Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1917 — Every Church Should Be Made School For Prospective Husbands and Wives [ARTICLE]

Every Church Should Be Made School For Prospective Husbands and Wives

By ROBERT FULTON CUTTING

Each city church should be a social center. .It should be the place to which any lonely person, young or old, would naturally turn. No church should be contented with providing a center for its own immediate'flock. It should'be the inspiration of all community life. Ihe churches should unite not merely for religious revivals but for social service. I wpuld like to see groups of churches getting together in plays and pageants, athletic tournaments or any clean, wholesome recreation. They should be in the forefront in the fight for decent housing, the extension of playgrounds and municipal recreation centers. 1 hey should blaze the way first by- individual experiments, and wherever the experiments are proved successful, they should induce their adoption by the city as a whole. , ' . But the church should do one thing more. It should be a schoo for prospective hi&bands and wives. It should teach definite!} and practically the sacred responsibilities of marriage. It should prepare young women in the essentials of domestic science. It should educate young men in the sacredness of a pur»Jmarriage relation. In every church there exist matrons of sound common sense and long experience, who could give young women advice of inestimable value upon conduct in-early married life. There are, plenty of men in the* church who can cultivate in youth the respect for women so essential to domestic happiness, and correct that assumption of- superiority by the male sex which sometimes requires jnore than patience from a w’ife. . There are far too many young people who undertake matrimony thoughtless!}, and cha c when the idle dreams are dispelled by the seriousness of the problems of domestic economy and parenthood. A little foreknowledge and prevision would go far to prevent many a wreck -in married life, and the church might veil address itself to supply these life preservers.