poets, “is a pleasure; to love her when dead is an act of religion.”(698) In the case of men, the propriety of abstaining from second marriages was probably not felt so strongly as in the case of women, and what feeling on the subject existed was chiefly due to another motive—affection for the children, whose interests, it was thought, might be injured by a stepmother.(699) The sentiment which thus recoiled from second marriages passed with a vastly increased strength into ascetic Christianity, but it was based upon altogether different grounds. We find, in the first place, that an affectionate remembrance of the husband had altogether vanished from the motives of the abstinence. In the next place, we may remark that the ecclesiastical writers, in perfect conformity with the extreme coarseness of their views about the sexes, almost invariably assumed that the motive to second or third marriages must be simply the force of the animal passions. The Montanists and the Novatians absolutely condemned second marriages.(700) The orthodox pronounced them lawful, on account of the weakness of human nature, but they viewed them with the most emphatic disapproval,(701) partly because they considered them manifest signs of incontinence, and partly because they regarded them as inconsistent with their doctrine that marriage is an emblem of the union of Christ with the Church. The language of the Fathers on this subject appears to a modern mind most extraordinary, and, but for their distinct and reiterated assertion that they considered these marriages permissible,(702) would appear to amount to a peremptory condemnation. Thus—to give but a few samples—digamy, or second marriage, is described by Athenagoras as “a decent adultery.”(703) “Fornication,” according to Clement of Alexandria, “is a lapse from one marriage into many.”(704) “The first Adam,” said St. Jerome, “had one wife; the second Adam had no wife. They who approve of digamy hold forth a third Adam, who was twice married, whom they follow.”(705) “Consider,” he again says, “that she who has been twice married, though she be an old, and decrepit, and poor woman, is not deemed worthy to receive the charity of the Church. But if the bread of charity is taken from her, how much more that bread which descends from heaven!”(706) “Digamists,” according to Origen, “are saved in the name of Christ, but are by no means crowned by him.”(707) “By this text,” said St. Gregory Nazianzen, speaking of St. Paul’s comparison of marriage to the union of Christ with the Church, “second marriages seem to me to be reproved. If there are two Christs there may be two husbands or two wives. If there is but one Christ, one Head of the Church, there is but one flesh—a second is repelled. But if he forbids a second, what is to be said of third marriages? The first is law, the second is pardon and indulgence, the third is iniquity; but he who exceeds this number is manifestly