and know what is waste, what is vanity, what is the happiness that
begets strength of body and spirit, what is error, where vice begins,
and to avoid and repent and recoil from all those things that degrade.
These are matters not of the rule of life but of the application
of life. They must neither be neglected nor made disproportionally
important.

To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. It
is difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends can
be very fine and close and good unless the two who love are each also
linked to God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and
the changes of years they can be held steadfast by his undying
steadfastness. But it has been felt by many deep-feeling people that
there is so much kindred between the love and trust of husband and wife
and the feeling we have for God, that it is reasonable to consider the
former also as a sacred thing. They do so value that close love of mated
man and woman, they are so intent upon its permanence and completeness
and to lift the dear relationship out of the ruck of casual and
transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it were, into the very
presence and assent of God. There are many who dream and desire that
they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more who would
fain be so, and some who are. And from this comes the earnest desire to
make marriage sacramental and the attempt to impose upon all the world
the outward appearance, the restrictions, the pretence at least of such
a sacramental union.

There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only
after years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by
vows and promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body and
spirit; and it concerns only the two who can dare to say they have it,
and God. And the divine thing in marriage, the thing that is most like
the love of God, is, even then, not the relationship of the man and
woman as man and woman but the comradeship and trust and mutual help
and pity that joins them. No doubt that from the mutual necessities of
bodily love and the common adventure, the necessary honesties and helps
of a joint life, there springs the stoutest, nearest, most enduring and
best of human companionship; perhaps only upon that root can the best of
mortal comradeship be got; but it does not follow that the mere ordinary
coming together and pairing off of men and women is in it