- mand for gratification continues. The same principles
apply to the marriage relation. True conjugal love never changes. It can never change, because it must rest upon an unchangeable basis. The mode of begetting offspring must be as enduring as the race. The demand, therefore, will be as imperative as the necessity, and hence the desire for offspring must be as deep and fundamental as the soul itself.
The law of procreation demands that in view of the great end to be accomplished, those who unite in the procreative art should unite upon the highest and purest plane. Hence the conjugal affection or love has its basis in this deepest and most immutable necessity of the soul. Understand me—man, in his present condition, is the grand ultimate of all past being and action. And that which took all past ages to accomplish is committed to man in the command to be fruitful and multiply. The future is committed to him. That which comes into conscious being must do so through him, and the true foundation for the fulfillment of the great command is laid in the conjugal union of the male and female souls. To say of the impulse calling for such union, that it demands change and consequent variety, is blasphemously false and absurd. The basis of conjugal love is as deep and immutable as are the foundations of immortality and eternal life.
But let this union be a mere external and lustful one, that is, one looking for self-gratification, and it becomes subject to the law of lust, and consequently, like every other lustful affection, will demand variety. The very nature of lust is to disease and destroy and to defeat the end sought. It therefore brings with itself ulti-
