Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1884-04-21
TALMAGE TALKS
Upun the Increasing Evils of Di-
VOrCe.
FREE LOVE AND Irs RESULTS
Uniform and More Rigid Laws What Society
Most Needs and What Will Put
an End to Hasty and Fool
ish Unions.
Special 10 tho ReqistT.

fore the sermon he read and expounded
the scriptural passage in regard to the
burial of Sara in the cave of Macphelah.
One of the hymns was sung to the tune OF
"Home, Sweet Home" DR.. Talmage
text was Matt. xix-6; "What therefore
God hath joined together let not man put
| asunder."
That there are in America, to day, said
| he, hundreds and thousands of infelicitous
homes no one will doubt. If there were
skeleton in only one closet that might be
locked up and abandoned, but in many a
home there is a skeleton for every home.
"IEnhapp;ly married are two. words which
| tell ali the domestic history 1Uu need 70
orthodox minister to prove to badly mated
pair that there is a hell; they are there now.
Thousands of good and gracious women
are thus incarcerate, and their life is
crucifxion, while many good man, like
John Wesley, has married vixen or
fiend. Of.ener both parties are to blame,
and Thomas Carlyle is an irritable scold,
| while his wife smokes and swears, and
| Froude. the historian, is mean enough for
| the shekels he gets for the manuscript to
| Withdraw the curtain that hid the lie
| long sQuabble at 5 Cheyne Row and Craigen
| Puttock. For the relief of all such homes
| it is proposed to disbsnd the domestic
partnership. Make divorce easy. When
| husband and wife find themselves at dis.
cord. drop the tune and let there be re-
assortment of spirits.
Now, for certain causes, divorce IS as
rieht as marrisge, and have as much re-
gard for one lawfully divorced as for one
lawfully married. God authorizes one aS
certainly as he authorizes the other. But
wholesale divorce is one OF the national
scourges.
Free Love and Its Advocates.
And it is no surprise 10 me when l see
what have been the influences at work to
disparage that divine and glorious institu-
ton. We had for a long while lecture
platforms resounding with the talk of
free love millennium. Meetings in Acad-
emy of Music, Brooklyn, and Cooper lnsti-
tute, New York, and fremont Temple,
Boston, and all over the land. The stage
occupied by women, some of whom have
since been distinguished for their promis-
Guilty of affection. Among their favorite
tLtmes were, THE Tyranny Of Man.
The Oppression OF. the Marriage Relations"
.'WOman's Rights" Affinity" The chief
spirits of such meetings were women with
short hair and short dress, but long tongues
eveIlastingly a. war with God and society
beC, use they were created women, while
lew men with soft accent and Cowed de-
me amor and apologize Tor their masculln.
lIy sat here and there on the platform and
be Id the parasols of the termagan orators
IS they went on preaching the gospel ot
iree love. Those fanatics, rampant for
twenty years on the platform, sent more
devils into domestic life than can be exor.
cised for the next half century. Men and
women vent home from such meetings
peim m1neLtly confused about their
wives and husbands that they never got
over the perplexity and the civil and
criminal courts were called in to help dis
entangle the trouble, and this one paid an
alimony and the other got a limited divorce
IiOn that the mother could see them OuC5
ID while, and some of the contestants
went into the grave and some into the
penitentiary and some into public diSjo-
luteness and all into wretchedness.
DemOraIIZIng Books and Their Fruits
Another influence that has done much
to demoralize the married relation has
be, TIE pustulous literature that I'll the
country millions of sheets of il abroad
very week, choked with stories of domes'
tic wrong, infidelities, stratagems, mur.
ders, until it is wonder that there is any
common sense or decency left on the sub
ject of the marriage relation.
Now for the correction OF all these abuses
it is seriously proposed that divorce be
made more easy. Before yield to that
cry want TO know how easy it is now.
have looked over the law OF all the States
and, though easier in some States than In
others, it is easy everywhere. In order
that il may be perfectly easy in Illinois.
after mentioning a long list OF causes for
which divorce may be granted, that State
IN her law says that the court NAV
decree a divorce on other grounds
if satisfied of the expediency offs doing
You wonder that in Cook county Of thai
State in 1880, there were eight hundred
and thirty divorce suits begun! 10 show
how easy it is have to tell you that in
Mssssck usetts six hundred divorces were
granted in one year, in Maine four hundred
and seventy-eight in Connecticut four
hundred and one. In the one city OF San
francisco they had three hundred an
thirty-three divorces in $780, in New Eng
land in one year two thousand one hun
tred and thirteen, but in twenty years in
New England twenty thousand. At tue
rate at which causes for divorce are mul-
riplied and the number OF cases increases
we are not far of from the time when the
courts will set apart whole days for appli-
cations and all that will be necessary to
uroye against the man will be that he has
left his evening newspaper on the middle
of the floor and sgainst woman thst an
nvercost was found buttonIess. Within
lew wears divorces have doubled in France,
Epeiand and the United States. In West
arn Reserve, Ohio the divorces as compar-
ed with the number of marriages are one
70 eleven, in Rhode Island one to twelve,
| in Vermont one to fourteen. Is not that
easy enough? Mark this: In all the his
tory Of the world the frequency OF divorce
is always q sign of the dlssoluteGess OF 50.
riety. For the first five hundred years OF
Rome only one d;vorce-years of her glory
ara virtue. But the reign OF vice began
md with il divorce became epidemic aud
IL Won want to know how fast the empire
| went down ask Gibbon. Do you know how
| The reign of terror was ushered into France
By twenty thousand divorces in Paris In
one year.
what Society Needs.
What society needs most now is to mike
divorce more and more d fficult. Men and
women must understand that If they go
into tn marrlsge relation thers'is no pros
u. ct of escape except through the door o.
the sepulchre. What will make the ham IN
race pause on the verge of this relation un-
iii they are satisfied that it is the safest
and visest and best thing to do. That will
put an end 10 marriage in fun. That will
,ske out of the relation all idea that 1t is
merely trial trip, and that if they don't
like it they can get out at the next land
ing. That will take marriage out OF the
| resIm of the frivolous into the realm OF the
tremendous, and the flowers in the brides
hair will be no more joke than the cy
press on the coffin. What is most needed
- that the Congress of the United States at
IT'S present session move for a change 10
| the Constitution, so that there can be made
me uniform Law for all the land, and wha'
is right in one State shall be iSht in all the
| states. and what is wrong in one S:ats
| shall be wrong in ell the States. Nov dis
| sffected partners in marriage may move
| fTom State to State and achieve lilo
| arstion from the domestic ties 80
| very easily that the other partner knoE'
| rCthing Of it until he or she reads IN the