Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1895-03-22
A FAMILY SKELETON.
REV. Or. TALMAGE breaches ON
UNHAPPY MARRIAGES.

ed Matches Are Becoming Too Numerous
New YORK, March 17.-Rev. DR..
Talmage chose as the subject Of his aft
ernoon sermon in the Academy Of Music
today topic of national interest-viz,
wholesale Divorce " The great audi
ence repeatedly showed its appreciation
Of the sentiments expressed by the rev.
erend speaker, and his sturdy blows in
behalf Of the protection of the house
hold and against the dissoluteness Of
modern society were received with
marked appreciation. The text selected
was Matthew xix, 6, "What, therefore,
God hath joined together let not man
put asunder.
That there are hundreds and thou
sands Of infelicitous homes in America
no one will doubt. II there were only
one skeleton in the closet. that might
be locked up and abandoned, but i'll
many home there is a skeleton in tho
hallway and skeleton in all the apart
ments.
"Unhappily married" are two words
descriptive of many a homestead. 1t
needs no orthodox minister TO prove to
a badly mated pair that there is hell.
They are there now. Sometimes grand.
and gracious woman will be thus incar-
cerated, and her life will be a crucifix-
ion, as was the case with Mrs. Sigour-.
ney, the great poetess and the great soul
! Sometimes a consecrated man will bo
united to fury, as was John Wesley,
or united to a vixen, as was John Mil
ton. Sometimes, and generally, both
parties are to blame, and Thomas Car
! lyle was an intOlerable scold, and his
wife smoked and swore, and Froude,
the historian, pulled aside the curtain
from the lifelong squabble at Craigen-
puttock and Five, Cheyne Row.
Some say that for the alleviation OF
all these domestic disorders of which we
hear easy divorce is a good prescrip--
tion. God sometimes authorizes divorce
as certainly as he authorizes marriage.
| have Just as much regard for one law
fully divorced as have for one lawful
" married. But you know and | know
that wholesale divorce is one Of our ma
tional scourges. l am not surprised at
this when l think of the influences.
which have been abroad initiating
against the marriage relation.
A Pernicious Doctrine.
For many years the platforms Of the
country rang with talk about a free love
millennium. There were meetings OF this
kind held in the Cooper institute, New
York; fremont temple, Boston, and all
over the land. Some Of the women VINO
were most prominent in that movement
have since been distinguished for great
promiscuosity Of affection. Popular
themes for such occasions were the tyr
amy of man, the oppression OF the'
marriage relation, women's rights and
the afinities Prominent speakers were
women with short curls and short dress,
and very long tongue, everlastingly at
war with God because they were Gre
ated women, while on the platform sat
meek men with soft accent and cowed
demeanor, apologetio for masculinity'
and holding the parasols while the ter
magant orators went on preaching the
doctrine of free love.
That campaign Of about 20 years set.
more devils into the marriage relation.
than will be exercised in the next 90.
Men and women went home from such'
meetings so permanently confused as TO-
who were their wives and husbands that
they never got out Of their perplexity'
and the criminal and the civil courts
tried to disentangle the "Iliad" of woes,
and this one got alimony, and that one
got a limited divorce, and this mother
kent the children on condition that the
father could Sometimes come and look
at them. and these went into poorhouses,
and those went into an insane asylum,
and those went into dissolute publlc'
life. and all went to destruction. The
miRhtiest war ever made against tne'
marriage institution was that free love
campaipu. sometimes under one name
and sometimes under another.
Brazen Polygamy.
Another influence that has warred
npon the marriage relation has been po-
lygamy in Utah. That was stereotypea'
,arioature of the marriage relation and
if has poisoned the whole land. You might
As we'll think that you can have an arm
IN a state of modification and yet the
whole body not be sickened as to have
7 these territories polygamized and yet the
I body of the nation not feel the putreIac.
ton. Hear it, good men and women Oh
America, that so long ago as 1862 law
/ was passed by congress forbidding po-
: Ivgamy in the territories and III all thei
nlaces where they had jurisdiction
Twenty four years passed along ana n'e'
administrations before the first brlcH
D was knocked from that fortress OF hDer-
~ tinism.
Every new president in his inaugural
6nkled that monster with the straw Oh
,oademnation, and every congress stul-
tilted itself in proposing some plan thae
)" would not work. Polygamy stood more
l. iptrenohed. and more brazen, and more
puissant, and more braggart and more
internal. James Buchanan, muoh
y abused man of his day, did more for the
lextirpation of this villainy than most
= Of the subsequent administrations. MI
Buchanan sent out an army ana al,
though il was halted in its work stiil
g he accomplished more than some OF the
q Administrations which did nothing but
lIalk. talk, talk. At last, but not until
liz had poisoned generations, polygamy
khas received its deathblow.
in Polygamy in Utah warred against the
,,marriage relation throughout the lana;
u It was impossible to have such an awful
% sewer Of iniquity sending up its miasma'
which was waited by the winds nortn'
n. Isouth. east aud west, without the whole
>" land being affected by it
L Another influence that has warreo
AGAINST the marriage relation in thu
country has been pustulous literature,
With its millions Of sheets every wee
W. ,hoked with stories Of domestic wrong
he and inndelities and massacres and ou'
he RACES. until it is wonder to me tina
or COmmO