Viewed in the light in which Theology has held the sex relation, the paroxysms which are ascribed to St. Catherine of Sienna, and to the Holy Mechthild and other saints, have in them something decidedly obnoxious; while, if we take the premise that these saints, by virtue of prayer, aspiration, and intended sacrifice of the mortal self to an ideal, transmuted their sex-nature from the physical to the spiritual, then indeed, we have an approach to a mighty truth, which is at once both explanatory and satisfying. St. Catherine is referred to as "the mystic bride;" and Jesus Christ, to whom she was "espoused" (using the terminology which the Church prefers, as suggesting a less physical union than the word "married") was the "bride-groom;" more than that; she declared that she was married with a ring, set with precious stones; just like any other betrothal or wedding ring. Always in these recitals we find the phraseology which lovers employ when exalting the loved one above the world. The term "My Beloved" is singularly universal, and seems to spring involuntarily to the lips of the lover when his love is of the quality that reverences; adores; and exalts its object. And it is equally foreign to the lips of the dilettante lover. To their credit be it said, the love which the saints developed within themselves, by dint of their attempts to exalt celibacy in an age of sexual profligacy, is none the less human love; it is human love spiritualized, exalted, and transmuted from the plane of the animal to that of the soul. This transmutation is in fact responsible for the intensity, the absorbing power of the love which thrilled them into such an ecstacy that in most instances they became lost in the bliss of the emotions excited by the inward flow of their sex nature, and were totally unfitted to take part in the outer, or so-called practical life. Such, for example, was Saint Teresa, of whom William James, in his "Varieties of Religious Experience," says: "Her idea of religion seems to have been that of an endless amatory flirtation--if one may say so without irreverence--between the devotee and the Deity." Although this estimate of St. Theresa's saintliness will doubtless be shocking to the people who think they are pious, we take an optimistic view of it, and suggest that the saint's idea of religion is far more satisfying than that usually presented as saintliness. St. Theresa, like most of the female saints, became "the bride of Christ"--the _man_ Jesus, the Christ, let it be remembered.