part in the Eucharist enjoy a partaking of the Christ-life poured out

for men. The transmuting of the lower into the higher is the object of
this, as of all, Sacraments. The changing of the lower force by its
union with the loftier is what is sought by those who participate in it;
and those who know the inner truth, and realise the fact of the higher
life, may in any religion, by means of its sacraments, come into fuller,
completer touch with the divine Life that upholds the worlds, if they
bring to the rite the receptive nature, the act of faith, the opened
heart, which are necessary for the possibilities of the Sacrament to be
realised.

The Sacrament of Marriage shows out the marks of a Sacrament as clearly
and as definitely as do Baptism and the Eucharist. Both the outer sign
and the inward grace are there. The material is the Ring--the circle
which is the symbol of the everlasting. The Word of Power is the ancient
formula, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." The Sign of Power is the joining of hands, symbolising the
joining of the lives. These make up the outer essentials of the
Sacrament.

The inner grace is the union of mind with mind, of heart with heart,
which makes possible the realisation of the unity of spirit, without
which Marriage is no Marriage, but a mere temporary conjunction of
bodies. The giving and receiving of the ring, the pronouncing of the
formula, the joining of hands, these form the pictorial allegory; if the
inner grace be not received, if the participants do not open themselves
to it by their wish for the union of their whole natures, the Sacrament
for them loses its beneficent properties, and becomes a mere form.

But Marriage has a yet deeper meaning; religions with one voice have
proclaimed it to be the image on earth of the union between the earthly
and the heavenly, the union between God and man. And even then its
significance is not exhausted, for it is the image of the relation
between Spirit and Matter, between the Trinity and the Universe. So
deep, so far-reaching, is the meaning of the joining of man and woman in
Marriage.

Herein the man stands as representing the Spirit, the Trinity of Life,
and the woman as representing the Matter, the Trinity of formative
material. One gives life, the other receives and nourishes it. They are
complementary to each other, two inseparable halves of one whole,
neither existing apart from the other. As Spirit implies Matter and
Matter Spirit, so husband implies wife and wife husband. As the abstract
Existence manifests in two aspects, as a duality of Spirit and Matter,
neither independent of the other, but each coming into manifestation
with the other, so is humanity manifested in two aspects--husband and
wife, neither able to exist apart, and appearing together. They are not
twain but one, a dual-faced unity. God and the Universe are imaged in
Marriage; thus closely linked are husband and wife.

It is said above that Marriage is also an image of the union between God
and man, between the universal and the individualised Spirits. This
symbolism is used in all the great scriptures of the world--Hindu,
Hebrew, Christian. And it has been extended by taking the individualised
Spirit as a Nation or a Church, a collection of such Spirits knit into a
unity. So Isaiah declared to Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."[347] So S. Paul wrote that
the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.[348]

If we think of Spirit and Matter as latent, unmanifested, then we see no
production; manifested together, there is evolution. And so when the
halves of humanity are not manifested as husband and wife, there is no
production of fresh life. Moreover, they should be united in order that
there may be a growth of life in each, a swifter evolution, a more rapid
progress, by the half that each can give to each, each supplying what
the other lacks. The twain should be blended into one, setting forth the
spiritual possibilities of man. And they show forth also the perfect
Man, in whose nature Spirit and Matter are both completely developed and
perfectly balanced, the divine Man who unites in his own person husband
and wife, the male and female elements in nature, as "God and Man are
one Christ."[349]

Those who thus study the Sacrament of Marriage will understand why
religions have ever regarded Marriage as indissoluble, and have thought
it better that a few ill-matched pairs should suffer for a few years
than that the ideal of true Marriage should be permanently lowered for
all. A nation must choose whether it will adopt as its national ideal a
spiritual or an earthly bond in Marriage, the seeking in it of a
spiritual unity, or the regarding it as merely a physical union. The one
is the religious idea of Marriage as a Sacrament; the other the
materialistic idea of it as an ordinary terminable contract. The student
of the Lesser Mysteries must ever see in it a sacramental rite.