Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/79

 son of the law; that is, he enters on his spiritual majority (Picard, vol. i. ch. x. p. 82). Christian nations signalize the advent of the corresponding epoch by admitting those who attain it to the Sacrament of the Lord's supper, and to confirmation. At puberty they are considered, like the young Parsees, responsible for the sins which at their birth their sponsors took upon themselves, and at puberty they are admitted, like the Jews, to the full privileges of their faith, by being allowed to partake in the mystic benefits conferred by the celebration of the death of Christ in the Holy Communion.

After puberty the two sexes enter on a new relation towards one another; and though the instinct by which this relation is established is extremely apt to break loose from the control of religion, yet the latter always attempts more or less energetically to bring it within its grasp. This it does by confining the irregular indulgences to which the sexual passion is prone within the legalized forms of matrimony. To matrimony, and matrimony alone, it gives its sanction; and accordingly it confers a peculiar sacredness upon this form of cohabitation, by the performance of ceremonies at its outset. Such ceremonies are not indeed equally universal with those of birth and puberty. Among savage and slightly civilized communities we do not find them. But in all the great religions of the world they are firmly established.

Little of a distinctively religious character is perceptible in Major Forbes's account of marriage rites in the island of Ceylon. Yet it is plain that Singhalese marriages do stand under a religious sanction, for in the first place an astrologer must examine the horoscopes of the two parties, to discover whether they correspond, and then the same functionary is called upon to name an auspicious time for the wedding. On the day of its occurrence a feast is given at the bride's house, and "on the astrologer notifying that the appointed moment is approaching, a half-ripe cocoa-nut, previously placed near the board with some mystical ceremonies, is cloven in two at one blow" (E. Y., vol. i. p. 326-332).

Turning from southern to northern Buddhism, we find Köppen asserting that in Thibet and the surrounding countries, marriage consists solely in the private contract, yet adding that