ld--Hindu,
Hebrew, Christian. And it has been extended by taking the individualised
Spirit as a Nation or a Church, a collection of such Spirits knit into a
unity. So Isaiah declared to Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."[347] So S. Paul wrote that
the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.[348]

If we think of Spirit and Matter as latent, unmanifested, then we see no
production; manifested together, there is evolution. And so when the
halves of humanity are not manifested as husband and wife, there is no
production of fresh life. Moreover, they should be united in order that
there may be a growth of life in each, a swifter evolution, a more rapid
progress, by the half that each can give to each, each supplying what
the other lacks. The twain should be blended into one, setting forth the
spiritual possibilities of man. And they show forth also the perfect
Man, in whose nature Spirit and Matter are both completely developed and
perfectly balanced, the divine Man who unites in his own person husband
and wife, the male and female elements in nature, as "God and Man are
one Christ."[349]

Those who thus study the Sacrament of Marriage will understand why
religions have ever regarded Marriage as indissoluble, and have thought
it better that a few ill-matched pairs should suffer for a few years
than that the ideal of true Marriage should be permanently lowered for
all. A nation must choose whether it will adopt as its national ideal a
spiritual or an earthly bond in Marriage, the seeking in it of a
spiritual unity, or the regarding it as merely a physical union. The one
is the religious idea of Marriage as a Sacrament; the other the
materialistic idea of it as an ordinary terminable contract. The student
of the Lesser Mysteries must ever see in it a sacramental rite.

CHAPTER XIV.

REVELATION.

All the religions known to us are the custodians of Sacred Books, and
appeal to these books for the settlement of disputed questions. They
always contain the teachings given by the founder of the religion, or by
later teachers regarded as possessing super-human knowledge. Even when a
religion gives birth to many discordant sects, each sect will cling to
the Sacred Canon, and will put upon its word the interpretation which
best fits in with its own peculiar doctrines. However widely may be
sep