The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1880-10-15
THE FOES OF MATRIMONy.
IN. y. sun, 4th.l

IuS IA NA"S VI tuS SeuA 1, <Ao"AA, sHe
first man, to Eve, the first woman,
High Heaven ofticiating," was the an
nouncement with which DIR. Talmage
closed his exordium at the Brooklyn
Tabernacle yesterday morning on the
marriage Of Adam and Eve. He con-
tinued: "Away with the gross notion
that marriage is a merely civil con-
tract; it is a paradisiacal lsiX-thousand-
years-old divine institution. ALI the
laws since Blackstone or before Black
stone can't properly marry two hearts
unless the Lord Almighty has first
married them. What are the foes, the
bitter enemies, of the marriage re1a-
tion: The first foe discern is polygamy.
There are now in this country more
people than ever who believe in polyg-
amy. Some believe in it under another
name; some practise it under no name.
When it is asserted that tho Bible
sanctions polygamy or plurality of
wives, there is not one Christian in
five hundred thousand who cannot re-
fute the SANDER The Bible recognizes
polygamy just as it recognizes all
other styles of sin, but in no case sane
tions it. Wherever in the Bible you
find man who has more than one
wife you find him up to his neck in
trouble. [Laughter.] David and Sol
ONION We're grievously punished for
their sins. David mourns sout of the
belly of hell Solomon says: sThere
is no good thing under the sun. Van
ity of vanities: all is vanity Good
for him If he had had 900 wives less
he would have taken a more cheerful
view of :hings. [Great laughter.7 God
said, Il will make a helpmeet' for man.
He did not say helpmeets. If God had
intended a plurality Of wives, instead
of taking one rib from Adams side He
would have taken more, until Adam
would not have had a rib left. [Great
Iaughter.l Then, how was it at the
Deluge: How many of each kind
were there? Each man had one wife.
If polygamy had been right they would
have had twenty wives each, and thus
have saved multitude from drown
ing. The history of the world shows
that men and women have almost al
ways been equal in number. Where
there has been any exception the
women have been in the majority
The Bible is not more thoroughly
against theft, blaspheny, and murder
than it is against polygamy. Where
polygamy exists there may be q large
house, IA splendid house, but no home
Suppose twenty women tried to occupy
the throne of Victoria, how much pros
perity would there be in England ?
Just as much as in any home where
more than one wife tries to be queen.
God intended woman to be mans
equal. But in polygamy that is i'm
possible, because it presumes that it
takes ten, twenty, or thirty women to
equal one man. All that poetry about
man being the oak and woman the
vine is flat, and stale, and untrue.
"In tens Of thousands of cases, men
who have met commercial disaster,
who have gone home discouraged,
ready to give up the struggle, wishing
they were dead, have found sympathy
and encouragement in wives who have
cheered and led them up to CONNER
cial prosperity. Who now the oak and
who the ivy: I like the ring of that
New York merchant who, after declin-
ing subscription to a project he dis
approved, said to the applicant sYou
may call upon my wife; perhaps she
may take a different view of the sub
ject.' Such a beautiful thing as that
could not have occurred in polygamy.
"Again, all those entertainments |
which take men a majority of evenings
from home are enemies of the domestic |
relation. 1 make no indiscriminatc !
assault on clubs. Indeed, if / had no
home, should seek out the best club |
l could find and join it. But when
man likes any place better than his |
home, look out for breakers. TLaugh-
teri You can tell whether man
likes his home by noting whether he
stays there. But the average club
house is foe to domestic life in New
York and Brooklyn.
"Who people the club houses? II
answer, in many cases, women A
woman is surprised that she has not
so much attention paid to her now as
before marriage. Perhaps it would be
different if she would take as much
pains to make herself attractive as she
did before marriage. That is where
women make Il mistake, when, be-
cause they arc married, they give up
all those little arts which, though in
describable, go to make up womanly
attractiveness. Too many women
make their charms a net for making
one haul. After they have made one
haul they throw the net away. Before
marriage you played like Thalberg or
Gottschalk; now you cannot play at
all. Laughter. How do you spend
your evenings? Is it complaining
about the servants? DO you put your
husband in an infant class of which