language I have quoted from lawyer, historian and statesman. We have seen already that there is need to guard against the attractive mistake of supposing that the New Testament contains a clear and final determination of the practical problems connected with marriage.
Reading back into the text of the Gospels and the Epistles the conclusions which Christians have reached at the close of nearly two millenniums of experience, and which must assuredly be held to represent the guidance of the Spirit of God, we are able to find in the New Testament the authoritative statements of the Christian law; but when we examine the sacred text as historical students, and trace the effect which those statements have had on the life of Christians, we are perforce led to the conclusion that they were not, and were not understood to be, what we have been accustomed to think.
The Christian religion, indeed, included a conception of human nature, and of human
