"On the other hand, it is equally false to assume that this legal or so-called religious tie has any necessary spiritual significance; and while at the present day the bond is often held too lightly, there are some, who, conscious of nobler feelings and aspirations, regard wedlock as a divine union of souls. This view, though correct as an ideal, finds too seldom its realization; hence arises no little confusion of ideas and much unnecessary trouble of heart. The scoffers ask, with the Sadducees of old, which man’s wife shall such a one be in the resurrection, forgetting that the body is nothing, and that the passions of the body are nothing but the trivialities of a transitory condition. Such things are intended to seem important to us whilst on earth; and bear an apparent significance out of all proportion to their spiritual importance. Thus we live in a world full of heaven-sent delusions. No observation of other lives can destroy them, for each man or woman must learn the lesson by experience. "Think of all that has been written and all that has been said about love, and yet how year by year we see the same picture reproduced. When first a girl attracts a youth, or may be a man of mature years, what are his feelings? If only he can get her to consent to be his wife, he believes that his whole existence must be changed to one of joy; that in her company all other interests will be as nothing; that it must be impossible to tire of her presence, to be a moment absent from her without pain, that they will in fact continue lovers to the end. If he looks round on his married acquaintances it is nothing to him that he can find no such state of existence; others can never have felt as he feels, for no one had like cause. He may be half conscious that he is being tricked by his emotions, but he prefers not to question his mind on the subject. Nature is too strong for reason, and having her work to accomplish, fulfils her mission." I was surprised to hear Sydney speaking in this way, and interrupted him by asking if he did not believe in the possibility of an enduring and true love on earth.