'The sins of the fathers shall be
visited on the children,'--and the first and greatest sin is bodily
union without soul-love. It is merely a form of animal desire,--and
from desire alone no good or lofty thing can spring. We are not made
to be 'as the beasts that perish'--though materialists and
sensualists delight in asserting such to be our destiny, in order to
have ground whereon to practise their own vices. This planet, the
earth, is set under our dominion; the beasts are ours to control,--
they do not control us. Our position therefore is one of supremacy.
Let us not voluntarily fall from that position to one even lower
than the level of beasts! The bull, the goat, the pig, are moved by
animal desire alone to perpetuate their kind--but we,--we have a
grander mission to accomplish than theirs--we in our union are not
only responsible for the Body of the next generation to come, but
for the brain, the heart, the mind, and above all the Soul! If we
wed in sin, our children must be born in sin. If we make our
marriages for worldly advantage, vanity, blind desire, or personal
convenience, our children will be moulded on those passions, and
grow up to be curses to the world they live in. Love, and love only
of the purest, truest, and highest kind, must be the foundation of
the marriage Sacrament,--love that is prepared to endure all the
changes of fate and fortune--love that is happy in working and
suffering for the thing beloved--love that counts nothing a
hardship,--neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor poverty, provided it
can keep its faith unbroken!"
He paused--there was a slight stir among the audience, but otherwise
not a sound.
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