Rosalie is broader-minded than many women, yet she is devoted to the
Congregational Church, and rarely misses attendance.
It will be an easy matter for her to accept your faith for yourself and
to allow you to attend your own church, and she is, I am sure, broad
enough to go with you occasionally, if you request it.
But when she becomes a mother, and the children's minds are unfolding, I
doubt her willingness to have them brought up in any faith save her own.
To an unwedded girl in love, a child is a very indistinct creature.
To a mother, it is a very real being.
I have seen men as deeply in love as you are, with women as
liberal-minded as Rosalie, become very unhappy after marriage through
the opposite ideas of the wife regarding the education of children.
You must remember how much more closely a mother's life is entwined
about her children, and how much more of their association usually falls
to her than to the father.
This is especially true of daughters, and is true of sons up to a
certain age.
You can understand, I am sure, how much more companionship a mother
would find in children who accepted her faith and attended her church
than in those whose spiritual paths led in another direction.
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