of the Lord and
make glad the city of Zion. This love is indeed heaven upon earth; but
above would not be heaven without it; where there is not love, there
is fear; but, "love casteth out fear." And yet we naturally do offend