Men, Women, and God

understanding and valuation of love- that beautiful and imperious emotion which masters and transforms both men and women, which is closely linked with the creative instinc

all with comparative ease answer most of the

the depths of his personality, whereby she becomes for him hence forth the center of the world. It may happen that this love comes on the heels of knowledge and grows out of friendship. I believe they are fortunate persons to whom things happen in this way. But it may also be t

ey do uncouth, crude, and clumsy things. They get into muddles. They make mistakes. It would seem that some delicate process of mutual adjustment is often necessary before two souls can really find each other, and while the stumbling preliminary days last, love is often a torture as well as a delight. Nor are the best lovers the

nd sufficient words for it. In their hearts two lovers always know that this is what they were made for- that this is the very core and essence of human existence. I think

some of the manifest c

ir hopes and aspirations, their doubts and fears, their relations to other people, and their various circumstances. They want to know and be known. They want to share everything. Towa

es vigor of all kinds, producing new powers of sheer physical and nervous endurance. What will a man who is truly in love not do for

na?ve habit, because poetry seems a thing incongruous with the ordinary prosaic man, with his baggy trousers and clumsy ways. But for my part I rather incline to thank God that such an impulse should ever disturb the average

hink 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 to

and this wonderful experience, when it does so enter life, is realized as something sacramental. It is literally and exactly an expression in the terms of the body of something which is already a spiritual fact. Nothing satisfies real love except this complete mingling of two personalities. It is not satisfied without physical intimacy, and yet physical intimacy alone is not enough. That which is satisfied by mere physical intimacy is not love. The full human passion which alone deserves that name calls also for intimacies of mind and spirit-for the interplay of two personalities through the whole stretch of their powers. But it cannot be too strongly said that on the terms I have indicated the ultimate bodily union of two lovers is a beautiful and happy thing. It is felt to be something with large spiritual consequences. In some mysterious way it really does bind souls together. Each knows that henceforth he or she is bound to the other

or each other. But from the point when they bend together over a baby's cradle they take a step up in life, and their love becomes a call to service, whereby its selfishness is purged away. Parentage is usually thought of as supremely the crown of a woman's life. So it is, though it is not its only possible crown. But I believe that it is equally the crown of a man's life. It is perhaps true that the production of true fathers belongs to a later stage of human evolution than the production of mothers, for fathers are not so obviously essential to young children. But I hazard the suggestion that one of

till at last they found themselves involved in all the paraphernalia of family life from perambulators to doctor's bills. But there are few men who do not know in their hearts that the toils have been the making of them. If love led only to delights, it would ruin us. It is because it leads also to heavy labor that it makes us. It is because I see this so clearly that I am not so much distressed as some people are over the fact that motherhood also means very hard work. [Footnote: No doubt in our disordered social life it often means far too much work. No do

hristian men say, "Oh, I can't stick it any longer; I want to enjoy myself." We naturally demand that there should be an element of delight somewhere in life. Notoriously it is rather hard to come by. City crowds at night present the spectacle of people making huge and fevered efforts to run delight to earth and often achieving only pitiful failure. I believe the normal way in which delight ought t

idely and fully, and to use as much of our natures as is possible, that is surely as true for two people together as it could be for them apart. And to make a marriage into a great thing both parties to it must work to make it wide in its horizons and worthy because of the multitude of its interests. No sane persons imagine that mere marriage excuses people from the necessity for handling this big, mysterious, and difficult thing which we call human life with vigilance and determination. But life on any terms for the great majority of people must have monotonous and trying period

sex interest so almighty and central in life. We do not understand love till we have thus look

ust how most of us get our chance in life. The people who are going through these experiences are for the most part quiet people. We do not hear about them. They do not have novels written about them, and they supply no copy for the society newspapers. It is the other people who advertise their woes. It is the unhappily married who make a noise. Only the very greatest novelists can make a good novel out of the story of a successful marriage. But apparently almost anyone can produce stories that people will read if only he or she puts in enough highly colored m

struggle worth while-if we are going to find the truth about the way in which to conduct married life, and find any light on the question of birth control, it can only be in relation to the positive truth about love and its manifold reactions on human beings. We s

es the possibility of such a career of experience as I have outlined, and that whatever spoils such exper

ll it yields

pe and

ce o' the prize

be, hath been

isdom is just to conserve at all costs our chance of k

urned

full life, but that for them love has meant only a great longing and a great pain. They could give generously and nobly. They have in them a great wealth of love which they long to spend lavishly; but because he or she remains indifferent they find themse

those who are facing it to allow themselves to become bitter and cynical. It must be hard for them not to feel that many who do enjoy the privilege of mutual love are shamefully ungrateful. And it m

ound by the careless or the cowardly. But those who seek Him earnestly do find Him, and as a sense of His love and His reality steals into the heart healing begins at once. He restores the soul. He fills the hungry. He is sufficient. And when tha

know how to help the weak and comfort the sad, and in whose faces there shines the light of a great and patient faith. Having wondered for a time whence came these great endowments, I have learnt at last that they were prize

tenderness because love unreturned involves a very fiery trial-b