Excerpt from Christian Marriage: The Ceremony, History and Significance; Ritual, Practical and Archaeological Notes; And the Text of the English, Roman, Greek, and Jewish Ceremonies In this self-trusting, restraint-hating, bond-break ing age, when the true meaning of Liberty is so widely ignored and so often misunderstood, it need not be said that the conception of the Marriage tie, as most generally current among the masses of men today, has not escaped a certain degree of obscurity, not to say falsity; and with the spread of the democratic sentiment in all lands and the increasing exaltation of the individual, both this obscurity and this misunderstanding, even under our brightening Christian civilization, appear rather to be deepening than clearing away. It seems therefore necessary to observe here that there are three aspects of Marriage, each of which in its sphere is very real and very true, and has its own important bearing on the nature of the engagement and the indelibility of the union. These aspects are, that which appears from the point of view of the State; that which appears from the point of view of the Church; and that which appears from the point of view of Personal Sentiment, or natural Love, so-called. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.