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sent should not be withheld, the condition of postponement only need be insisted on, a concession readily obtained in most cases. Then situations should be contrived, calculated to bring before the eyes of the deluded girl those qualities in her lover, which, odious to everyone else, will soon end by becoming so to herself.[1] It should be remembered that the most ardent love of which a woman is capable is readily abandoned if of and by herself she discovers that the soul and the heart are not in relation with the outside which has attracted her, if reason has had time to weigh the real value of the object. She then abandons her lover fully and completely. She may still cherish the ideal with which she had invested him, she may even mourn its loss with a grief bordering upon the tragic, but she rarely fails to search for it elsewhere, and her heart is none the worse for the encounter.
It were easy to accumulate evidence of our assertion, that only Christian marriages can be permanently happy. This we think has been already sufficiently shown in these pages from the records of past ages which teem with the proofs. Not only do all pagan authorities and the pages of the Old Testament attest it, but through the centuries of the Christian era, in proportion as man rejects the salutary influence of woman, the human race is rude and savage, and in exact relation to the weakening or dilution of the Christian religion, is the reduction of marriage to the mere carnal association where Adonis is invited to the wedding instead of Christ, Venus instead of His Blessed Mother. Such inevitably bring disappointments, regrets, and loss of love. This is altogether what might be expected from the Divine nature of the contract, as in all his religious relations man is constantly taught both by precept and experience that only the grace of God can keep him true to his obligations
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