of moral will, to the other sympathy, meekness, tenderness.  And just so solemn, and just so glorious as these ends are for which the union was contemplated and intended, just so terrible are the consequences if it be perverted and abused.  For there is no earthly relationship which has so much power to ennoble and to exalt.  Very strong language does the apostle use in this chapter respecting it:  “What knoweth thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” The very power of saving belongs to this relationship.  And on the other hand, there is no earthly relationship which has so much power to wreck and ruin the soul.  For there are two rocks in this world of ours on which the soul must either anchor or be wrecked.  The one is God; the other is the sex opposite to itself.  The one is the “Rock of Ages,” on which if the human soul anchors it lives the blessed life of faith; against which if the soul be dashed and broken, there ensues the wreck of Atheism—­the worst ruin of the soul.  The other rock is of another character.  Blessed is the man, blessed is the woman whose life-experience has taught a confiding belief in the excellencies of the sex opposite to their own—­a blessedness second only to the blessedness of salvation.  And the ruin in the other case is second only to the ruin of everlasting perdition—­the same wreck and ruin of the soul.

These then, are the two tremendous alternatives:  on the one hand the possibility of securing, in all sympathy and tenderness, the laying of that step on which man rises towards his perfection; on the other hand the blight of all sympathy, to be dragged down to earth, and forced to become frivolous and common-place; to lose all zest and earnestness in life, to have heart and life degraded by mean and perpetually-recurring sources of disagreement; these are the two alternatives, and it is the worst of these alternatives which the young risk when they form an inconsiderate union, excusably indeed—­because through inexperience; and it is the worst of these alternatives which parents risk—­not excusably but inexcusably—­when they bring up their children with no higher view of what that tie is, than the merely prudential one of a rich and honourable marriage.

The second decision which the apostle makes respecting another of the questions proposed to him by the Corinthians, is as to the sanctity of the marriage bond between a Christian and one who is a heathen.  When Christianity first entered into our world, and was little understood, it seemed to threaten the dislocation and alteration of all existing relationships.  Many difficulties arose; such for instance, as the one here started.  When of two heathen parties only one was converted to Christianity, the question arose, What in this case is the duty of the Christian?  Is not the duty separation?  Is not the marriage in itself null and void? as if