Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-10-19
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE Blythe NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: Tho Divorce Question-D omestic
Disorders Subject Of National Inn
portance-Unifornlty OF Divorce Laws
in fhaIYariaua Sfafes SuRDeafad.


in theJvarious States Suggested.
Copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1891
WASHINGTON, D. CDR. Talmage in this
| discourse discusses O question of national
| importance, which Is confessedly as diff
cult as 1t is urgent. The text is Matthew
XIX, G, "What therefore God hath Joined
together let not man put asunder."
| That there are hundreds and thousands
Of infelicitous homes In America no one
will doubt. II there were only one skelet on
In the closet, that might be locked up and
Abandoned, but In many home there is q
skeleton In the hallway and skeleton in
are two words descriptive OF many home
stead. 1t needs no orthodox minister to
| prove to q badly mated pair that there Is q
hell. They are there now. Sometimes a
! grand and gracious woman will be thus in
earcerated, and her life will be cruci-
| ilxion, as was the case with Mrs. Sigour.
ney, the great poetess and the great soul.
| Sometimes a consecrated man will be united
/ 10 fury, as was John Wesley, or united to
vixen, as was John Milton. Sometimes
and generally both parties are to blame,
erumbler, and his wife has a pungsnt re-
tort always ready, and Froude, the histo-
rian, pledged to tell the plain truth, has to
pull aside the curtain from the lifelong
squabble at Craigenputtock and Cheyne
row.
these domestic disorders OF which we hear
easy divorce Is good prescription. God
sometimes authorizes divorce as certainly
as He authorizes marriage. Ihave just as
much regard for one lawfully divorced as
have for one lawfully married. But you
know and know that wholesale divorce
Is one OF our national scourRes. am not
surprised at this when think OF the influ-
ences which have been abroad initiating
against the marriage relation. For many
years the platforms of the country rang
with talk about free love millennium.
There we're meetings OF this kind held in
the Academy Of Music, Brooklyn; 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 promiscusity OF affection. Popu-
lar themes for such occasions were the tyr
anay OF man, the oppression OF the mar
riage relation, women's rights and the
afinities. Prominent speakers were
women with short curls and short
dress and very long tongue, ever
lastingly at war with God because they
were created women, while on the plat
form sat meek men with soft accent and
cowed demeanor, apolo2etic for masculin-
ity and holding the parasols while the
termagant orators went on preaching the
gospel Of free love. That campaign of
about twenty years set more devi s into the
marriage relation than will be exercised in
the next fifty. Men and women went home
from such meetings so permanently con-
fused as to who were their wives and hus-
bands that ttey never got out OF the per-
plexity, and the criminal aud the civil
courts tried to disentangle the Iliad OF
woes, and the one got alimony, and that
one got o limited divorce, and this IN her
kept the children on condition that the
father could sometimes come aud look at
them, and fthese went into poorhouses,
u Z H. t.k1 l...u
those went into dssolute public life, and
all went to destruction. The mig ghtiest war
ever made against the marriage institution
was that fres love campaign, sometimes
under one name and sometimes under an
other.
the marriage relation has been polygamy
in Utah. That Is stereotyped cnricature
OF the marriage relation and has poisoned
the whole land. You might as we'll think
that you can have an arm in II state OF NOR
tlfcation and yet the whole body not be
States poygamlzec and yet the body OF the
nation not feel the putrefaction. Hear It ,
good men and women or America, that so
long ago rs 1852 law was passed by Con-
gress forbidding polgamy In tho Territories
and In all the places where they had juris-
diction. Thrty-seven years have passed
along and nine administrations, yet not
until the passage OF the Edmunds law in
1882 was any active policy of polygamic
suppression adopted. Armed with all the
power OF government and having an army
ut their disposal, the first brick had not till
then been'knocked from that fortress OF lib
ertinism. Every new President In his inaug-
ural tickled that monster with the straw
condemnation, and every Congress stultifled
itself In proposing some plan that would
not work. Polygamy stood In Utah, and
in other OF the Territories more intrenched,
gart and more internal than at any time
in Its history. James Buchanan, q much
abused man OF his day. did more for the
extirpation Of this viilainy than all the
subsequent administrations dared to do up
to 1882. Mr.. Buchanan sent out an army,
and, although 1t was halted In its work, still
be accomplished more than the su bsequent
administrations, which did nothing but
talk, talk, talk. Even at this late day and
with the Edmunds act In force the evil has
not been wholly extirpated. Polygamy in
Utah, though outlawed, is still practiced
riage relation throughout the land. 1t Is
impossible to have such an awful sewer OF
iniquity sending up its miasma, which is
waited by the winds north. south, east and
west, without the whole land being affected
by i.
evils. and the only way to clear them out
or to correct them is by easy DIVORCE"
Well, before we yield to that cry let us find
out how easy 1t is now. I have looked
over the laws OF all the States, and find
that, while In some States 1t Is easier than
In others, in every State 1t is easy. The
State OF Illinois, through its Legislature,
recites n long list OF proper causes for
divorce and then closes up by giving
to the courts the right to make de-
cree OF divorce In any case where they
deem 1t expedient. After that you are
not surprised at the announcement
that In one year there were 1873 d.
vorces. II you want to know how easy
It Is, you have only to look over the records
OF the States-in Massachusetts, 600 d.
vorces in one year; in Maine, 47S In
one year, in Connecticut, 4O1 divorces
in one year; In the city OF San
Francisco, 333 divorces in one year; in
New England in one year. 2113 divorces,
and In twenty years In New England, 2O,-
900. Is that not easy enough2 II the same
ratio continues the ratio OF multiplied d.
vorce 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 be left his
slippers in the middle Of the floor; and all
Won will have TO prove against a woman