nce. We, being safe from the
poison, can afford to talk of it calmly. But I boldly assert, that few
more practically immoral doctrines than that of the dignity of celibacy
and the defilement of marriage (which was the doctrine of all Christian
devotees for 1000 years) have, as far as I know, ever been preached to
man. That is a strong statement. It will be answered perhaps, by the
patent fact, that during those very 1000 years the morality of Europe
improved more, and more rapidly, than it had ever done before. I know
it; and I thank God for it. But I adhere to my statement, and rejoin--And
how much more rapidly have the morals of Europe improved, since that
doctrine has been swept away; and woman, and the love of woman, have been
restored to their rightful place in the education of man?

But if we do not praise Salvian, we must not blame him, or any one else
who meant to be an honest and good man. Such did not see to what their
celibate notions would lead. If they had, we must believe that they
would have acted differently. And what is more, their preference for
celibacy was not fancy, but common sense of a very lofty kind. Be sure
that when two middle-aged Christian people consider it best to part, they
have very good reasons for such a solemn step, at which only boys or
cynics will laugh. And the reasons, in Salvian's case, and many more in
his day, are patent to common human understanding. Do not fancy that he
had any private reason, such as we should very fairly assign now: public
reasons, and those, such as God grant no living man may see, caused wise
men to thank God that they were not burdened with wife and child.
Remember the years in which Salvian lived--from 416 perhaps to 490. It
was a day of the Lord such as Joel saw; 'a day of clouds and of thick
darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains; a great people and
strong; there had not been ever the like, neither should be any more
after it: the land was a garden of Eden before them, and behind them a
desolate wilderness: Yea, and nothing should escape them.' All things
were going to wrack; the country was overrun by foreign invaders;
bankruptcy, devastation, massacre, and captivity were for perhaps 100
years the normal state of Gaul, and of most other countries besides. I
have little doubt that Salvian was a prudent man, when he thought fit to
bring no more human beings into the world. That is an ugly thought--I
trust that you feel how ug