aker. The Christian road to heaven was laid out and paved, not
by Jesus himself, but by the gentleman he (or a sunstroke) converted
outside Damascus.

Paul was in some respects a better teacher than Jesus. He was more
practical, and with all his misty metaphysics he had a firmer hold on
the realities of life. But with respect to women, he follows dutifully
in his Savior's wake, and elaborates, rather than supplements, the
sexual injunctions we have already dealt with. Like his Master, he looks
down upon marriage, and is evidently of opinion that if men should not
make themselves eunuchs they should live as such, The American Shakers
are only carrying out his policy in this respect. If all the world
imitated them the human race would soon expire. It would then be
impossible to adopt the children of outsiders, families would be
gradually extinguished, and the second coming of Christ would be
prematurely hastened.

Paul was a bachelor, and a crusty one. According to tradition or
calumny, he was jilted by a Jewish woman, and this may account for his
peevish attitude towards the sex. In the seventh chapter of the first
of Corinthians he gives vent to a great deal of nasty nonsense. "It is
good," he says, "for a man not to touch a woman," If he had meant by
this that men were not to thrash their wives we should have thoroughly
agreed with him. But what he means is that there should be no sexual
intercourse. He was especially severe on young widows who contemplated
a second marriage. No doubt if he had seen a young widow whose weeds,
as is generally the case, were arranged coquettishly, he would have
muttered "Anathema Maranatha." As his own constitution was liable to
occasional weaknesses, he might have added, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

A few verses later he expresses himself with greater clearness than
Jesus Christ ever attained to: "I say therefore to the unmarried and
widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot
contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." Paul
wished the same end as Jesus. He desired to see every person celibate,
but having a little more common sense than Jesus, he saw that such
preaching would never be extensively practised (especially by young
widows) and he was obliged to make a concession to human frailty. The
very fact, however, shows that his view of the question was radically
wrong. Marriage is not an excusable weakness, but the normal condition