Whatever the shortcomings of the middle ages may have been, it possessed a healthy sensuality which sprang from the strong, buoyant nature of the people, and which Christianity could not suppress. The hypocritical prudery and concealed lasciviousness of our day, that fears to call a spade a spade and to speak of natural things in a natural way, was foreign to that age. Neither was it familiar with that piquant ambiguity to which we resort in speaking of what we dare not name, because to be prudish and unnatural has become customary with us, and which is all the more dangerous because such language allures, but does not satisfy, allows us to surmise but does not express clearly. Our social conversations, our novels and our theaters abound with these piquant ambiguities, and their effect is manifested. This spiritualism of the roué, concealed by religious spiritualism, has a powerful influence. CHAPTER V. The Reformation. 1.--Luther. The healthy sensuality of the middle ages found its classic exponent in Luther. We are here not so much concerned with the religious reformer, but with Luther, the man. In regard to all human relations, Luther’s strong, unsophisticated nature clearly manifested itself, and caused him to express freely and without reserve his desire for love and enjoyment. His position as a former Roman clergyman had opened his eyes and had taught him from experience how contrary to all the laws of nature were the lives of monks and nuns. Therefore he roundly condemned the celibacy of priests and monks. Luther says: “Unless specially endowed by a rare, divine grace, a woman can no more dispense with a man, than she can dispense with food, drink, sleep and other natural needs. In the same way a man cannot do without a woman. The cause is that the desire to propagate the race is as deeply implanted by nature as the desire for food and drink. Therefore God has given unto the human body limbs, veins, circulation and all that serves this end. He who opposes this, and will not let nature take her course, what does he do but seek to prevent nature from being nature, fire from burning, water from moistening, human beings from eating, drinking and sleeping?” In his sermon on marriage, he says: “Just as it is not within my power not to be a man, so it is not in thy power to do without a man, for it is not free will or advice but a natural necessity that every man must have a woman and that every woman must have a man.” But Luther does not only express himself so strongly in favor of marriage and the necessity of sexual relations, he also expresses himself as opposed to it that the church and marriage should have anything in common. He says in regard to this: “Know that marriage is something extrinsic as any other worldly action. As I may eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride and deal with any heathen, Jew, Turk or heretic, ~so to one of these I may also become and remain married. Do not observe the laws of fools that forbid such marriages.~...