The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1899-09-29
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
EASY DIVORCES, LAST SUM-
DAYS SUBJECT.
hat Therefore God Hath Joined To-
gether Let Not Man Put Asunder"
Matt. 10: O-SkeIetons All Over the
House gs Ven rs la The Closet.

That there are hundreds and thou
sands of infelicitous home in America
no one will doubt. If there were only
II skeleton in the closet, that might
be locked up and Abandoned; but in
many Il home there is Il skeleton in
the hallway and a skeleton in all the
apartments. ~'Unhappily married" are
two words descriptive of many d home
stead. 1t needs no orthodox minister
to prove to a badly mated pair that
there is a he'll; they are there now.
Sometimes a grand and gracious WON
an will be thus incarcerated, and her
life will be a cruciixion, as was the
case with Mrs. S%igourney, the great
poetess and the great soul. Sometimes
a consecrated man will be united to a
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 is an
intolerable grumbler, and his wife has
a pungent retOrt always ready, and
Froude, the historian, pledged to tell
the plain truth, has to pull aside the
curtain from the lifelong squabble at
Craigenputtock and 5 Cheyne row.
Some say that for the alienation of
all these domestic disorders of which
we hear. easy divorce is a good pre-
SCriptiOn. 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 | know that wholesale divorce Is
one of our national scourges. | am not
surprised at this when l think of the
influences which have been abroad
initiating against the marriage rela-
ton. For many years the platforms
Of the country rang with talk about
a free-love millennium. There were
meetings Of this kind held in the Acad-
envy of Music, Brooklyn; Cooper insti-
tute, New York; fremont temple, Bos-
ton, and all over the land. Some of the
ome who were most prominent in
that movement have since been distin-
guished for great promiscuity of affec-
ton. Popular themes for such occa-
sionS were the tyranny of man, the OPP
PRECISION Of the marriage relation,
wo'nen's rights, and the affinities.
Prominent speakers were m with
short curls and short dress and very
loI,g tongue, e%verlastingly at war with
Gcd because they were created women;
while on the platform sat meek men
with soft accent and cowed demeanor,
al ologetic for mascUlinity, and hold
ing the parasols while the termagant
orators went on preaching the gospel
Of free love. That campaign of about
twenty years Get c:ore devils into the
marriage relation than will be exor-
cised in the next fifty. Men and wom-
Ell went home from such meetings SO
permanently confused as to who were
their wives and husbands that they
never got out of the p~erplexity, and
the criminal and the civil courts tried
t. disentangle the Had Of woes, and
this one got alimony. and that one got
&. limited divorce, and this mother kept
She children on condition that the ia
ther could sometimes come and look at
them, and these went into pOOrhouSes,
and those went into insane asylums,
End those went into absolute public
life, and all went to destruction. The
,nightieSt war ever made against the
marriage institution was that free-love
campaign. sometimes under II name
and sometimes under another.
Another influence that has warred
upon the marriage relation has been
oolygamy in Utah. That is a stereo-
typed caricdture Of the marriage rela-
ton, and has poisoned the whole land.
You might as we'll think that you can
have an arm in a state OF modification
and yet the whole body not be sick
ened. as to have any territories or
states polygamized and yet the body of
the nation not feel the putrefaction.
it, good men and women of
America, that S. long ago as 1852 a
law was passed by congress forbidding
polygamy in the territories and in all
the places where they had jurisdiction.
Thirty-seven years have passed along
and nine administrations. Yet not I'M
til the passage Of the Edmunds law in
1882 was any active policy of polygamic
ASS-
suppression adopted. Armed with all
the power of government, and having
an army at their disposal, the first
brick had not till then been knocked
from that fortress Of libertinism.
Every rev president in his inaugural
tickled that monster with the straw
of condemnation. and every congress
stultifed itself in proposing some plan
that would not work. Poiygamy stood
in Utah and in other Of the territories, !
more e~ntrenched, more braZen, more
puissant. more bragart and more in
ternal than at any time in its history.
James Buchanan, q m~uch-abused man
of his day, did more for the eXtirpa-
ton of this viiiainy than all the subGe-
ouent administrations dared to do up
to 1882. Mr.. Buchanan sent out an
army. and although it was halted in
its work, still he accomplished more
than the subsequent administrations, !
which did nothing but talk, talk. talk.
Exen at this late day. and with the
Edmunds act in force, the evil has not
been wholly e~Xtirpated. Polygamy in
Utah. though outlaWed. is still prac-