in voice, appearance, and mind. They spoke like
men, a slender beard commenced on their faces, a masculine manner was
conspicuous in all their motions, and every thought of sexual love
passed away for ever. These are the results in every case. What do they
signify? Undoubtedly that the passion of love is dependent upon the
capacity of having offspring, and that such was the intention of Nature
in implanting in our bosom this all-powerful sentiment.

But this is not all. Nature, as beneficent to those who obey her
precepts as she is merciless to those who disregard them, has added to
this sentiment of love a physical pleasure in its gratification,--an
honourable and proper pleasure, which none but the hypocrite or the
ascetic will affect to condemn, none but the coarse or the lewd will
regard as the object of love. There is, indeed, a passion which is the
love of the body. We call it by its proper name of _lust_. There is
another emotion, for which the rich tongue of the ancient Greeks had a
word, to which we have nothing to correspond. Call it, if you will,
Platonic love, and define it to be an exalted friendship. But understand
that neither the one nor the other is _love_, in the true sense of the
word, and that _both_ are inferior to it.

Does the father, watching, with moistened eyes, his child at its
mother's breast; does the husband, bending with solicitude over the
sick-bed of his wife; does the wife, clinging to her husband through
evil report and good report, through broken fortunes and failing health,
indicate no loftier emotion than _lust_, no warmer sentiment than
_friendship_? What ignorance, what perversity is so gross as not to
perceive something here nobler than either? Do you say that such scenes
are, alas, rare? We deny it. We see them daily in the streets; we meet
them daily in our rounds. Admitted, by our calling, to the sacred
precincts of many houses in the trying hours of sickness and death, we
speak advisedly, and know that this is the prevailing meaning of love in
domestic life.

A warm, rich affection blesses the one who gives and the one who
receives. Character developes under it as the plant beneath the
sunlight. Happiness is an unknown word without it. Love and marriage are
the only normal conditions of life. Without them, both man and woman for
ever miss the best part of themselves. They suffer more, they sin more,
they perish sooner. These are not hasty assertions. As a social law, let