Unfaithful
HE went to Sunday School when he was young, and was well grounded in the scriptures from his earliest years, for his parents were godly people who lived what they professed, and brought up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
From them, and through the teaching he received at Sunday school, he learned to love that same Lord; he knew Him as his own Savior, and then he grew up and left home—went out to fend for himself and earn his living.
He was steady and God-fearing, and got on well in his work. Sometimes he found himself among those who did not know his Lord—he met one who took his fancy. She was gay and lively, different from girls he had been accustomed to mix with. She suited his mood for the moment and he allowed his affection to go out to her.
She was pleased for him to take her here and there to amusements, pleasures where his Lord had no place; and it pleased him that she was pleased, and he companied with her more and more until he found that he loved her.
Although the Lord was not in their company, although He was grieved that one of His children should be allied to one who cared not for Him and who preferred the pleasures of this passing life to the joys that last for evermore, this lad went on loving her until they were tied with a bond that should last "until death us do part," and they started a home together, a home that they had not asked God's blessing to rest on because they could not, for they were unequally yoked.
“WHEREFORE let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.”
A Divided House
THEN a little one came who called him "Father," and he could not teach her things that his baby lips had lisped, because "Mother" did not care about it. As she grew older he could not take her to hear the "good news" preached or to meet with those who loved to remember his Lord according to His desire, because the mother objected and would not go with him either.
Oh, sorrowful household where the husband is not head, where the wife is not in subjection in the thing that matters most, where the parents are at variance in the one thing that is needful.
And the wife, what about her? She craves still for pleasures, for excitements, as before that knot was tied, and why not? Why should he not take her hither and thither as he used to do? Ah, he sees now that he cannot. The thrill of those things has passed, and their attractiveness has failed. His heart is with His Lord in rejection, but he has not sided with Him against himself and against his deepest affections, and now he is fettered with chains of this life.
Oh, if only he had remained faithful, who knows but that she might have been won over to that Lord too? Instead, she chafes and frets at his tastes, which are so different from hers, and he finds her company irksome, while he longs to be with those who are sharing the reproach of his Lord. Alas! two cannot walk together unless they be agreed.
BE ye' not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
“FOR it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.”
“Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”