It is not by chance that
courting couples go to church. They do _not_ go simply to whisper in
the gallery, and if they do hold hands during the sermon I do not think
that God is ill pleased. They go because the inspiration of love
inclines them to long after God. Of course it does. All love is of God,
and this special kind bears openly upon it the marks of its divine
origin. And while on the one hand it is true that love leads towards
religion, it is equally true that without a sense of things spiritual
love cannot be its perfect self. Perhaps the commonest cause of the
failure of love lies in some arrest of spiritual development. For when
the soul is asleep, what is left of love is a poor thing.
5. And then, fifthly, at some point in its growth love summons passion
into life. What has been hitherto an emotion of the heart becomes also
a tumultuous activity of the whole being, and love having mastered the
whole incarnate nature of each in turn drives the two together in that
oneness of the flesh which is the decree of God. No doubt it is just
here that the compulsions of civilized society set a serious problem
for ardent lovers.
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