und _in
things, in themselves_, in Nature's plain teaching that the union of
man and his wife was a sacramental fact and therefore indelible.

Are we asked for further evidence of this position? We see it as a law
of our rational being, which refuses to believe that Nature makes no
other provision for us than she does for the animals; that their
instinctive and impulsive association should be the norm of man's
intercourse with woman. Nay, we see Nature herself as she advances to
the higher stages of animal existence anticipating, in a sense, that
ideal which was only to be fully realised in man. The lion, the king
of beasts, as he is called, tends towards that ideal, and the elephant
is believed to be even more strictly monogamous. The loves of birds,
of doves and pigeons, are too well known to need more than a passing
mention, and the grief they experience on the death of their partner
not unfrequently ends in a broken heart. But how much better is man
than many animals, and what is merely instinctive in them shall not he
consciously obey as his acknowledged law of life?

We may see the truth also in Nature's ordinance, that man's offspring
must be educated in order to reach maturity; that training of a serious
character is indispensably necessary to the development of the powers
latent in them. But how is such training possible, except through the
unceasing watchfulness of the parents'? People here and there darken
counsel with the suggestion that the State should assume such
responsibilities. Was there ever such a suggestion? As a matter of
mere finance, we are told by the Vice-President of the Council, that
the assumption of the quite partial responsibility for the education of
the children now taught in the elementary schools of the denominational
bodies of the country, would mean an addition of some millions yearly
to the rates. The education rate is high enough in all conscience, but
where the "hill-top" theory would land us one can scarcely conjecture.
So urgent is this consideration of the claim which offspring has upon
parent, so imperative the need that children should be fittingly
instructed so as to be worthy citizens of a great community, that we
find writers like Karl Pearson, in his _Ethic of Free Thought_,[1]
consistently excepting from the operation of the free-love gospel those
unions which have resulted in the procreation of children. Mr. Pearson
being of the school of those who deride ma