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Rh from that exaltation of celibacy, as intrinsically purer than marriage, which still disturbs the practice, and confuses the thought, of Christendom, it is impossible to question the truth of the melancholy forecast.

It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the fact that, at the start of its history, the Catholic Church was committed to the championship of marriage. The full significance of that championship is only realised when it is set in connection with the passion for purity which, as we have shown, marked the teaching of the apostles. In both respects the healthy tradition of the prophets, confirmed by the supreme and deliberate sanction of the Lord, came into conflict with powerful tendencies of the age, and rescued the new religion from the most perilous and the most plausible of perversions.

III.—St. Paul's teaching with respect to women was clearly determined by influences of widely differing kinds. First of all,