The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1896-01-05
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.

Lesson l. First Quarter, International Sc.
| ries January 8.
| CoPyRiUnT, 1895
| The press of the middle, western and
eastern states the last few days has
been tecming with scandal and an.
| nouncemcnts of suits for divorce. Mil
| lionaires and buns alike are parties to
the suits. Divorce proceedings in a
court furnish food for scandal. They
are scandalous in themselves. In this
free country of intelligent beings where
man has n world OF women to chose
from. and he finally makes his choice
and under solemn vow and public
| pledge he takes the woman to be his
welded wife and they both promise to
love and cherish each other so long
as they both shall live. then in few
short weeks or months, or pcrchance
| years, they rush into the courts with
an open scandal and disgrace to both and
a slur and blight upon the children. if
| there be any, is an outrage that demon
! strates that public sentiment is de-
bauched. The grass widowers and
grass widows and dog-fennel widows
have multiplied and are multiplying
at fearful rate, until fear sometimes
for the very foundation of the home
life and society.
When a thing becomes common it gets
,, TO be customary, and whatever is Gus
tomary seems to go. The Scripture
gives us one ground for divorce, and
one only. And this rushing into court
suing for divorces on the grounds of
incompatibility of temperament, for
cruel treatment, or desertiop, and all
such stuff, is an outrage upon COM
munity and disgrace to the parties
interested. | n Yer had but one wife,
l never want but one. She is all the
world to me. That wife and l should
some day rush into courthouse clam
oring for divorce is the most unthinh-
able thing in Gods world to me.
know not what may be in her mind al
ways, but am sure as far as am con-
cerned that if l should ever do such
thing my friends ought to put me in an
asylum or | ought to be sent to the
penitentiary forthwith. We have had
incompatibility of temperament. Real
ly the most excellent traits of her char
acter is where she frequently differs
from me. L would lay my head on
steel rail and let an engine cut it off
before 1 would be cruel to my wife in
word or deed. | am not an angel. She
says she is not. We have had little
storms sometimes, but a cyclone is I'M
known in this neck of the woods. lam
like Pat when he said: Faith. hope
II 10 4
again"
There are millions of good husbands
and wives in America who feel just as
do about this. There are many others
who will not like this article at all.
Really, a soreback horse thinks the
currycomb is the coarsest thing that
ever came his way. But if he is sound
all over he leans up against the curry
comb. and thinks it is nice and good.
When the devil has been riding a fellow
till his back is sore he frequently talks
of the coarseness when you begin to
rub him; but it is not so much the cur
rycomb as it is the fellows sore back
that causes the kicking.
l am opposed to the multiplied di-
yorce laws in most of our states. If
men and women could see that the bar
gain was for life, and that they had
to stick to it, they could better regulate
that incompatibility of temperament
and soon learn to behave themselves
from sheer despair. l know that it is
true that there are thousands of good
wives with drunken, vaga bond hus-
bands, but stay by your bargain, sister
There are some men who have typhoons
for their wives, but stay by your bar
gain, brother. Keep your ills TO you're
self. Try to make better woman of
your wife, instead of precipitating an
open scandal from which neither of you
can ever recover again.
Sometimes the divorced pair marry |
again. would hate very much to walk |
down the street with my wife and meet |
gentleman and after we pass him she
should remark "That was my first |
husband we met" l should feel like |
taking to the woods. l believe that |
upon the indissolubility of the mar
riage contract rest the stability and |
purity of citizenship. Hence, again l
say l am everlastingly against these |
multiplied divorce laws. They mean |
wreck to home. ruin to character and |
disruption TO society itself.
But there are causes which lead to |
this very thing. There is no more |
fruitful cause of divorce than the |
things fostered in high society. What
ever young people may do, and where
ever they may go for social entertain
ment, when man marries a woman |
whom he processes to love, then their
highest enjoyment ought to be in each |
others company and their place should
be at home. Club life has been largo |
contributor to divorce suits. Nearly |
every prominent man who has been |
brought before the court either to de-
fend or prosecute a divorce suit is |
cl, . man; and a married man has got |
no more business in clubroom away |
from his family at night than he has
in perdition. The clubroom. at last,
is but an ante-room to perdition.