SUMMABY 205 



when He permits him to open the gate of life to 

 an eternal spirit. It but manifests the immeasur- 

 able destructiveness of sin when by misuse of this 

 privilege man turns the gate of life into the gate 

 of death. We must awaken more and more to 

 a consideration of the ruin of society which is 

 being wrought by the violations of sex relations. 

 By it innocent and unsuspecting brides are subject 

 to irremediable disease and measureless pain ; un- 

 born children are consigned to degeneracy and 

 human infamy, and civilization itself is endan- 

 gered. But to find that the misuse of the highest 

 human function leads to the greatest enormities of 

 misery and shame, is to find as ever in nature that 

 the worst is but the corruption of the best and is 

 no argument against the spiritual normality of 

 the origin of human life. 



We are surprised, again, that a divinely im- 

 planted passion, for the existence of which none 

 but God is responsible, should in its operation be 

 regarded as always in opposition to the divine 

 will, and that the ideal condition of human nature 

 should ever have been considered as that in which 

 this passion is forever negatived and destroyed. 

 To allow this assumption to continue its domi- 

 nance in religious circles is to carry on a continu- 

 ous warfare against the scientific world, which 

 knows, if it knows anything, that the reproduction 

 of individuals of the race is a biologic virtue. We 

 deplore this belief again because of its degrada- 

 tion of the marital life. Marriage is usually 



