Milford chronicle., 1895-03-22
.UNHAPPILYMARRIED
REV. DR.. TALMAeE BREACHES UPON
AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT.

Sturdy Blows In Behalf of the Home and
Against the DissoIuteness Of Modern So
cIety Wholesale Divorce Condemned
The Blessed Marriage State.
NEW YORK, March l7.-Rev. DR.. Tai
mage chose as the subject Of his afternoon
sermon in the Academy Of Music today a
topic Of national interest-viz, Whole
sale Divorce. The great audience re-
peatedly showed its appreciation of the
sentiments expressed by the reverend
speaker and his sturdy blows in behalf
Of the protection of the household and
against the dissoluteness of modern society
were received with marked appreciation.
The text selected was Matthew xix, 8,
"What, therefore, God hath Joined tOgeth-
er let not man put asunder."
That there are hundreds and thousands
Of infelioitous homes in America no one
will doubt If there were only one skele-
ton in the closet that might be looked up
and abandoned, but in many home there
is a skeleton in the hallway and skeleton
in all the apartments.
"Unhappily married" are two words
descriptive Of many a homestead. It
needs no orthodox minister to prove to a
badly mated pair that there is a hell.
They are there now. Sometimes a grand
and gracious woman will be thus inoar-
cerated, and her life will be a crucifxion,
as was the case with Mrs. Sigourney, the
great poetess and the great soul Some
times a consecrated man will be united
to fury, as was John Wesley, or united
to a vixen, as was John Milton. Some
times, and generally, both parties are to
blame, and Thomas Carlyle was an intol-
erable scold, and his wife smoked and
swore, and Froude, the historian, pulled
aside the curtain from the lifelong squab-
BILE at Craigenputtook and Five, Cheyne
Row.
Our National scOurge.
Some say that for the alienation Of all
these domestic disorders Of which we hear
easy divorce is a good prescription. God
sometimes authorizes divorce as certainly
as he authorizes marriage. have just as
much regard for one lawfully divorced as
have for one lawfully married. But you
know and 1 know that wholesale divorce
is one Of our national soourgas. am not
surprised at this when l think Of the in
duences which have been abroad militat-
ing against the marriage relation.
For many years the platforms Of the
country rang with talk about 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
promiscuosity, of affection. Popular
themes for such occasions were the tyran-
ny of man. the oppression of the marriage
relation, women's rights and the affinities.
Prominent speakers were women with
short ourls and short dresses and very long
tongues, everlastingly at war with God
because they were created women, while
on the platform sat meek men with soft
accent and cowed demeanOr, apologetio
for masculinity and holding the parasols
while the termagant orators went on
preaching the doctrine Of free love.
Two BIighting POisOns.
That campaign of about 30 years set
more devils into the marriage relation
than will be exercised in the next so.
Men and women went homo 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 limit |
ed divorce, and this mother kept the chill
dren 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 public life and all /
went to destruction. The mightiest war /
ever made against the marriage institu-
tion was that free love campaign, some /
times under one name and sometimes IN
der another.
Another influence that has warred upon
the marriage relation has been polygamy
in Utah That was a stereotyped carica-
ture of the marriage relation and has
poisoned the whole land. You might as
we'll think that you can have an arm in q
state of modification and yet the whole
body not be sickened as to have those ter
ritories polygamized and yet the body Of
the nation not feel the putrefactiOn. Hear
1t, good men and women of America,
that so long ago as 1862 a law was passed
by congress forbidding polygamy in the
territories and in all the places where they
had jurisdiction. Twenty-four years pass
cd along and five administrations before
the first brick was knocked from that
fortress of libertinism.
Every new president, in his inaugural,
tickled that monster with the straw Of
and every congress stulti-
fed itself in proposing some plan that
would not work. Polygamy stood more
and more brazen, and more
Duissant and more braggart, and more
Internal James Buchanan, a much
abused man Of his day, did more for the
sxtirpation Of this villainy than most
Of the subsequent administrations. Mr..
Buchanan sent out an army, and although
l. l. -kfFT I
plished more than some Of the administra-
tons which did nothing but talk, talk,
lalkl At last, but not until IL had poi
loned generations, polygamy has received
lis deathblow
POlygamy in Utah warred against the
marriage relation throughout the land
It was impossible to have such an awful
sewer Of iniquity sending up its miasma,
which was waited by the winds north,
Iouth, east, and west, without the whole !
and being affected by 1t.
A PustulOus Literature.
Another influence that has warred c
,gainst the marriage relation in this q
country has been a pustulous literature, e
With its millions of sheets every week l
hoked with stories Of domestic wrongs a
md infidelities and massaores and out
agec until it is a wonder to me that L
here are any deoenoies OF any common 4
ense left on the subject Of marriage. One q
lalf Of the newsstands Of all our cities I
eeking with the filth. r
Now, say some, I'VE admit all these (
wills, and the only way to clear them out !
Il correct them is by easy divorce. " Well, i
,efore we yield to that cry let us find out /
low easy it is now. :
have looked over the laws Of all the Z
tates, and find that while in some states