true relation is established between them, they can never have an adequate conception of it—can never know what it is to become so oblivious in another as the true wife does in the husband, or the true husband does in the wife; nor can they, like the true husband and wife, experience that perfect harmony of soul, or listen to that sweet spiritual music within, till they have entered this relation, which alone can fit them for a proper conjugal union. The law exists, and the conditions exist; but man must place himself, and woman must place herself, within the sphere of the law and the conditions, or they can not experience the benefit to be derived from them. So with the parental relation. No woman can know what maternal love is till she becomes a mother. Is it not so, mothers? People may conjecture that they know what it is, and suppose it to be a pure and friendly love-feeling existing between mother and child; but they can have no adequate conception of the deep tenderness and holiness of maternal love—their idea of it does not begin to reach down into the almost infinite depths of that holy love. There is no possible way for an individual to know what maternal love is, but to come into the maternal relation. That is the way God reveals it in the soul. The reason is, that the true maternal impulse in the finite is the manifestation of the Divine in the finite sphere, and this manifestation can only be made in an individual when that individual comes into the sphere where the Infinite can confer that blessing. The same is true with reference to paternal, fraternal, filial, and social love: they all depend for their development upon those in whom they are man-
