The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-01-26

tract be signed involving the building of
a house or the furnishing Of a bill Of
goods, ought they stand by that contract2
''Oh, yes, always answered. Then !
ask the further question: Is the heart,
the happiness, the welfare, the temporal
and eternal destiny of man or woman
worth as much as the house, worth $500,
worth a,lything2 The realm Of profiigacy
is filled with men and women as a result
of the wrong answer to that question.
The most aggravating, stupendous and
God defying lie is lie in the shape of
broken espousal.
But suppose man changes his mind,
ought he not back out? Not once in ten
thousand times What if I change my
mind about prolnissory note and de-
cline to pay it, and suddenly put my
property in such shape that you could
not collect your note? How would you
like that? That, you say, would be
fraud So is the other fraud, and pun
| ish it God will certainly as you live and
just as certainly If you do not live.
have known men betrothed to loving
and good womanhood rcsigning
their engagement and the victim
went down in hasty consumption.
while suddenly the recreant man would
go up the aisle of o church in brilliant
bridal party, and the two promised II
wilI' with a solemnity that seemed IN
surance of o lifetime happiness. Bus the
simple fact was, that was the first act of
q Shakespearean play entitled, Tanning
the Shrew." lie found out, when too
late, that he had net aarIigst Z, .slaos
/ family Of thn sc asas.s bs1ss fato ztiisa
IfaiYif Z off TIC s'T uries To the day of
| his death the murder of his first betrothal
followed him.
The Bible extols one who ''sweareth
to his own hurt and changeth not"
| That is, when you make a promise keep
it at all hazards. There may be cases
where deception has been used at the
time of engagement, and extraordinary
| circumstances where the promise is not
! binding, but in nine hundred and ninety
nine cases out of a thousand engage
ment is as binding as marriage. Robert
| Burns, with all his faults, well knew the
| force of q marital engagement. In
obedience TO some rustic idea he, stand
ing on one side tie br9ok Ayr, and Mary
| Campbell on the other, they bathed their
hands in the water and then put them on
| the boards Of a Bible, making their
| pledge of fidelity. On the cover Of the
| Old Testament of that book to this day,
in Robert Burns handwriting, may
be found the words: ''Leviticus xix,
10: Ye shall not swear by my name
falsely; | am the Lord" And on the
| cover of the New Testament in his own
handwriting; "Matthew V, 35: Thou
shalt not forswear thyself. but shalt per-
form unto the Lord thine oaths.''
Suppose ship captain offers his ser
vices to take ship out to sea. After he
gets little way he comes alongside Of a
vessel with a more beautiful flag, and
which has perhaps richer cargo and is
bound for more attractive port. Sup
pose he rings bell for the engineer to
slow up and the wheel stops. Now l see
the captain being lowered over the side
of the vessel into small boat, and he
crosses to the gayer and Weather
craft, and climbs up the sides, and
is seen walking the bridge of the
other ship. l pick up his resigned
speaking trumpet and shout through it:
Captain, what does this mean? Did you
not promise to take this ship to South
ampton, England?' Eyes" says the
captain, ''but have changed my mind,
and have found l can do better, and l
am going to take charge here. [ shall
send back to you all the letters I got
while managing that ship and everything
/ got from your ship. and it will be all
right. You tell me that the worst fate
for such captain as that is too good for
| h Tl11t hot
man does who promises to take one
through the voyage Of life, across the
ocean of earthly existence, and then
| breaks the promise. The sending back
of all the letters, and rings, and necklaces,
and keepsakes cannot make that right
! which is in the sight of God, and ought
to be in The sight of man, an everlasting
wrong. What American society needs
to be taught is that betrothai is an act so
solemn and tremendous that all men and
women must stand back from it until
they are sure that it is right, and sure
that it is best, and sure that no retreat
will be desired Before that promise of
lifetime compaDionship any amount of
romance that you may wish, any ardOr
OF friendship, any coming and going.
But espousal is a gate, a golden gate,
which one should not pass unless he or
she expects neqeE to return. Engage
ment is the porch Of which plarriage is
the castle, and you have no right N the
porch if you do not mean TO pass into the
castle.
The trouble has always been that this
whole subject OF alliance has been rele-
gated to the realm of frigGlity and joke,
and considered not worth a sermon or
even q serious paragraph. And SO the
massacre of human lives has gone on and
the devil has had it his OWN cruel way,
and what is nightly needed is that
pulpit and platform. and printing press
all speak a word of unmi5takabe and
thunderous protest on this subject of
infinite Importance. We put clear ont
into thin poesy and light reading the
marital engagements of Petrarch and
his Laura, Dante and his Beatrice,
Chaucer ana his Philippa, Lorenzo dc
Medici and his Lucretia, Spenser and his
Rosalind, Waller and his SacchaTissa, not
realizing that it was the style Of their
engagement that decided their happiness
or wretchedness, their virtue or thei1
profiigacy. All the literary and military
and religious glory of Queen Elizabeth s
reign cannot blot out from one of the
most conspicuous pages of history her in
famous behavior toward Seymour and
, Philip and Melville and Leicester and
Others. All the ecclesiastical robes that
Dean Swift ever rustled through conse-
Grated places cannot hide from intelli
gent people of all ages the fact that, by
promises of marriage which he never
fulfilled, he broke the heart of JanC
, Waring after an engagement of sever
years and the heart of Stella after an en-
, | gagement of fourteen years. and th'
poetic stanzas he dedicated 10 their ex
cellences only make the more immorta
his own perfidy.
HBut suppose l should make a mis-
take, says some man or woman, s'ant
l find it out after the engagement ant
, before marriage?" My answer is, yol
have no excuse for making Il mistake ol
a this subject There are so many way
of finding out all about the character y,
III ~ LES ~