merciful blessing, help and support, since he must be besought to give aid in the planting and watering.
| An Gottes Gnad und mildem Segen, |
| Ist alles ganz und gar gelegen; |
| Und ohne seine Hilf' und Gunst, |
| Ist aller Menschen Thun umsonst. |
The murderer of souls all the time seeks to combat the true upright love with his false Delilah, the worldly love, which with its burden of lust is dead to the good, so that he may crush out the natural sparks of love which were remaining after the fall. Already by many have they been crushed out, whereupon all ungodly ways followed, through which the wrath of God has been and will be heaped up upon the day of wrath, as has been seen in the early world, and also in Sodom and Gomorrah, and Dathan and Abiram, as also in the destruction of Jerusalem and other places more. What works of darkness have for a long time been done, the Holy Scriptures show in many places. I will only cite them shortly. Rom. i, to the end; 2 Peter ii, verses 4, 5 and 6; Jude i, 7. And what similar works in our times are done daily, daily experience teaches us. If the state and duty of a Christian are placed in the right balance in the marriage relations, it results that love must, in all things, give the outcome, and where this is wanting there will be also much wanting as to training and good order, and instruction in the Lord, in the care of children by parents and schoolmasters. It has its authority in Holy Scripture that the husband is the head of the wife, but it is also well upon the part of the husband to consider what the apostle Paul makes known to married Christians when he says, 1 Cor. xi, verse 3:
“But I would have you know that the head of every
