Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-02-11
CLANDESTINE MARRIAGES.
The Third of DIR. Talmage's Ser
mons on ''The Marriage
Ring"
A Stirring Invective Against Meetings
and Marriages by Stealth-Some
Graphic Smiles.

Marriages and Escapades, and the text Prov
erbs *, IL and IS: Stolen waters are sweet,
and bread tzker in secret is pleasant But he
knoweth not that the dead arc there" The
preacher said
The garden Of Eden was great orchard OF
fruit-bearing trees, bushels and bushels Of
round, ripe, glorious fruit, but the horticul-
turist and his wife having II in charge hankered
for one special tree simply because it was for
hidden, starting bad streak in human nature,
go that children will now sometimes do some
thing simply because they arc forbidden to do
II. This kink in the human race is not easily
unmarried Tell a company that they may
look into any twenty rooms Of Q large house
except one, and their chief desire is to see that
one, though all the others were q picture-gal
lery and that garrett If there were in re-
gion of a mineral springs twenty fountains, but
the proprietor had fenced in one well against
the public the one fenced in would be the chief
temptation to the visitors, and they would
rather taste of that than the other nineteen.
Solomon recognized this principl, in the text
and also the disasters that follow forbidden
conduct, when he said: sStolen waters are
sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant
But he knoweth not that the dead are there
In this course of sermons on @The Marriage
Ring" this morning aim point-b blank shot
at Sclandestine marriages and escapades.
Yonder comes up through the narrows of New
York Habor ship having oil the evidence Of
tempestuous passage-salt-w mark reach
ing to the top of the smokestack; mainmast,
foremast, mizzenmast twisted off; bulwarks
knocked in; lifeboats off the davit; jibsheets
and leebowlnes missing; captains bridge de-
molished main shaft broken; all the pumps
working to keep from sinking before they can
get to wharfage That ship is the institution
Of Christian marriage, launched by the Lord
grandly from the banks of the Euphrates,
and floating out on the seas for the admiration
and happiness of all nations. But freeloveism
struck it from one side and Mormonism struck
it from another side, and hurricanes of Iber-
tinism have struck it on all sides, until the old
ship NJ eds repairs in every plank and beam
and sail and bolt and clasp and transom and
stanchion.
In other words, the notions of modern So
ciety must be reconstructed On the subject Of
the marriage institution. And when we have
got it back somewhere near what it was when
God built it in Paradise, the earth will be far on
toward resumption of paradisaical conditions.
Do you ask what is the need of o course of SER
mons on this subject? The man or woman who
asks this question is either ignorant or guilty.
In New England, which has been considered by
many the most moral part of tho United States,
there are 1900 divorces per year. And in
Massachusetts, the headquarters of steady
habits, there is one divorce to every fourteen
marriages The State of Maine, considered by
many almost frigid in proprieties, has in one
year 478 divorces In Vermont swapping wives
is not rare transaction. In Connecticut there
are women who boast that they have four or
five times been divorced. Moreover, our
boasted Pro.estantism is, on this subject, more
lax than Roman Catholicism Roman Catholi-
cism admits of no divorce except the reason
that Christ admitted as lawful reason. But
Professionalism is admitting anything and
everything, and the larger the proportion Of
Protestants in any part of the country, the
larger the ratio Of divorce Do you not then,
think that Professionalism nee 's some toning
up on this subject? ... ...,
Aye, when you realize that the sacred and
divine institution is being caricatured and de-
famed by clandestine marriages and escapades
all over the land, does there not seem call
for such discussion? Hardly morning or
evening paper comes into your possession
without reporting them, and there are fifty of
these occurrences where one is reported, be-
cause it is the interest of all parties to hush
them up. The victims are, at all hours of the
night, climbing down ladders or crossing over
from State to State, that they may reach laws
OF greater laxity, holding receptions six
months after marriage to let the public know
for the first time that half year before they
were united in wedlock. Ministers of religion,
and justices of the peace, and mayors of cities
willingly joining in marriage runaways from
other States and neighborhoods; the coach-box
and the back seat of the princely landau in
filtration; kilograms flashing across the coun-
try for the arrest of absconded school-misses
who started off with an armful of books, and
taking rail trains to meet their affianced In
the snow-drifts of the great storm that has re-
Gently passed over the country some of them,
/ read, have perished; thousands Of people in
a marriage whose banns have never been pub
ished; precipitated conjugality; bigamy tri-
umphant; marriage joke; society blotched all
over with putrefaction on this subject
which no one but the Almighty God can arrest
We admit that clandestinitv and escapade are
sometimes authorized ana made right by
parental tyranny or domestic serfdcm There
have been exceptional cases where parents
have had o monomania in regard to their sons
and daughters, demanding their celibacy or
forbidding relations every way right Through
absurd family ambition parents have some
times demanded qualifications and equipment
of fortune unreasonable to expect or simply
impossible. Children are not expected to
marry to please their parents, but to please
themselves. Given good MORALS means Of o
livelihood, appropriate age and quality Of
social position, and no parent has right to
prohibit q union that seems deliberate and
matter Of the heart
Rev. Philip Henry, eminent for piety and
good sense, used to say to his children:
@Please God and please yourselves, and you
shall never displease me-"
During our civil war a marriage was about
to be celebrated at Charleston, South Carolina,
between Lieut. de Rochelle and Miss Anna,
the daughter of Ex-Governor Pickens As the
ceremony was about to be solemnized q shell
broke through the roof and wounded nine of
the guests, and the bride fell dying, and,
wrapped in her white wedding robe, her be-
trothed kneeling at her side, in two hours
she expired And there has been many as
bright q union of hearts as that proposed that
the bomb-shell Of outrageous parental in
dignation has wounded and scattered and
slain ue.f
II the hand offered in marriage be blotched
Of intemperance, if the life of the marital can