least since the time of Saul. And hereafter the Christian body, redeemed
from the contagion of the fall, and promoted to a spiritual
impressibility and receptiveness which it has never yet known, is meant
to share in the heavenly joys of the immortal spirit before God. This is
the meaning of the assertion that it is sown a natural (= _soulish_)
body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. In the meantime it must
learn its true function. Whatever stimulates and excites the animal at
the cost of the immortal within, will in the same degree cloud and
obscure the perception that a man's life consisteth not in his
pleasures, and will keep up the illusion that the senses are the true
ministers of bliss. The soul is attacked through the appetites at a
point far short of their physical indulgence. And when lawless wishes
are deliberately toyed with, it is clear that lawless acts are not
hated, but only avoided through fear of consequences. The reins which
govern the life are no longer in the hands of the spirit, nor is it the
will which now refuses to sin. How, then, can the soul be alert and
pure? It is drugged and stupified: the offices of religion are a dull
form, and its truths are hollow unrealities, assented to but unfelt,
because unholy impulses have set on fire the course of nature, in what
should have been the temple of the Holy Ghost.

Moreover, the Christian life is not one of mere submission to authority;
its true law is that of ceaseless upward aspiration. And since the union
of husband and wife is consecrated to be the truest and deepest and most
far-reaching of all types of the mystical union between Christ and His
Church, it demands an ever closer approach to that perfect ideal of
mutual love and service.

And whatever impairs the sacred, mysterious, all-pervading unity of a
perfect wedlock is either the greatest of misfortunes or of crimes.

If it be frailty of temper, failure of common sympathies, an
irretrievable error recognised too late, it is a calamity which may yet
strengthen the character by evoking such pity and helpfulness as Christ
the Bridegroom showed for the Church when lost. But if estrangement,
even of heart, come through the secret indulgence of lawless reverie and
desire, it is treason, and criminal although the traitor has not struck
a blow, but only whispered sedition under his breath in a darkened room.

_THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT._

"Thou shalt not steal."--xx. 15.

There is no co