Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1884 — Marriage. [ARTICLE]

Marriage.

Somewhere in the Northeast, from one of the springs that abound in the Appalachian system, there bubbles out, pure and clear as crystal, a drop of water. It sings along the rivulet way, now sparkles in the larger stream, later floats along the banks of the Ohio —past hills and meadows, cities and farms —till it reaches the Father of Waters. Somewhere in the Northwest, under the shadow of the Rockies, another drop issues into the rill that flows toward the Yellowstone. The drop reaches the river, then the Missouri, and for hundreds of miles it travels {>ast plain, city, and green slope, till at ast it plays with the sunbeams on the bosom of the Mississippi. The two drops unite. Henceforth they are one. 'they yet exist, but no one can divide the drop formed by their union arid say, “This came from the East and that from the West.” Thus united they journey to the sea; and when the journey is complete, they rise to heaven. And when they are part of the tinting of the East, or of the evening rainbow, they make the earth glad. So it is with two lives. They start wide apart and unknowingly journey toward each other. They meet and become one. Thus they journey to the sea of eternity and ascend to heaven.— South and West.