Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/60

 power (in Tennyson's thrice-happy words) which consists in self- controlling strength and self-knowing wisdom, in self-denying goodness and self-reverencing holiness.

This sacred end kept in view makes marriage the most hallowed of sacraments, though all the same the freest of choices — that solemn affiance of heart unto heart and that holy covenant of soul with soul, to force which is the lowest slavery, and to avoid which is the basest selfishness. To enquire how marriage originated is out- side the scope of this paper. It suffices for the present purpose to point out that true national progress has everywhere proceeded parallel to an increasing sense of the sacredness of the family bond. So far as it can be traced, the march of mankind along the heights of civilisation has been in the direction of "constitutional monarchy" as the strongest bulwark of the state, and of "legalised monogamy" as the firmest foundation of the home. But monogamy, like monotheism, largely fails in its results when in-