When H. L. Mencken was asked the secret of happiness in marriage, he answered with just one word, ”courtesy.”

He was right. Why is it that we are sometimes more courteous to total strangers than we are to the most important person in our life? Courtesy is love in action. Peter exhorted us to ”have compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:”

Good manners have been described as being like ”the zero in arithmetic. They may not be much in themselves but they are capable of adding a great deal to the value of everything else.”

When we think of our marriage as being a type of Christ and his bride, can we imagine either Christ or his bride being rude and thoughtless to each other? Paul tells us, ”husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it... so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.”

True love is courteous. True love is kind. True love is not easily provoked. True love is good manners. In marriage, like in everything else in life, as we sow, so shall we reap. If we are kind, thoughtful, courteous, even when we don’t feel like it, we will reap blessings in our marriage. A beautiful garden reflects the tender loving care of its owner and a neglected garden tells us that its owner doesn’t care. So it is in marriage and in all other relationships we have with our families and our brethren and sisters in the Lord.

It requires effort to be courteous. It requires thinking in advance of the needs and wants of others. We need to think ahead in order to notice that their cup is almost empty or that they will need a clean shirt before they can go out. It requires thought to run ahead in order to open the door to assist someone in or out of the car or house.

Courtesy is love in little things. As the old saying goes, ”Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.” By making a conscious effort to be kind and thoughtful, to be courteous in the little things of life, we find that many of the big things take care of themselves.

Please do not think that this is directed only to those who are married. Courtesy and good manners are important to all of us, young or old, married or single, male or female, rich or poor. We can all be courteous. Perhaps we have all been guilty of not being kind or thoughtful or courteous to those we love the most. How would we treat Jesus Christ? ”Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,” said Jesus. Do we treat others as we would like to be treated?

We well remember hearing of the man leaving work after a hard day, saying to a fellow employee that he was going home, and if dinner was ready he was going to refuse to eat it, and if it wasn’t, he was going to create a scene. That poor wife couldn’t win. Can we picture that husband as being a type of the Lord Jesus Christ? What hove would we have if our heavenly bridegroom was to judge us this way? No wonder King David said, ”let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.”

Let us remember that courtesy is the secret to true happiness, not only in marriage, but in life and let us truly do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We all like to be treated courteously so let us follow the advice of Peter when he said, ”Have compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.”