The Biblical Courtship of 1887

An exchange relates that a young gentleman, happening to sit at church in a pew adjoining one in which sat a young lady for whom he conceived a sudden and violent passion, was desirous of entering into a courtship on the spot; but the place not suiting a formal declaration, the exigency of the case suggested the following plan: He politely handed his fair neighbor a Bible, open, with a pin stuck in the following text—Second Epistle of St. John, verse 5: 'And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.' She returned it, pointing to the second chapter of Ruth, verse 10: 'Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?' He returned the book, pointing to the thirteenth verse of the Third Epistle of John: 'I had many things to write. I will not with pen and ink write unto thee, but I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face.' From the above interview a marriage took place the ensuing week.