‘That is a very wild view, Mr. Smith, and not sanctioned by the Church,’ said Argemone, severely. (Curious and significant it is, how severe ladies are apt to be whenever they talk of the Church.)
‘In plain historic fact, the early fathers and the middle-age monks did not sanction it: and are not they the very last persons to whom one would go to be taught about marriage? Strange! that people should take their notions of love from the very men who prided themselves on being bound, by their own vows, to know nothing about it!’
‘They were very holy men.’
‘But still men, as I take it. And do you not see that Love is, like all spiritual things, only to be understood by experience—by loving?’
‘But is love spiritual?’
‘Pardon me, but what a question for one who believes that “God is love!”’
‘But the divines tell us that the love of human beings is earthly.’
‘How did they know? They had never tried. Oh, Miss Lavington! cannot you see that in those barbarous and profligate ages of the later empire, it was impossible for men to discern the spiritual beauty of marriage, degraded as it had been by heathen brutality? Do you not see that there must have been a continual tendency in the minds of a celibate clergy to look with contempt, almost with spite, on pleasures which were forbidden to them?’
Another pause.
‘It must be very delicious,’ said Argemone, thoughtfully, ‘for any one who believes it, to think that marriage can last through eternity. But, then, what becomes of entire love to God? How can we part our hearts between him and his creatures?’