er by the inviolable law of spiritual
counterpart, no multitudinous set of man-made laws can keep their
souls apart, although these codes may temporarily separate them in the
flesh. The bonds of true matrimony are "holy"--the word meaning whole;
entire; complete; but these bonds are of an interior nature; they may
be judged only from the interior nature of two persons; and any
attempt to decide this all-important question from the standpoint of
exterior judgment must fail.

The perfect union of the one man and the one woman is the highest
ideal of marriage of which we can conceive; but shall we for that
reason insist that marriage as a social institution is always complete
and holy? When two immature persons come together under the stimulus
of no more complementary impulse than the blind force of chemical
attraction and cohesion--an instinct, which we share in common with
every form of life, from the lowest insect to man--shall they be
compelled to abide by that act "as long as they both shall live" in
the physical body?

We would say, "Heaven forbid!" only that the appeal is unnecessary.
Heaven does forbid, and that is why we see so many attempts to disrupt
these immature relationships.

"The striving of sexual elements through affinities, or passional
attractions, after congenial marriage unions, is the cause of all the
motions, growths, and activities in the physical and moral world,"
says a writer, and he adds: "The failure to attain the desired end,
and the warfare between uncongenial and repulsive elements is the
cause of all the broken equilibriums, discords, and collisions in both
spheres. If the atomic marriage in nature were perfect, there would be
no storms or droughts, or poisons or monstrosities, or disease. If the
marriage between the individual will and understanding, between the
interior and exterior life, were perfect, we should have regenerated
men upon earth, worthy to be called sons of God. If the marriage
between the sexes were perfect, we should have a Social Paradise."

Marriage, then, in the sense of the conjugal union of two persons of
opposite sex, is the most important function of our lives; every other
activity is subsidiary to it. Commerce is carried on, only because of
this union; all the laws of man are the outgrowth of marriage; all
morality comes from the ideal marriage--the union of Wisdom and Love.
To imagine that a function, so vitally important to our exterior life,
should have