Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1899-09-21
TALMAGEON DIVORCE
THE EASE WITH WHICH 1T is Sc
CURED is DePLORED.
A Timely Discourse on the Marital
Relations and Frequency with
which Marriage Vows Arc Broken.
Uniform Divorce Laws Needed.
downright, Louis Klopsch. 1899.


Copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1921
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17.--Dr. T almage in
this discourse discusses a question Of ma
tional importance, which is confessedly
as difficult as it is urgent, The text is
Matthew xix, 6, "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. IL there were only one skele-
ton in the closet, that might be locked
up and abandoned, but in many a home
there is n skeleton in the hallway and a
skeleton in all the apartments. "Unhap-
PLY married. are two words descriptive
of many homestead. 1t needs no or
/ thodox minister to prove to badly
mated pair that there is n hell. They
are there now. Sometimes a grand and
gracious woman will be thus incarcer-
ated, and her life will be crucihxion,
as was the case with Mrs. Sigourney, the
great poetess and the great soul. Some
times "a consecrated man will be united
to fury, as was John Wesley, or united
to vixen, as was John Milton. Some
times, and generally, both parties are to
blame, and Thomas Carlyle Is an intoer-
able grumblcr, and his wife has a pun
gent retort always ready, and Froudc,
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 prescription.
God sometimes authorizes divorce as
certainly as he authorizes marriage. |
have just as much regard for one law
| fully 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 | think OF the influences 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
were meetings of this kind held in the
Academy of Music, Brooklyn; Cooper in
stitute, New York; fremont temple, Bos-
ton, and all over the land. Some of the
women who were most prominent in that
movement have since been distinguished
for great promiscuosity of affection. Pop
ular themes for such occasions were the
tyranny of man, the oppression of the
marriage relation, womeu's rights and
the affinitics. Prominent speakers were
women with short curls and short dress
and very long tongue, everlastingy at
war with God because they were created
women, while on the platform sat meek
men with soft accent and cowed de-
meanor, apologize for Insecurity and
holding the parasols while the termagant
orators went ON preaching the gospel of
free love. That campaign of about "
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 con
fused as to who were their wives and
husbands that they never got out of the
perplexity, and the criminal and the
civil courts tried to disentangle the liiad
Of woes, and this one got alimony, ano
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 Nto
poorhouses, and those went into an in
sane asylum, and those went into dis
solute public life, and all went TO de
struction. The mightiest war ever mad,
against the marriage institution was
that free love campaign, sometimes I'M
der one name and sometimes under an
other.
The system OF fOIySamy.
Another influence that has warred up
on the marriage relation has been polyg
amy in Utah That is a stereotyped carl
csture of the marriage relation and has
, poisoned the whole land. You might al
we'll think that you can have an arm III 6
state of modification and yet the who'll
: body not be sickened as TO have any ter
, ritores or states polygamizsd and yet thu
body of the nation not feel the putrefac
ton. Hear it, good men and women Of
America, that so long ago as 1862 Law
was passed by congress forbidding polyg
amy in the territories and in all thu
: places where they had jurisdiction. Thir
ty-seven years have passed along anC
nine administrations. yet not until tn'
passage of the Edmunds law in 1857 wal
any active policy of polygamic suppress
sion adopted. Armed with all the powe
of government and having an army n
their disposal, the first brick had not til
then been knocked from that fortress o
libertinism. Every new president in hi
inaugural tickled that monster with tn
' straw of condemnation, and every con
. gress stultified itself in proposing som
plan that would not work. Polygam,
stood in Utah and in other of the terri
tories more ntrenched, more brazen, NOR
: puissant. more braggart and more inter
nal than at any time in its history
James Buchanan, q much abused man o
. his day, did more for the extirpation O
. this villainy than all the subsequent ad
= ministrations dared to do up to 1SS2
. Mr. Buchanan sent out an army, and
. although il was halted in its work, still
: he accomplished more than the subse
: quent administrations, which did nothin
:, but talk, talk, talk. Even at this lat
day and with the Edmunds act in fore
;. the evil has not been wholly extirpated
Polygamy in Utah, though outlawed,
still practiced in secret. 1t has ware
:. against the marriage relation Throughout
the land. 1t is impossible to have sue
an awful sewer of iniquity sending up it
!. miasma. which is waited by the wind
= north, south. east and west without tn
- whole land being affected by it.
Another influence that has ware
against the marriage relation in thi
country has been a pustuous literature
; with its millions of sheets every wee
o choked with stories of domestic wrong
: and infdelitie3 and massacres and GU
9 RACES, until it is wonder to me tha
r there are any decencies or any commo
Z sense left on the subject of marriage
, One-half Of the newsstands of our grea
a cities rcek with the filth.
= Ensy Divorces Condemned.
A "Now," says some, 1--WE admit all thes
| ~,,;. a,,I t1,n ,1,tx 10 nln han