Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1895-03-29
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
SUNDAYS SERMON IN THE NEW
YORK ACADEMY OF MUSIC,
Subject: Wholesale Divorce.

TEXT: "What, therefore, God hath Joined
together let not man put asunder. ."-Matthew
| xix, 6.
! mat there are hundreds and thousands Of
| infectious homes in America no one will
| doubt. Ii there were only ore skeleton in
| the closet, that might be locked I'D and
| abandoned, but in many a home there is a
| the apartments
"Unhappily married" are two words de-
| 6cfIpttve of many homestead. It needs no
orthodox minister to prove to q badly mated
| palr that there is a hell. They are there now.
| sometimes grand and gracious woman will
| be thus in2arcerated, and her life will be a
| cruclnIlon, as was the case with Mrs. Sieour-
| ney, tho great poetess and the great soul.
| Sometimes consecrated man will be united
| to fury, as was John Wesley, or united to a
| vixen, as was John Milton. Sometimes. and
! generally. both parties to blame and
| Ihoma5 Carlyle was an intolerable scold, and
! hIS wife smoked and sWOre and Troude the
| historian, pulled aside the curtain from the
| lifelong Squabble at Crafgenputtock and Five,
| Cheyne Row.
Some say that for the alienation of all
| these domestic disorders Of which we hear
easy divorce is good prescription. God
! sometimes authorizes divorce as certainly as
| He authorizes marriage. Ihave Just es much
! regard for one lawfully divorced as l have
for ono lawfully married. But you know
! and know that wholesale divorce is one Of
| at this when l think Of the influences which
| have been abroad initiating against the mar
| riago relation.
For many years the platforms Of the coun-
! try rang with talk about free love millen-
| mum. 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 proni-
nent in that movement have since been dis
| tIngulshed for Srs.lt prOmiscuosity of affec-
tion. Popular thems for such occasions were
! the tyranny Of man, the oppression of the
| marriage relation, wOmen's rights and the
| Gnlnl1eS. Prominent speakers were women
| with short curls and short dress and very
| long tongue, everlastingly at war with God
because they were created women. while on
| the platform sat meek men with soft accent
| and cOWed demeanOr, apOlOgetic for mascu-
Unity, and holding tho parasols while the
| tcrm&gant orators went on preaching the
| doctrine of free love.
That campaign of about twenty years set
more devils into the marriage relation than
| will be exercised In the next fifty. 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 almony, and that
| one got a limited divorce and this mother
| kept 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 public life, and all went
to destruction. The mightiest war ever
made against the marriage institution was
! that free love campaign, sometimes under
one name and sometimes under another.
Another influence that has Warred upon
the marriage relation has been pOlygamy in
| Utah. That was a stereotyped caricature of
| the marriage relation and has poisoned the
| whole land. You might as well think that
you can have an arm in q state Of mortifca-
NJ -kDIo INOSJH 5,C,aJ-
as to have these Territories polygamized and
| yet the body Of the Nation not feel the putre-
faction Hear it, good men and women Of
| America. that SO long ago as 1852 a law was
| passed by Congress fOrbidding pOlygamy in
the Territories and in all the places where
| they had jurisdiction. Twenty-fOur years
| passed along and five administrations before
| the first brick was knocked from that for
| tress Of libertinlsIn.
Every new President in his inaugural
tickled that monster with the straw of con-
demnatiOn, and every Congress stultiffed il
self in proposing some plan that would not
work. Polygany stood more intrenched,
| and more brazen, and moro puissant and
more braggart. and more Internal. James
| Buchanan, a much abused man of his day
| did more for the extirpation OF this villainy
than most of the subsequent adminiStra-
| tiOns. Mr.. Buchanan sent out an army, and
although it was halted in its work still he
| accomplished more than some of the admin
| istratiOns which did nothing but talk, talk.
| talk. At last, but not until it had poisoned
| generations, polygamy has received its death
| blow.
PoIygamy in Utah warred against the mar
riage relation throughout the land. 1t was
impossible to have such an awful sewer of
iniquity sending up its miasma. which was
waited by the winds North, South, East and
| West, without the whole land being affected
by it.
Another influence that has warred against
the marriage relation in this country has
been pustulous literature, with its millions
| of sheets every week chOked with stories of
| domestic wrongs and infidelties and massa-
cres and Outrages, until it is a wonder to me
that there are any decencies or any common
sense left on the subject of marriage. One
! half Of the newsstands Of all our cities reek-
ing with the filth.
''NOw." say some, ''we admit all these
evils, and the only way to clear them out or
correct them is by easy divorce" Well, be-
fore we yield to that cry let US find out how
easy it is now.
have looked over the laws of all the States,
and [ find that, while in some States it is
| easier than in others. in every State 1t is
easy. The State of Illinois, through its Leg
| islature. recites long list of proper causes
for divorce and then closes up by giving TO
| the courts the right to make the decree of
| divorce In any case where they deem it eX-
| pedient. After that you are not surprised
! at the announcement that in one county of
| the State of Illinois, in one year, there were
| S33 divorces. II you want to know how easy
| it is you have only to look over the records of
| the States. In the city of San Francisco 1888
| divorces in one year and in twenty years
in New England 10000. Is that not easy
| enough?
| If the same ratio continue-the ratio OF
| multiplied divorce and multiplied causes Of
| divOrce-we are not far from the time when
| our courts will have to set apart whole days
| for application, and all you will have to
| prove against man will be that he left his
| newspaper in the middle Of the floor. and all
| you will have to prove against woman will
| be that her husbands OVercOat is buttOnleSs
| Causes of divorce double in a few years
doubled in France, doubled in England and
| doubled in the United States. To show you
| how very easy it is l have to tell you that in
| Western Reserve, Ohio, the proportion Of
| divorces to marriages celebrated is one to
| eleven. in Rhode Island is one to thirteen. in
| Vermont one to fourteen. Is not that easy
! enough?
1 want you to notice that frequency Of
| divorce always goes along with the dIs9o-
| Iuteness OF society. Rome for 500 years had
/ not one case of divorce. Those were her
DAYS of glory and virtue. Then the reign 9,
vice began, and divorce became epidemic. IL
you want to know how rapidly the empire
! went down, ask Gibbon.
| What we want in this cOuIItry and IN all
/ lands is that divorce be made more and
more and more difficult. Then peopie be-
! fore they enter that relation will be per-
| sauded that there will probably be no escape
from it except through the door OF the sep
| ulcher Then they will pause on the verge
| of that relation until they are fully satisfied
| that it is best, and that it is right, and that
| it is happiest Then we shall have no more
| marriage in fun. Then men and women Will
| not enter the relation with the idea 1t Is only
| a trial trip and if they do not like it they
can get out at the first landing. Then this
| whole question will be taken out OF the trlV-
| Olous into the tremendous, and there will be
no more joking about the blossoms in