s of Nature as well. Mathematicians have
discovered that there is no such thing as a perfectly straight line, and
that curvature is a fundamental property of the physical world. So
also is it in the spiritual world. As we reach the topmost height of
the ideal we find that it has curved round, and that we are at that
moment at the very base and foundation. What is attracting us
forward in the farthest distance in front is the very thing that is
urging us forward from behind. Pinnacle and foundation, source and
end, meet.

The love which attracted the man and woman together and which
they keep striving to attain in higher and higher degree, is the same
as the creative impulse which comes surging up from the very Heart
of Nature. Direct and without ever a break it has come out of the
remotest past and deepest deeps. Few seem aware of this, and yet it
is an obvious fact--and a fact which vastly increases our sense of
intimacy with Nature. It was due to the same impulse which has
brought the man and woman together that they themselves were
brought into being. Their parents had been attracted by the same
vision of love and impelled by the same impulse. Their parents'
parents had been similarly attracted and impelled, and so on back
and back through the whole long line of ancestry, through half a
million years to primitive men, back beyond them again through the
long animal ancestry for scores of millions of years to the beginning
of life. Even then there is no break. Direct from the very Fountain
Source of Things this creative impulse has come bursting up into
their hearts. At the moment of union they are straight along the
direct line of the whole world-development, so far as this planet is
concerned. The elemental in the natural impulse is the most
ultimately elemental, for it derives itself straight from the pure
Origin of Things. As they reach after the most Divine they are
impelled by the most elemental. What, in fact, happens is that the
elemental is inspired through and through with the Divine.

The union of man and woman is the flower of Nature. But, like the
rose, it bears within it the seed from which some still more beautiful
flower may result. No pair, however sublime their union, suppose
that it is the best that could by any possibility at any time exist. An
absolutely perfect union depends upon an absolutely perfect pair in
absolutely perfect surroundings. And no one supposes that he
himself is perfect or tha