t life goes more smoothly and cheerfully to each for the
other's aid; they are grateful and content. The wife praises her
husband as a "good provider;" the husband, in return, compliments her
as a capital housekeeper. This relation is good as far as it goes;
but the heart of the man or woman is unsatisfied, if to household
partnership intellectual companionship be not added.

Men can hire their houses kept. Love cannot be purchased. Soul
communion is the gift of God. It is very often enjoyed on earth. Men
engaged in public life, literary men and artists, have often found
in their wives companions and confidants in thought, no less than in
feeling. And as the intellectual development of woman has spread
wider and risen higher, they have, not unfrequently, shared the same
employments.

Thirdly, spiritual. The highest grade of marriage union is the
spiritual, which may be expressed as a pilgrimage towards a common
shrine.

There is something in every man which he feels to be the essential
thing about him. This it is which he desires to have loved. Neglect
what else you choose, you must not neglect that. It is the spiritual
part of man,--the God-given characteristic which longs for sympathy.
Men feel that this want has been met when they say, "Such a one
understands me, knows me, sees me, is in sympathy with me." Such
moments are to all of priceless value. Whoever meets this want is a
boon from God. No matter what the complexion, nor how the features
seem: soul meets soul. The heart feels a new life. The union is
formed. _Call it affinity, or what you will_, they love in one another
the future good which they aid one another to unfold. This includes
home sympathies and household wisdom. Such fellowship makes of home a
joy, and of toil a delight. When first the joy is reached, a foretaste
of heaven is enjoyed. "For it is the one rift of heaven which makes
all heaven appear possible; the ecstasy of hope and faith, out of
which grows the love which is our strongest mortal instinct and
intimation of immortality."

Women are as conscious of this feeling as are men. There are times
when women meet their counterpart. The nature they long for and seek
after with unutterable longing, is before them. Finding it, they
recognize their lord, under whose protection they take shelter, and
to whose rule they submit, because of love which masters and controls
them. The heart cries out for a person--not for things. Spirit
desires spiri