The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1895-03-22
A FAMILY SKELETON.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE BREACHES ON
/ UNHAPPY MARRIAGES.

Love Agitation, mOrmOnism anu Oh
healthy Fiction-Hasty and Ill Consider
ed Matches Are Becoming Too Numerous
NEW YORK, March 17.-Rev. DR.
raImage chose as the subject of his aft
brnom sermon in the Academy of Music
boday topic of national interest--viz
wholesale Divorce " The great audi
Hnce 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 If there we're only
enc skeleton in the closet. that might
be locked up and abandoned, but in
many a home there is skeleton in the
hallway and skeleton in all the apart
ments.
e"Unhappily married" are two words
descriptive of many HON estead. 1t
needs no orthodox minister 10 prove to
a badly mated pair that there is a hell.
They are there now. Sometimes grand
and gracious woman will be thus incar-
eerated, and her life will be crucifix-
ion, as was the case with Mrs. Sigour-
ney, the great poetess and the great soul.
Sometimes consecrated man will be
united to a fury, as was John Wesley,
or united to 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.
I Some say that for the alienation of
all these domestic disorders of which we
hear easy divorce is good presorip-
zion. 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
y married, But you know and know
that Wholesale divorce is one of our ma
tional scourges. am not surprised at
this when / think of the influences
which have been abroad initiating
against the marriage relation.
ih 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 who
were most prominent in that movement
have since been distinguished for great
tromiscuosity of affection. Popular
themes for such occasions were the tyr
amy of man, the oppression of the
marriage relation, women's rights and
the aff1nities. Prominent speakers were
women with short ourls 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, Apologize for masoulinity,
and holding the parasols while the ter
magant orators went on preaching the
doctrine of free love.
That campaign of about 90 years set
more devils into the marriage relation
than will be exercised in the next so.
Men and women went home from such
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 limited divorce, and this mother
Kept the children on condition that the
father could sometimes come and look
1t them, and these went into poorhouses, |
md those went into an insane asylum,
md those went into dissolute public |
life, and all went to destruction. The |
nightiest war ever made against the
institution was that free love
sometimes under one name
md sometimes under another.
Brazen Polygamy.
Another influence that has warred
lpon the marriage relation has been po-
ygamy in Utah. That was a stereotyped
aricature of the marriage relation and
las poisoned the whole land. You might
S well think that you can have an arm
n state of modification and yet the
Whole body not be sickened as to have
hese territories polygamized and yet the
ody of the nation not feel the putrefac-
ion. Hear it, good men and women of
america, that so long ago as 1862 law
vas passed by congress forbidding po-
ygamy in the territories and in all the
laces where they had jurisdiction.
'wenty-four years passed along and five
before the first brick
7as knocked from that fortress of liber-
nism.
Every new president in his inaugural
ckled that monster with the straw Of
and every congress stul-
fled itself in proposing some plan that
Iould not work. Polygamy stood more
ltrenched. and more brazen, and more
uissant, and more braggart, and more
lfernal. James Buchanan, a much
bused man of his day, did more for the
of this villainy than most
the subsequent administrations. Mr..
uohanan sent out an army, and al
Rough it was halted in its work still
4 ACCOMPLISHED more than some of the