Balzac in his wonderfully beautiful story of "Seraphita" brings out the thought of a man and woman of very high spiritual development begetting a child, the parents passing away on the ninth anniversary of the child's birth. The great central idea is that the souls of the father and mother unite in the life of the child, and when the child has grown to maturity, men fall in love with the feminine nature, and women fall in love with the masculine nature, but the united soul has need of neither. The idea as thus set forth is worthy of serious consideration; in fact, the union, or marriage, of soul with soul is one that should command far greater attention than it does command at the present time. Marriage, without doubt, is the greatest event in this earthly life of man or woman; it is a sacrament fraught with happiness, with all that is highest and noblest in life; or it is a base counterfeit wherein sorrow and degradation usurp the place of the highest and holiest thoughts and emotions of mind and soul.

A thousand other questions of far less importance occupy the minds of the people, but this question which is of the most vital importance to man's well-being, is kept in the background. Children are brought up so wo-fully ignorant that they have no conception of what awaits them in the married life. The whole subject of the relation between man and woman is tabooed; it is as tho people were ashamed to think or give expression in words to things which, altho sacred, nevertheless should be thoroughly understood.

Some people go on the principle that the young will find out soon enough, but it is surely a mistaken policy on the part of parents to keep their children in ignorance of the many problems that await them in wedded life. Some little light, some little knowledge might avert many tragedies that so often arise in the married life. Is experience the only teacher or can we profit by the mistakes of others?

In this question, as in every other, we must take into consideration the three planes of development, and that marriage differs, in a sense, on each plane.

On the physical plane there is little besides the desire for reproduction, and the purely sensuous desires; and if nature's laws are observed, comparative peace and happiness are the result. The requirements of the physical plane are so limited that there is less liability to mental friction and discord than on the intellectual plane, where there is greater diversity of thought. Two souls uniting on this higher plane, having the same desires and aspirations, should blend harmoniously together, but too often the aspirations and desires are so wide apart that there is no oneness of thought or purpose, and there is failure to understand each other. We find on this plane far more unhappy marriages than on the physical and spiritual planes; one reason being, that on the physical there is a purely physical basis for marriage, and on the spiritual plane there is a purely spiritual basis, while on the intellectual plane a hundred things may act as controlling influences to marriage. Man here is torn by many and conflicting desires - social ambition, ambition influenced by wealth, intellectual greatness, distinction in any part in life, and other considerations without number.

It makes little difference how much two people may desire to do right, if they are not at one in heart and mind they can not enter into sympathetic relations, they can not become mutually helpful. Failure to understand each other begets a discordant mental state, which, instead of being lessened, is increased as time goes on.

All spiritual marriage has God as its foundation; that is, has love as its basis. Here, as on the physical plane, there is only one basis for marriage. The marriages on the two planes below are the unions for time. Spiritual marriages are the marriages for eternity. For two souls uniting and blending as one through the power of love there can be no separation, either in time or eternity. Whom God hath joined together, no man can put asunder. They were created one in the beginning; there is no chance or haphazard in God's plan. There is a spiritual affinity between the soul of man and the soul of woman. Only one thing will disclose this affinity - the power of pure and unselfish love in the souls of both. No animal desire, no earthly consideration; love and love alone - love that thinketh no evil, love that suffereth long and is kind, love that flows from the soul of the universe into the soul of man, this is the undying factor in all real marriage. Man may not annul this or set it aside, and all that man can do through rite or ceremonial shall not add to it.

Some have come falsely to believe that the ceremonial constitutes the marriage, and the Church has rather seemed to foster this idea than to make plain that marriage in its truest sense had to do with heart and mind more, than anything or everything else.

The question may arise in many minds as to whether union on the first two planes constitutes real marriage. Under certain circumstances, and with certain limitations, the answer would be in the affirmative. The circumstance which would tend to real marriage would be the harmonious conditions - the ability resulting from the union to understand each other, the desires and aspirations in common whereby they could enter into each other's lives. The limitation would come from failure to discern the higher law, from the lack of spiritual development, and from placing hopes and desires in externals, so that there would be little influx from the love-nature which tends to unify and free the lives of both from worldly selfishness. Such marriage, however, may find perfect fulfilment and continuation in time and eternity.

Sorrow and unhappiness might be avoided to a marked degree in the marriage relation upon the lower planes of development if harmony were made one of the chief considerations of the union, and selfish considerations, in so far as it were possible, kept in the' background. Two people thoroughly harmonious before marriage would be quite likely to remain so after, but there is little prospect, where lack of harmony exists before the union, that it should develop afterward.

No one should be deceived by the thought that things are going to adjust themselves after marriage when they do not adjust during courtship. There is a glamour about courtship which too often hides defects and inconsistencies that only become really known after marriage. There is some little excuse for this mental condition, but there is no excuse for two people who can not agree and who are jealous or fault-finding with each other during courtship, yet who, nevertheless, enter into the marriage relation. Occasionally we find women who think that it is their duty to marry a man in order to reform him. To such I would say, reform him first and marry him afterward. This is your only hope, for in taking away the incentive of marriage you only make it the more difficult for him to change his established habits in life.

Parents make very grievous mistakes when they are thoughtful regarding worldly advantages and thoughtless about the advantages which would make their children really happy. Their own experience should show them the better way. No real marriage can have for its foundation lust, the desire for social position, money, or any worldly acquisition. God never sanctions such marriages, neither has He delegated His authority to man to make such unions sacred. Marriage is sacred only when it is whole, complete. Man's law may sanction and uphold, but sorrow, shame and degradation must be the end of all such unholy marriages.

Throughout the universe harmony is the key-note of obedience to law, and where there is no harmony there can be no conformity to law. Many people who believe themselves to be in accord with the law of God would continue to perpetuate these unholy alliances by saying: "Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." Contending for the sacredness of the marriage rite, they violate such sacredness by prolonging a condition which is absolutely untenable and contrary to the law of the universe. All other mistakes in life we are told to correct, to substitute a true condition for a false one; but no matter how great the mistake two persons make in marrying, such a mistake, the divinely appointed say, must not and shall not be corrected.

Thus do men set at naught the laws of God, making of marriage a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. There are degrees of love on every plane, because God is made manifest on every plane. Then let love and harmony, as understood on the varying planes of existence, be the God-uniting power that shall link man and woman in the oneness of life. Such unions will result in happy homes, and children, seeing and feeling the harmony and love of father and mother, will greatly profit by their example. The world to-day is demanding the solution of this mystery; it can not be set aside, no matter how much the ultra-conservative religionists may desire it. Their efforts to set aside will only cause the pendulum to swing far in the other direction where extreme radicalism may result in licentiousness, or conditions more unrighteous and contrary to law and order than the unholy marriages of the present.

No problem ever presents itself to man without a way of solving it. The solution of this one, however, will be found not in the do-nothing attitude, or in saying, "Let well enough alone," but through a strong desire to know God's law in relation to it, and through knowing how to bring the life into conformity with it. Let us study God's revealed will, because this will is revealed to a far greater extent, even at the present, than most people think or care to know. When we realize the truth about the real meaning of marriage and all that it stands for, its sacred import and the joy and peace it brings when consummated in accord with divine law, the question will no longer be asked: "Is marriage a failure?" because marriage will be known as it truly is - the crowning act of life, wherein two souls unite and become one, wherein love and wisdom join hands; the at-one-ment wherein the soul becomes one with the universal soul.