ascetic bent of Christianity should make itself felt. It was not possible for Christianity to cast its halo around the natural sexual life, but it was possible to refine and exalt that life, to lift it into a spiritual sphere. Neither woman the sweetheart nor woman the mother were in ordinary life glorified by the Church; they were only tolerated. But on a higher than natural plane they were surrounded by a halo and raised to the highest pedestal of reverence and even worship. * The Virgin was exalted, * Bride and Bridegroom became terms of mystical import, and * the Holy Mother received the adoring love
Even in the actual relations of men and women, quite early in the history of Christianity, we sometimes find men and women cultivating