176 



In marriage our church blesses only love, and even 

 only such love as can impel a man to leave his father 

 and his mother ; and without this love the ceremony of 

 marriage is a mere form the dissolution of which as a 

 legal tie should be rendered as easy as possible. 



Another and co llateral question is that of education. 

 The divine dictum 'do unto others as ye would they 

 should do unto you' is the fundament of all right edu- 

 cation, and hence the chief aim of the community in this 

 matter should be to develop in the citizen a sense of his 

 fundamental communal duties of humanity and morality, 

 and together with that the common elements of school 

 learning. Government not only has no right to deny 

 its citizens the privilege of education but it has a clear 

 duty to demand from every father of a family that he 

 should send his sons to school and supply them with 

 a broad humanitarian education, founded on the principle 

 of love to one's neighbour and on knowledge of the na- 

 tural laws of life. 



I have drawn two pictures of family life: the one when 

 a man enters the marriage state on attaining full puberty 

 and maturity; the other when a man leads his early 

 manhood in a state of unblessed singleness in the com- 

 pany of low and unsuitable companions, only in later 

 years offering the ashes of his fires to the partner whom 

 for various and mixed reasons he may select. But it 

 remains to remark that not always even in later years 

 do men of (this latter class select a wife at last. Many 

 pursue the sins of youth into old age, and losing health, 

 and faculty die in madness or premature decay. 



As to the old maids I am modestly silent, remember- 

 ing the old saw 'an old maid is more malicious than 

 the Devil'. Enough may be gathered from the mere exis- 

 tence of such a saying. 



It may be objected that if young folks do wrong and 

 suffer for their deeds they are responsible for their own 

 misfortunes and the laws of nature are outside the 

 question. 



