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Introduction
Charles J. Clarke: On our village green a circle of children are playing `Choose your lover'. One player is going through a series of pantomimic actions while the others sing the appropriate words. Now he has stopped in the center of the ring as his playmates sing: `Now choose the one you love the best.'
Adolescent life is like that game. If it goes according to the Creator's plan it works up to a choice of a life partner. To most young people it is a thrilling game played with great zest. But older people often shake their heads and wonder if the rest of life will be as exhilarating as the romantic 'teen years.
Sometime a touch of cynicism marks even the young. `I will never get married,' a sharp-witted lass of eighteen said to me one day. `Whatever makes you say that?' I asked. `I've seen enough of married life in the home where I've been brought up,' she answered. I know the home. She was brought up by childless relatives who had been kind to her and given her a splendid education. But her foster mother had unwisely revealed certain intimate difficulties of her married life and had frightened the girl. I tried to persuade her to change her mind by telling her some of the things I've written in this booklet, but didn't succeed. The evil work had been done too successfully.
It is tragic that marriage should be treated so cynically by so many people. It is the butt of so much untasteful humor and the subject of so many jokes that young people must often wonder what sort of sinister ghost it is that lurks in the matrimonial cupboard.
The reason for cynicism is that so many people are disappointed with marriage - not because it is a bad and illusory institution, but because they themselves have bungled it. They have been like children playing with the delicate, intricate interior of a watch and are surprised when all the works fall into confusion. Much more than merely `being in love', is needed to create the marvelous harmony that makes the bliss of married life.
Understanding what you are doing is the great requisite. Young people need to be trained, not merely in the art of marriage, but also in the art of courtship. It needs to be mastered as an apprentice must master his trade. All the delicate and intricate aspects of courtship need to be understood, and the ability to handle them must be learned. All your life will be affected by your skill in choosing your partner now.
Moreover, Christian young people do not accept all the standards of the world in this matter. Our standards are higher, and both marriage and courtship are regarded as gifts from, and offerings to, our Lord. There is a great need, therefore, for some Christian leader to write a book on this subject that will speak an authoritative word to Christian young people. I have not the competence to write such a book, but while we wait for it, I humbly offer to my young Christian friends this little booklet.
Christian Courtship