does not exist.

The State depends upon the

family, and the family depends upon marriage. Now, marriage, as it is still found in Europe, is mainly the creation of Christianity. Wordsworth gave utterance to no poetical fancy, but to the exact truth, when he sang of "pure religion breathing household laws." What will become of marriage, and of that virtue of purity of which it is the guardian, when the new religion imposes its ethics on the world, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is superseded by the Gospel of the Revolution?

Let us ever remember that the first law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is self-denial: conformity to the mind of the Master, who pleased not Himself: the taking up of His cross: the immolation thereon of the flesh, with its affections and lusts. As I have written elsewhere:

"There can be no question at all that Christianity presented itself to the decadent and moribund civilisation of the Roman Empire as an ascetic doctrine: a doctrine of abstinence, not only from the things which it branded as positively sinful, but from things in themselves licit. The world-which St. John exhorts his disciples not to love, because the love of it is incompatible with the love of the Father, which he describes as lying in the wicked one, which over and over again in the New Testament the disciples of Christ are bidden to forsake and overcome, and which (such is the vitality of phrases) stands even in our own day for the complete antithesis of the Church-is the present visible frame of things, doomed, as these early preachers believed, soon to pass away with the lust thereof; the flesh-in which St. Paul declared no good thing to dwell, which it was his daily endeavour to keep under and bring into subjection-is the whole of man's lower or animal nature. Whatever is doubtful, this is clear. And to those who do not

1. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PURITY.

93

admit it we may say, without discourtesy, that, whether through ignorance or prejudice, they are so hopelessly in the dark on this matter as to render any argument with them regarding it mere waste of time. The principle, then, which transformed the individual by the renewing of his mind, was the principle of self-sacrifice. And this was the principle which transformed society."*

Now, the teaching of Christianity about the virtue of purity rests upon the asceticism which is so essential a part of that religion. To live out one's impulses with no restraints, save those imposed by prudential moderation, was the highest counsel of that ancient naturalism which deified and worshipped the passion of desire. The precept of St. Peter is ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν σαρκικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν: “ to abstain from fleshly lusts"; and the reason he gives for such abstinence is, that they "war against the soul." "Bonum est homini mulierem non tangere" writes St. Paul. It is a counsel of perfection, given only to those who are able to receive it. To the multitude, whose lives are led upon the lower levels of humanity, marriage is conceded propter fornicationem, or, as the Anglican Nuptial Service puts it, correctly interpreting the unbroken Christian tradition of fifteen centuries; "that those who have not the gift of continence might keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body." It is conceded, and it is transformed. From a mere civil contract it becomes " magnum sacramentum," holy and indissoluble: the curb of man's lawless

appetite and the bulwark of woman's fragile honour. There can be no question at all that upon this ascetic treatment of the most potent and deeply rooted of man's instincts, Christian civilisation is based. It has been well observed by a learned writer:

"When [Christianity] began its great work, not only was the unity of marriage broken by repudiation of the bond and perpetual violation of its sanctity, but in the background of all civilised life lurked a host of abominations, all tending to diminish the fertility of the human race, and to destroy life in its beginning and in its progress... [The Church] succeeded not only in rolling back the tide of pollution, but in establishing the basis of all social life, the unity and indissolubility of marriage. . . . . The power of a sacrament had silently been insinuated into the decayed, the almost pulverised foundations of social life, and built them up with the solidity of a rock, which would bear the whole superstructure of the city of God."*

Let us turn now to the new gospel, and see what is its teaching upon this matter of such ineffable importance to society. Mr. Morley, in a passage of his Voltaire, very clearly indicates the attitude of the Revolution towards what he calls "the mediæval superstition about purity." The adjective "mediæval" is, I suppose, rather vituperative than descriptive, the "superstition" in question being an essential part of Christianity, and no more peculiar to the Middle Ages than to any other period in the history of that religion:

"The peculiarity of the licence of France in the middle of the eighteenth century is, that it was looked upon with complacency by

* Formation of Christendom, by T. W. Allies, vol. i. † Voltaire, p. 152.

III.] PURITY AND "THE PROGRESSIVE FORMULA." 95

the great intellectual leaders of opinion. It took its place in the progressive formula. What austerity was to other forward movements, licence was to this. It is not difficult to perceive how so extraordinary a circumstance came to pass. Chastity was the supreme virtue in the eyes of the Church, the mystic key to Christian holiness. Continence was one of the most sacred of the pretensions by which the organised preachers of superstition claimed the reverence of men and women. It was identified, therefore, in a particular manner with that Infamous against which the main assault of the time was directed. So men contended, more or less expressly, first, that continence was no commanding chief among virtues, then that it was a very superficial and easily practised virtue, finally that it was no virtue at all, but if sometimes a convenience, generally an impediment to free human happiness."*

Quite in accordance with these views of the apostles and evangelists of the Revolution, Mr. Morley declares "the Catholic ideal of womanhood no more adequate to the facts of life than Catholic views about science, or property, or labour, or

* Voltaire, p. 149. "The progressive formula," in its application to the relations of the sexes, must, I suppose, be considered to have been fully realised by the law of the 20th of September, 1792, which made of marriage a contract terminable at the pleasure of either party, and, in fact, reduced it to mere concubinage. By way of complement to this legislation the Convention decreed, on the 2nd of November in the same year, that natural children should be on the same footing as legitimate in the matter of succession. The words of Cambacérès, in recommending this change, are so significant that it may be worth while to cite them. "Il ne peut y avoir deux sortes de paternité, et nul intérêt ne peut prévaloir sur les droits du sang. Ce serait faire injure à des législateurs sans préjugé que d'oser croire qu'ils fermeront l'oreille à la voix incorruptible de la nature, pour consacrer à la fois et la tyrannie de l'habitude et les erreurs des jurisconsultes."

political order or authority." He lifts up his testimony against "the mutilating hand of religious asceticism," and in another place, using the same significant phrase, he declares that "every branch of the Church, from the oldest to the youngest and crudest, has in its degree afflicted and retarded mankind" with "mutilation." He cites approvingly Diderot's opinion, that "what they call evangelical perfection is only the mischievous art of stifling Nature."§ Apparently Diderot is for Mr. Morley a special authority upon this subject. He assures us that this indescribably filthy writer, and no less filthy liver, "was keenly alive to the beauty of order [in the relations of the sexes] and domestic piety." There can be no room for the impression that Mr. Morley is poking fun at us. He is nothing if not serious. The judicious reader is therefore driven to the conclusion that the Revolutionary conception of order in the relations of the sexes must be identical with the Christian conception of disorder. "This may be new-fashioned modesty," exclaims poor Mr. Hardcastle; "but I never saw

*Diderot, vol. i. p. 76. I trust I may, without offence, intimate my doubt whether Mr. Morley is very accurately informed regarding "Catholic views about science, or property, or labour, or political order, or authority."

† Rousseau, vol. i. p. 16.

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 278.

§ Diderot, vol. i. p. 13.

|| Ibid. vol. ii. p. 22. At page 34 Diderot is described as "in intention, a truly scientific moralist."