mystery as having introduced the former. For who in heaven or on
earth has fathomed the marvel betwixt the man and the woman? Least
of all the man or the woman who has not learned to regard it with
reverence. There is more in this love to uplift us, more to condemn
the lie in us, than in any other inborn drift of our being, except
the heavenly tide Godward. From it flow all the other redeeming
relations of life. It is the hold God has of us with his right hand,
while death is the hold he has of us with his left. Love and death
are the two marvels, yea the two terrors--but the one goal of our
history.

It was love, in part, that now awoke in Mercy a hunger and thirst
after heavenly things. This is a direction of its power little
heeded by its historians; its earthly side occupies almost all their
care. Because lovers are not worthy of even its earthly aspect, it
palls upon them, and they grow weary, not of love, but of their lack
of it. The want of the heavenly in it has caused it to perish: it
had no salt. From those that have not is taken away that which they
have. Love without religion is the plucked rose. Religion without
love--there is no such thing. Religion is the bush that bears all
the roses; for religion is the natural condition of man in relation
to the eternal facts, that is the truths, of his own being. To live
is to love; there is no life but love. What shape the love puts on,
depends on the persons between whom is the relation. The poorest
love with religion, is better, because truer, therefore more
lasting, more genuine, more endowed with the possibility of
persistence--that is, of infinite development, than the most
passionate devotion between man and woman without it.

Thus together in their relation to Ian, it was natural that Mercy