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THE SPIRITUAL USES OF MARRIAGE.
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is the institution of marriage to be made instrumental in the regeneration of the soul, and in the preparation for that purer and eternal marriage in heaven? What special advantage has a married over an unmarried person in this respect? What is the difference between a married man, striving to obey the commandments of God, and a single man with the same religious spirit and endeavour? The answer will reveal to us the highest spiritual use of marriage.

Let us revert to, or restate, some of our fundamental psychological truths.

Sex, love, and marriage are universal and eternal; and the ideal universe is a universe perfectly married or equilibrated in its male and female elements.

The Lord infuses love or spiritual heat through the feminine form, and wisdom or spiritual light through the masculine form. Heat alone, or light alone, is powerless; combined or married, they produce all things.

Every male form in the universe has a female form, its complement, its eternal and necessary counterpart; and these forms, having specific affinities, are ever striving for union.

The Lord has instituted the marriage of one man with one woman as a means whereby the love of the sex into which we are born shall be changed into the love of one of the sex only, and the marriage of spiritual heat and light, or of love and wisdom, be effected in the soul.

The woman increases in love and communicates it to the man, and the man increases in wisdom and communicates it to the woman, exactly in proportion to their obedience to the divine commandments.