To be near unto God - pagina 186

maiden

for the elect of her heart, that we feel is a mysterious, inexplicable power at play. This is not always so with those who are betrothed. Eccentric tension of the mystery of

that there

love

is rather the exception. Neither should this doting, intoxicating love be associated with sensual inclinations or voluptuous desire. 'The ecstacy of love" in question here only shows itself with those who are in love, and while it pervades the soul and body both, even in our sinful state, it* can well be free from sensual propensities. When this rapture is equally warm and true on both sides, the w^orld hears nothing of it. Near families and friends alone are in the secret. Frequently, however, it reveals itself in a tragic manner, as when the young maiden discovers that her ardent love finds no equally ardent response in the heart of her lover. Scarcely a day passes that the papers do not report the case of some girl, in the home-town or abroad, who was betrothed and passionately in love, and who upon discovering that her lover was untrue to her, found life itself too heavy a load to carry, and preferring death to life sought it in suicide. ''Ecstacy of love" is a high-strung degree of affection which takes the person whom it masters out of his normal self and transports him into an excited state of mind, which though it is not insanity, shows signs that are similar to it. Therefore we began by saying that it is outside of reason. One who is in this state of ecstacy can not be advised nor reasoned with. As Burger in his Leonora tells the tale so graphically, for those

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