ollows this union and the abiding glory therein," is the inevitable
and logical sequential answer.

An _abiding_ glory must be founded upon spiritual substantiability.
Transmutation is not synonymous with, extinction, or elimination, or
abandonment. We _transmute_ the lower into the higher, the exterior
into the interior, the physical into the spiritual. This is the sum
and substance of the "Ancient Wisdom."

There is no eccentric change or transition from one phase or plane of
life, into another. It is neither logical nor justifiable to assume
that Sex is limited to the physical, or the astral or the psychic, or
any other specific planes of consciousness. These planes are not
distinctively separable anyway. They are merely _names_ which we use
to distinguish degrees, or limitations of consciousness.

The statement that the "two halves are reunited" is almost invariably
misinterpreted to imply an annihilation, or absorption of
individuality, into some sort of vaporous, formless, sexless Thing;
but why this should be so misconstrued is a puzzle, any more than that
bringing together the two halves of an orange which had been divided,
would result in the destruction of that edible; or any more than
bringing together a glove fitting the right hand and its mate fitting
the left hand, would destroy the shape and usefulness of this article.
The comparison may be a homely one, but it is understandable.

It takes two to make a pair. Mistake it not, and further, there is no
_abiding glory_ in this world or in the next or in any other sphere,
that is not founded upon the deep, intense and eternal love of man and
woman.

CHAPTER IX

WHAT CONSTITUTES SEX IMMORALITY?

The average mind, nurtured in apprehensive awe of that race fetish
called Public Opinion, is inordinately afraid of words.

"Atheist," "infidel," "ungodly" are epithets which have been used as
mental clubs, with temporary effect, to beat back the wave of
religious and scientific Rationalism, which punctuated the last
century.

These words have now lost much of their terror, even to the
undeveloped consciousness of the average, because it has been shown
that the God-idea which rational thought fain would substitute for the
old revengeful Deity, has not annihilated the world, but quite to the
contrary has resulted in a happier and higher ideal of godhood than
that which the early Church postulated.

Ep