The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-09-29
DIVORCES QUESTION.
DIR. TALMAGE Da~foU2>E~ o. AN
URGENT DIEEICDLTs
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Domestic Disorders . subject of Ma
tioaal Importance Uniformity of
Divorce Laws iu t.e Various sta e.
Suggested
Copyright, Louis K1opsch, 1899
DR.. Talmage in this discourse dis
cusses a question of national import
ance, which is confessedly as difficult
as it is urgent. The text is Matthew
xix, 6: "What therefore God hath join
ed together let not man put asunder."
That there are hundreds and thou
sands Of infelicitous homes in America
nc one will doubt. If there were only
one skeleton in the closet, that might
be locked up and abandoned, but in
many a home there is a skeleton in the
hallway and a skeleton in all the apart
ments. "Unhappily married are two
words descriptive of many a home
stead. 1t needs no orthodox minister to
prove to a badly mated pair that there
is a hell. They are there now. Some
times a grand and gracious woman will
@AA1 49, 49, FtAA
he a crucifixion. as was the case with
Mrs. Sigourney, the great poetess and
the great soul. Sometimes a consecrat-
ed man will be united to a fury, as was
John Wesley, or united to a vixen, as
was John Milton. Sometimes and gen
orally both parties are to blame, and
Thos. Carlyle is an ihtolerable grum-
bier, and his wife has a pungent retort
always ready, and Froude, the histo-
Ti1n n1aIOn6 tn tn11 fha n1oin +r,,tb
has to pull aside the curtain from the
lifelong squabble at Craigenputtock
and 5 Oheyne row..
DOMESTIC DISORDERS.
Some say that for the alienation of
ell these domestic disorders of which
\ We hear easy divorce is a good pre-
scription. God sometimes 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. I am not
surprised at this when I think of the
influences which have been abroad mill
Eating against the marriage relation.
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 Academy OF
Music, Brooklyn; Cooper institute, New
York; fremont temple, Boston, and ali
over the land. Some of the women who
were most prominent in that move
ment rave since been distinguished for
great prOmfScuOSity Of affection. POpu-
lar themes for such occasions were
the tyranny of man, the oppression of
the marriage relation, Women'S lights
and the affinities. Prominent speakers
We're women with short curls and short
dress and very long tongue, everlast-
ingly at war with God because they
Vpr-n 0rnotnd yvnr1on Jxdbi1n ON tho n1ot
form sat meek men with soft accent
and cowed demeanor, apologize for
masculinity and holding the p~arasols
while the termagant orators went on
preaching the gospel of free love. That
campaign of about 20 years set more
devils into the marriage relation than
Will be exercised in the next so. Men
and women went home from such
meetings so permanently confused az
to who were their wives and husbands
that they never got out of the perplex-
ity, and the criminal and the civil
courts tried to disentang1e the lilac of
woes, and the one got a1imony, 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
p~oorhouses, and those went into an
insane asylum, and those went in dis
olute public life, and all went to de-
SILL uClEOu. III llllS lIliGS( WdI ever
made against the marriage institution
was that free love campaign, some
times under n name and sometimes
under another.
SUPPRESS POLYGAMY.
Another influence that has warred
upon the marriage relation has been
polygamy in Utah. That is a stereo-
typed caricature of the marriage rela-
ton and has poisoned the whole land.
Vo,, ,a;~L4 nc VOL f1;pIr tlo+ ~, n
have an arm in a state of modification
and yet the whole body not be sickened
as to have any territories or states
~polygamiZed and yet the body of the
nation not feel the putrefaction. Hear
1t, good men and women of America,
that so long ago as 1862 a law was
passed by congress fOrbidding poly
gamy in the territories and in all the
places where they had jurisdiction.
~Thirty-seven years have passed along
and nine administrations, yet not until
%he passage Of the Edmunds law in
1882 was any active policy of polyga-
mic suppression adopted. Armed with
all the power of government and hav-
Ing an army at their disposal, the first
brick had not till then been knocked
from hat fortress of libertinism.
Every new president in his inaugural
tickled that monster with the straw Of
condemnation, and every congress
stultified itself in proposing some plan
that would not work. Polygamy stood
In Utah, n in other of the territories
more ~entrenched, more brazen, more
puissant, more braggart and more in
terna1 than at any time in it's history.
James Buchanan, a much abused man
OF his day, did more for the extirpa-
ton of this villainy than all the sub
sequent administrations dared to do up
10 1882. Mr.. Buchanan sent out an
army, and, although it was halted in
it's work, still he accomplished more
than the subsequent administration,
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 practic-
ed in secret. It has warred against the
marriage relation throughout the land.
1t is impossible to have such an awful
sewer Of iniquity sending up it's MIA
ma, which is waited by the winds
north, south. east and west, without