Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/54

 'prompture of blood' is followed as the law of life. It holds (with Manu) that culpable attention to anothers' consort is the surest course to curtail one's length of days; and it condemns (with Shakespeare) as comrades in iniquity the rake and the murderer— "the saucy Sweetness that coins heaven's image on stamps that are forbid" and the reckless villainy that "falsely takes away a life true made." It declares that the happiness of marriage shall be earned only with the obligations of marriage, and the blessings of family life shall be the prize only of those who keep its irrevocable pledge. It declares human existence too sacred to be cradled in lust; it proclaims the marriage bond too strong to be dissolved by freaks of taste, defects of law, or even the transition of death. It honours holy wedlock as an ordinance of the Most High and, hence, insists on the untarnished sanctity (to adopt F. Harrison's happy language), from even "one passing shadow of suspicion," of "the inviolable institution whereon the happi-