and conventions which are supposedly for the good of society, nor is any
union accomplished if those whom she supposedly joins are not reborn.
If they are, the Church can neither make it or dissolve it, but merely
confirm and acknowledge the work of the Spirit. And every work of the
Spirit is a sacrament. Not baptism and communion and marriage only, but
every act of life.

"Oh, John," she exclaimed, her eyes lighting, "I can believe that! How
beautiful a thought! I see now what is meant when it is said that man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God. That is the hourly guidance which is independent
of the law. And how terrible to think that all the spiritual beauty of
such a religion should have been hardened into chapter and verse and
regulation. You have put into language what I think of Mr. Bentley,
--that has acts are sacraments . . . . It is so simple when you explain
it this way. And yet I can see why it was said, too, that we must become
as children to understand it."

"The difficult thing," replied Holder, gravely, "is to retain it, to hold
it after we have understood it--even after we have experienced it. To
continue to live in the Spirit demands all our effort, all our courage
and patience and faith. We cannot, as you say, promise to love for life.
But the marriage service, interpreted, means that we will use all our
human endeavour, with the help of the Spirit, to remain in what may be
called the reborn state, since it is by the Spirit alone that true
marriage is sanctified. When the Spirit is withdrawn, man and woman
are indeed divorced.

"The words 'a sense of duty' belong to moral philosophy and not to
religion. Love annuls them. I do not mean to decry them, but the reborn