"Blessed are Thou, O most merciful God, who didst vouchsafe to espouse me
to the heavenly Bridegroom in the waters of baptism, and hast imparted
Thy body and blood as a new gift of espousal and the meet consummation of
Thy love."

"O most sweet Lord Jesu, transfix the affections of my inmost soul with
that most joyous and most healthful wound of Thy love, with true, serene,
most holy, apostolic charity; that my soul may ever languish and melt
with entire love and longing for Thee. Let it desire Thee and faint for
Thy courts; long to be dissolved and be with Thee."

"Oh, that I could embrace Thee with that most burning love of angels."

"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Thy love is better
than wine. Draw me, we will run after Thee. The king hath brought me into
his chambers.... Let my soul, O Lord, feel the sweetness of Thy presence.
May it taste how sweet Thou art.... May the sweet and burning power of
Thy love, I beseech Thee, absorb my soul."

To my dear mother this type of religious thought was revolting. But then,
she was a woman who had been a wife and a devoted one, while I was a
child awaking into womanhood, with emotions and passions dawning and not
understood, emotions and passions which craved satisfaction, and found it
in this "Ideal Man". Thousands of girls in England are to-day in exactly
this mental phase, and it is a phase full of danger. In America it is
avoided by a frank, open, unsentimental companionship between boys and
girls, between young men and young women. In England, where this wisely
free comradeship is regarded as "improper", the perfectly harmless and
natural sexual feeling is either dwarfed or forced, and so we have