ks of a Sacrament as clearly
and as definitely as do Baptism and the Eucharist. Both the outer sign
and the inward grace are there. The material is the Ring--the circle
which is the symbol of the everlasting. The Word of Power is the ancient
formula, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." The Sign of Power is the joining of hands, symbolising the
joining of the lives. These make up the outer essentials of the
Sacrament.

The inner grace is the union of mind with mind, of heart with heart,
which makes possible the realisation of the unity of spirit, without
which Marriage is no Marriage, but a mere temporary conjunction of
bodies. The giving and receiving of the ring, the pronouncing of the
formula, the joining of hands, these form the pictorial allegory; if the
inner grace be not received, if the participants do not open themselves
to it by their wish for the union of their whole natures, the Sacrament
for them loses its beneficent properties, and becomes a mere form.

But Marriage has a yet deeper meaning; religions with one voice have
proclaimed it to be the image on earth of the union between the earthly
and the heavenly, the union between God and man. And even then its
significance is not exhausted, for it is the image of the relation
between Spirit and Matter, between the Trinity and the Universe. So
deep, so far-reaching, is the meaning of the joining of man and woman in
Marriage.

Herein the man stands as representing the Spirit, the Trinity of Life,
and the woman as representing the Matter, the Trinity of formative
material. One gives life, the other receives and nourishes it. They are
complementary to each other, two inseparable halves of one whole,
neither existing apart from the other. As Spirit implies Matter and
Matter Spirit, so husband implies wife and wife husband. As the abstract
Existence manifests in two aspects, as a duality of Spirit and Matter,
neither independent of the other, but each coming into manifestation
with the other, so is humanity manifested in two aspects--husband and
wife, neither able to exist apart, and appearing together. They are not
twain but one, a dual-faced unity. God and the Universe are imaged in
Marriage; thus closely linked are husband and wife.

It is said above that Marriage is also an image of the union between God
and man, between the universal and the individualised Spirits. This
symbolism is used in all the great scriptures of the wor