This passion of the soul (if such it may be called), which has its rise
in virtue and its aim the same, would be most unjustly degraded were it
classed with what the herd generally entitle love. The love which men
stigmatize, deride, and yet encourage, is a fancy, an infatuation,
awakened by personal attraction, by--the lover knows not what,
sometimes by gratified vanity, sometimes by idleness, and often by the
most debasing propensities of human nature. Earthly it is, and unto
earth it shall return! But love, true heaven-born love, that pure
affection which unites congenial spirits here, and with which the
Creator will hereafter connect in one blessed fraternity the whole
kindred of mankind, has but one cause--the universal unchangeableness
and immortality, a something so excellent that the simple wish to
partake its essence in the union of affection, to facilitate and to
share its attainment of true and lasting happiness, invigorates our
virtue and inspires our souls. These are the aims and joys of real
love. It has nothing selfish; in every desire it soars above this
earth; and anticipates, as the ultimatum of its joy, the moment when it
shall meet its partner before the throne of God.
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