these good people wish to intend
the domination of the ideas of their own time over all the past and into
all the future. Marriage seems to them an everlasting institution, a
godly regulation, through which they can lend to their individual bias,
the dignity of that which is humanly purest and highest. Consequently it
also seems to them that the present form of marriage and its
accompanying conditions for motherhood, resting as these do on the
mutual consent of God and man, that these are to be in all eternity the
permanent form of sex relation.

But when we stop one moment only, to free ourselves from preconceived
and obsolete ideas, and look at motherhood and marriage from the calm
and unprejudiced standpoint of historical development and growth, how
differently do these in reality appear. Many advanced thinkers have done
this, and their views have here and there found adherents. Not so,
however, with the average seeker for light and truth, who if he wish to
succeed must stem the tide of prejudiced opinion.

But the day has come when, if all signs do not fail, spring is here, and
a thousand and one buds of promise are pushing toward the light, when a
wider and saner understanding of motherhood and marriage is at hand. And
it is not an untimely spring either, not one which the treacherous sun
of January calls forth only to blight with later snow and frost. No, it
is the real light and life-giving spring, which comes when the sap
begins to run, when the sun calls up smoky mists from out the brown
earth, ready to enclose the seed, which shall bring forth summer flowers
and autumn fruits.

And this same brown, misty earth, what a different aspect shall she
present to her children, for whom conditions are so changed, with truer
sex relations, encompassing the ethical and spiritual needs of the free
individual. Then only will it be _possible_ to base these needs and
demands on the surrounding world of realities filled with material and
spiritual phenomena.

But first it must be proven that the present form of marriage and its
effect on motherhood is not necessarily permanent, but, like all else,
subject to natural development and change. What indeed is the much
talked of marriage bond of to-day,--which is considered the cornerstone
of both Church and State? Is it something towards which the steps of
development in nature and history all go? No seriously minded person
could in truth make such a statement. In the plant a