Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/61

 herited as time-honored tradition or assumed as extraneous conformity. Thus monogamy may degenerate into what has heartlessly been travestied as "one to one being cursedly confined," as monotheism may point only to a cold eternal something or an abstract reign of law. But elevated to supreme rule over the whole sphere of life, this "maiden passion for a maid" is the bountiful dispenser of "all that makes a man." In this "single love," as Ruskin has it, "is the sanctification of all man's strength, and the continuance of all his purposes." The true test of monogamy is the monocracy over the whole heart of the one all-endearing, even as the true mark of monotheism is the monolatry, with the whole soul, of the One All-sufficient. The essence of both is the complete devotion of one to the one ; in both it is alone with the alone.

"O ! there is something in marriage, like the veil of the temple of old, That screened the Holy of holies with blue and purple and gold !