Man and Woman - Page 2

Divine sun mirror themselves in the clear waters; and if night, chill and drear, draws its darkening curtain around them, soon the silver moon of a trusting faith floods them with a gentle radiance, and bright stars of intelligence gild the night's darkness, and they patiently await the dawn of an eternal day, when their joyous waters will again flow in the sunshine of heaven."

"When the Lord in His Divine Providence brings the two together, in this life, that were created the one for the other, their union is wrought out by slow degrees. The false and evil is to be put off before the Divine life can ultimate itself--an unceasing regeneration is going on--a purifying from self-love is the daily life of two partners. The wisdom which the man has from the Lord, and the love which the woman has from Him, are ever seeking conjunction. But the false and the evil that clings to every earthly being is constantly warring against this Heavenly union; in conjugial partners, hell is opposed to heaven, and it is only by a steady looking to the Lord, that Heavenly love can be preserved. The Lord opens the inmost degree of thought and feeling in the two, and elevates their love to higher planes, and thus increases their joys and felicities; and when it is a true spiritual love, an entire union of heart and mind, then the two have entered heaven, and enjoy its beautiful blessedness even while their material bodies yet dwell upon this coarse outer world.

"How wonderful is the wisdom of the Lord! How blessed is His love, in thus creating two that they may become a one! The sympathy, the gentle affection, the loving tender confidence, that, like magnetic thrills, makes one conscious of the inmost life of the other, gives a charm--a fulness of satisfaction--a serene blessedness to existence, that no isolated being can possibly conceive of, let external circumstances be what they may.

"Conjugial love is independent of external circumstances; it is heaven-derived, and receives nothing from the earth. It gives heavenly joy to all of its surroundings. It is that glorious inner sunshine of life, that blesses the poor man as boundlessly as the rich. And how beautiful it is for two to realize that time and space have nothing to do with their union. In each other they see eternity; they know from whence their emotions flow, and know that the fountain is Infinite. The Lord is the beginning and end; to them, the first and the last. They live in Him, from Him, and to Him. They love only His Divine image in each other; they seek to do good to others, as organs of His Divine life. He is the glory and blessedness of their whole being.

"And if such blissful emotions can be realized in this cold, hard, ungenial, outer life, what must it be when the two pass into the conscious presence of the Divine Father, and behold each other not in angular material forms, and dead material light, but in the Divine light of