The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1895-04-12
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
TIE NOTED DIvINRs SUNDAY
DISCOURSE.
Subject: ''whols,alo Divorce"

ioubt. ~ there were only one skeleton ln
he closet, that might Do locked up and
abandoned, but In many a homo there h
lkelelon In the hallway and a skeleton IN an
he apartments
"Unhappily married. are two words de-
Iorlptlve Of many homestead. It needs no
orthodox minister 30 prove 20 a badly mated
pair that there is a hell. They arc there now.
Sometimes a grand and gracious woman will
90 thus incarcerated, and her life viii be n
erucihxion, as was the case with Mrs slgour-
ney, the great pOetoss and the great soul.
Sometimes a cOnaecruted man will be- united
% fury, as was John Wesley, or united 10
vixen, az was John Milton. Sometimes, and
generally, both parties are 10 blame, and
Thomas Carlyle was an intolerable scold, and
bis wife smoked and swore, and Froude, the
historian, pulled aside the curtain from the
lifelong squabble at Craigenputtock and Five,
Cheyne Row.
Some say that for the alienation Of an
these domestic disorders Of which we hear
easy divorce Is good prescription. God
sometimes authorizes divorce as certainly as
He authorizes marriage. Ihave lust as much
regard for ose lawfully divorced as I have
Tor one lawfully married. But you know
and know that wholesale divorce Is one OF
our National scourges. / am not surprised
At this when / think Of the influences which
nave been abroad initiating against the mar
rage relation.
Formany years the platforms Of the eoun-
Try rang with talk about free love millen-
mum. There were meetings OF this kind held
Ia the Cooper Institute, New York; fremont
Temple Boston, and all over the land.
Some OF the women who were most promi-
nent in that movement have since been dis
hnguished for great promiseuosity of affec-
ton. Popular thems for such occasions were
the tyranny Of man, the oppression Of the
marriage relation. womens rights and the
afiinities 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 the parasols while the
termagant 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 alimony, and that
one got 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 stereotyped caricature 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 mortifca-
ton and yet the whole body not be siekened
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 lbertinism.
Every new President in his inaugural
tickled that monster with the straw of con-
domination, and every Congress stultifled it.
self in proposing some plan that would not
work. Polygany stood more intrenched,
and more brazen, and more puissant, and
more braggart, and more Internal. James
! OuSuuuudlly a LluCu hUubbu man Oh his 0AY,
| did more for the extirpation of this villainy
than most of the subsequent administra-
lions. Mr.. Buchanan sent out an army, and
although 1t 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 II had poisoned
generations, polygamy hasreceived its death
blow.
Polygamy in Utah warred against the mar
T1age 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 o.
domestic wrongs and infldelities and massa
ores and outrages, until 1t is wonder to mt
that there are any deceneies 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, eve admit all thes,
evils, and the only way to clear them out o.
correct them is by easy divorce" Well. be
fore we yield to that cry let us find out hoy
easy it Is now.
/ have looked over the laws of all the States
and find that, while in some States it 4
easier than in others, in every State 1t /
easy. The State of Illinois, through its Leg
islature, recites long list Of proper cause
for divorce and then closes up by giving t
the courts the right to make the decree O
divorce In any case where they deem it ex
pedient. After that you are not surprise
at the announcement that In one county @
the State of Illinois, in one year, there wer
633 divorces. If you want to know how cas-
It is, you have only to look over the records G
the States. In the city of San Francisco SO
divorces in one year. and In twenty year
ia New England 10000. Is that not cas-
enough?
If the same ratio continue-the ratio {
multiplied divorce and multiplied causes {
divorce-we are not far from the time whe
our courts will have to set apart whole day
for application, and all you will have {
, prove against a man will be that he left h
newspaper in the middle of the floor, and a