ompanion to be a mother to your children, that these children might not in
all things bear the stamp of your mind and be molded according to your ideas.
Your mind is not equally balanced. You need another element brought into
your labors that you do not possess and that you do not understand is really
essential....
Your ideas have been erroneous to preserve your life as a widower, but
on this point I will say no more. The influence of a noble Christian woman
of proper capabilities would have served to counteract the tendencies of your
mind. The ability of concentrativeness, the intense light in which you view
everything of a religious character connected with the cause and work of
God, has brought upon you depression of spirits, a weight of anxiety that
has weakened you physically and mentally. If you had been connected
with one who would have opposite feelings, who would have ability to turn
your thoughts away from gloomy subjects, who would not have yielded her
individuality, but have preserved her identity and had a molding influence
upon your mind, you would today have had physical strength and power to
resist disease.—Letter 9, 1883.
You remember I wrote you from Texas to obtain a wife before you returned
to Europe. Do you suppose I would have given you such advice if I had had
no light upon the
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matter? Be assured, no such counsel would have been given you without good
reason. I was shown [that] you follow your own judgment and your own ideas
altogether too tenaciously. If you were more willing to be counseled by those
you should confide in, and trust less to your own feelings and impressions, the
result for yourself and for the cause of God would be far better.
I was shown that you made a mistake in starting to Europe without a
companion. If you had, before starting, selected you a godly woman who
could have been a mother to your children, you would have done a wise thing,
and your usefulness would have been tenfold to what it has been.—Letter 1,
1883.
A Son’s Interference. [This letter was written July 28, 1902, to the son
of Elder George I. Butler, former president of the General Conference. Elder
Butler’s wife died November 15, 1901, leaving him a widower at the age of
68. As a result of his son’s influence, Elder Butler did not marry the woman
referred to in this letter. Five years later, in 1907, he married someone else.] I
beg of you not to reproach your father. You should not feel as you do, for your
father has done nothing that God condemns. His condemnation exists only in
the minds of men. He has in no wise dishonored his children. He is keeping
the way of the lord, to do justice and judgment. The Lord is opening the way
before him, that he may do a great and good work for his people. Christ is his
saviour, and in beholding Christ he will be changed into his image.
Your father has been a kind, tender husband. For many years he served
faithfully her whom he has always loved. Death separated him from the one
who for so long has been his special charge. Then his sister was taken from
him, and his home was broken up. Is it any wonder that under these
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circumstances he should, after your mother’s death, become attached to a
woman in whose conversion to the truth he was instrumental? This woman
is not young, but of an age to be a help to him in his work. Should your
father’s age have stood as a barrier to his happiness? ...
Had your father married this lady, I believe that the Lord would greatly
have blessed them both. But I do not think, seeing that the matter has been
treated as it has, it will go any further. Those who refused to sanction
this union should remember that one day they must meet the result of their
action. But I must leave this matter with those who have been acting a part in
it.—Letter 117, 1902.
When Ages Widely Differ. Another cause of the deficiency of the present
generation in physical strength and moral worth, is, men and women uniting
in marriage whose ages widely differ. It is frequently the case that old men
choose to marry young wives. By thus doing, the life of the husband has
often been prolonged, while the wife has had to feel the want of that vitality
which she has imparted to her aged husband. It has not been the duty of any
woman to sacrifice life and health, even if she did love one so much older than
herself, and felt willing on her part to make such a sacrifice. She should have
restrained her affections. She had considerations higher than her own interest
to consult. She should consider, if children be born to them, what would be
their condition? It is still worse for young men to marry women considerably
older than themselves. The offspring of such unions in many cases, where ages
widely differ, have not well-balanced minds. They have been deficient also in
physical strength. In such families have frequently been manifested varied,
peculiar, and often painful, traits of character. They often die prematurely, and
those
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who reach maturity, in many cases, are deficient in physical and mental
strength, and moral worth.
The father is seldom prepared, with his failing faculties, to properly bring
up his young family.—Selected Messages 2:423, 424.
Need of Sound Judgment. Dear Sister: I have just received a letter from
Charles B, a student in the school at Lodi, California, pleading with me
to inquire of the Lord concerning his mother, whom he says is thinking of
marrying a young man many years younger than herself.
I am surprised to hear that a mother forty-six years of age will imperil her
happiness, her welfare, and her influence by marrying a young man of twenty.
This is a strange matter, and reveals lack of sound judgment. The Lord would
have this sister consider carefully the sure result of such a course of action.
In this matter, our sister must be under a strange influence—an influence
contrary to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As the mother of three children,
she should feel her accountability to God to move discreetly in all respects,
that she may hold her influence over her children, and not pursue any course
that they and many others would regard as so questionable. She should
realize that her duty to her God and to her children demands the most serious
consideration.
My sister, the Lord is not in this matter. Such a marriage would bring
strange results—results that would destroy the influence that a mother should
earnestly seek to maintain over her own children. This influence I entreat of
you to guard sacredly. God has solemnly charged you, as the mother of your
children, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. For
you at this time to take a youth of twenty as your husband would be strangely
inconsistent with your responsibilities as a mother of three sons
