The Newtown bee., 1880-10-13
TALMAGE EON MARRIAGE.
The Brooklyn Divine Fires a Shot al Polygamy-The Sad Condition of Him who has More than One Wffe-WOmen Helninsr fo Ell CIuh IkNOms,

Polygamy-The sad Condition of Him
 who has More than One Wife-Women
 Helping to Fill Club Hnoms,
 The Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, during recent sermon at the Brooklyn Taber- nacle, said: Away with the gross notion that marriage is a merely civil contract; it is paradisiacal slx-thou- sandy years-old divine institution. All | the laws since Blackstone or befo'e Blackstone can't properly marry 70 hearts unless the Lord AlmigEt3 has | first married them. What are tue foes, the bitter enemies, of the marriage rela' tionp The first foe I discern is poiyg amy. There are now in this country more people than ever who believe in polygamy. Some believe in it under another name; some practice 1t under no name. When it is asserted that the Bible sanctions polygamy or plurality of wives, there is not one Christian ill five hundred thousand who cannot re- flute the slander. The Bible recognizes pol ygamy just as it recognizes all other styles of sin, but in no case sanctions | it. Wherever in the Bible you find a man who has more than one wife you | find him up to his neck in trouble. Solo, mon says: "There is no good thing under the sun. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity" Good for him! If he had had 999 wives less he would have taken 8 more cheerful view of things. God said: 'I will make helpmeet for man. He did not say helpmeets. If God had intended Q plurality of wives, instead of taking one rib from Adams side He would have taken more, until Adam would not have had rib left, Then, how was it at the delugep How many of each kind were therep Each man had one wife. If polygamy had been right they would have had twenty wives eacn, and thus have saved a mui- titude from drowning. The history of the world shows that the men and women have almost always been equal in number. Where there has been any exception the women have been in the majority. The Bible is not more thor oughly against theft, blasphemy and murder than it is against polygamy. | Where polygamy exists there may be 8 large house, a splendid house, but no home. Suppose twenty women tried to occupy the throne of Victoria, how much prosperity would there be in Eng landP 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 impossi ble, because iJ 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 Hat, anu Stdle, anu untrue. .. . In tens of thousands ct cases, men who have met commercial disaster, vEho have gone home discouraged, ready to give up the struggle, wishing they were dead, have found sympathy and en- eouragement in wives who have cheered and led them up to commercial pros perity. Who now the oak and who the ivyP like the ring of that New York merchant who, after declining q sub scriptisn to pre ject he disapproVed, said to the applicant: '' [ ou may call upon my wife; perhaps she may take a different view of the subject" Such 8 seautiful thing as that could not have occurred in polygamy.
 Again, all those entertain m ents 1 which take men majority of evenings rom home are enemies of the domestic relations. I make no indiscriminate assault on clubs. Indeed, if l Lad no home, I should seek out the best club 1 could find and join it. But when man Hikes any place better than his home, look out for breakers. You can tell whether man likes his home by noting whether he stays there. But the aver - age club house is the foe to domestic I life in New York and Brooklyn. Who people tae club houses? an- swer, in many cases, women. A i woman is surprised that she has not so much attention paid to her now as be- i fore marriage. Perhaps 1t would be different if she would take as much pains to make herself attractive as she did bsfore marriage. That is where women make mistake, when, because they are married, they give up all those little arts which, though lndescribable, go to make up Woman y attractiveness. Too many women make their charms 8 net for making one haul. After they have made one haul they throw the net away. Before marriage you played like ThalbeEg or ,Gottschalk; now you can not play at ali. How do you spend your eveningsP Is it complaining about the servantsP Do you put your husband in an intant3 class of which you are the professor? You ought to make home 8 small heaven for your hus bands per- turbed spirit. Unwise, fretful, jealous women have filled one-half of the club houses of America.
 Let the women of this country read newspapers and books, if only ten minutes day. Let them study the questions of the hour, and be able to hold good stout political arguments Then home will be the club house to which many more will flock. One in- telIlgant woman has more attractiveness than twenty intelligent men.
 Another great foe of domestic life is easy divorce. How many enter the marriage relation recklessly? In France the laws were made easy for divorce, and there were 20, ,0G0 divorces in 8 year in Paris. There were 48,000 children carried into the founding hospital and kindred institutions-48,0 ,0O0 foundlings in year! When law lets down the bars, all the cattle of beastliness break into the garden of home. When Rome was moral there was only one case of divorce reported in 500 years. She changed the law; then the deluge. Divorce is too easy in this country. In La Crosse. Wis.,, there were in one year seventy-six divorces; in Philadelphia there were 294. It has been announced that divorces have increased largely in New York lately-at least 800 per cent | Now, all this is right if marriage be ii erely civil contract. Then you may dispose of a conjugal relation as you would of house, or barn, or a horse. 1 But if it be a divine institution, then no other ground than that announced by the Almighty himself can dissolve that relation.
 A Expectations Composer.
 Speaking of the late Jacques Offen- bach, the composer, the New York Sun says: Whoever has heard his operas may guess what the man himself was. Supersti' ion and cowardice were promi- nent feature es Of his character. He was q great gambler at the roulette, his favorite number being from supersti- tion-the thirteen. One evening at Spa the number came seven times, and Or