Husbands, love your wives!

(Miller, "Secrets of Happy Home Life" 1894)

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ
 loved the church and gave Himself up for
 her." Ephes. 5:25

A husband is to love his wife.

Such love never demands obedience.
It never demands anything; it seeks
not to be served, but to serve.

Is love despotic?

Does love put its object in a servant's place?
No; love serves. It seeks not its own. It desires
"not to be served, but to serve." It does not
demand attention, deference, service, subjection.
It seeks rather to serve, to give, to honor.

The measure of the love required by the husband
is to be well noted, "just as Christ loved the church
and gave Himself up for her."

This is a lofty standard.

How did Christ show His love for His Church?
Think of . . .
  His gentleness to His friends,
  His patience with them in all their faultiness,
  His thoughtfulness,
  His unwearying kindness.

Never did a harsh word fall from His lips upon their
ears. Never did He do anything to give them pain.
It was not easy for Him at all times to maintain
such constancy and such composure and quietness
of love toward them; for they were very faulty, and
tried Him in a thousand ways. But His affection
never wearied nor failed for an instant. Husbands
are to love their wives even as Christ also loved the
Church, and gave Himself up for it. He loved even
to the cost of utmost self sacrifice.

There are men, however, who would do this, whose
love would sacrifice even life itself for a wife, but
who fail in daily and hourly tenderness. More wives
might complain of the lack of love in the little
tendernesses.

A true woman's heart craves gentleness. It is hurt . . .
  by bitter words,
  by coldness,
  by impatience,
  by harsh criticisms,
  by neglect,
  by the withholding of the expressions of affection.

Love craves its daily bread of tenderness. No
husband should deny his wife the little things
of affection, the amenities of love, along the
busy, trying days; and then think to make
amends by putting a flower in her cold hand
when she lies in the coffin.

"You placed this flower in her hand, you say,
This pure, pale rose in her hand of clay.
Methinks, could she lift her sealed eyes,
They would meet your own with a grieved surprise.
When did you give her a flower before?
Ah, well, what matter, when all is o'er?"