The Yale expositor., 1899-09-29


many a home there is q skeleton in
the hallway and a skeleton in all the
apartments. "Unhappily married" are
two words descriptive of many home
stead. 1t needs no orthodox minister
TO prove to badly mated pair that |
there is a hell; they are there now.
Sometimes a grand and gracious wom-
an will be thus incarcerated, and her
life will be a crucihXion, as was the |
case with Mrs. Sigourney, TIE great
poetess and the great soul. Sometimes
n 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
! intolerable grumbler, and ais wife has
q 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 good pre-
scription. God sometimes authorizes
|
marriage / have just as much regard
for one lawfully divorced as l have for
one lawfully married. But you know
and l 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 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
women 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
preston of the marriage relation,
e women's rights, and the attinities
Prominent speakers were women with
short curls and short dress and very
long tongue, everlastingly at war with
God because they were created women;
: while on the platform sat meek men
l
t apologize for masculinity, and hold
: ing the parasols while the termagant
e orators went on preaching the gospel
= of free love. That campaign of about
l. twenty years set more devils into the
: marriage relation than will be eXor-
cised in the next fifty. Men and wom-
- en- went home from such meetings Sc
; permanently confused 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 Had of woes, and
y this one got alimony. and that one go
~ q limited divorce, and this mother KEEP
g tho children on condition that the IA
Their could sometimes come and look a
Is them. and these went into poorhouses
and those went into insane asylums
IN and those went into dissolute public
th life. and all went to destruction. TIL
at mightiest war ever made against tn
by marriage institution was that free-lov
Nv campaign, sometimes under one nam
he and sometimes under another
e. Another influence that has ware
or upon the marriage relation has bee
eu polygamy in Utah. That is sterec
re- typed carieature of the marriage rela
n ton. and has poisoned the whole lane
or You might as we'll think that you ca
have an arm in q state OF mortificatio
and vet the whole body not be sicl
'n' ened. as to have any territories {
srs states polygamized and yet the body {
ne the nation not feel the putrefactiol
cs' Hear it, good men and women {
tee America, that so long ago as 1862
In law was passed by congress forbidden
a polygamy in the territories and in a
,rk the places where they had jurisdictio
GU Thirty-seven years have passed alor
We and nine administrations Yet not III
SITS, til the passage of the Edmunds law
the 1882 was any active policy of polygam
me suppression adopted. Armed with g
ous the mower of government, and havil
1ri- an army at their disposal, the fir
egg brick had not till then been knock
lies from that fortress of libertinisl
lys. Every new president in his inaugur
the tickled that monster with the strs
,ra of condemnation, and every congre
,ht stultified itself in proposing some pl
re- that would not work. Polygamy sto
lnR IN OIdn anu III OlAACl Vi bhN NSAAAeOAA
nh more entrenched, more brazen, me
Ca puissant, more bragart and more
ternal than at any time in its histo
fur James Buchanan, a much-abused m
'o,,o of his day, did more for the extirI
49, ton of this villainy than all the sub
. ouent administrations dared to do
!, TO 1882. Mr.. Buchanan sent out
De army, and although it was halted
We" its work. still he accomplished M
than the subsequent administrator
d which did nothing but talk, talk. ia
noh, Exen at this late day, and with
'heu Edmunds act in force, the evil has
been wholly extirpated. Polygamy
ovar Utah. though outlawed, is still pr
tied ticed in secret. 1t has warred agai
COW the marriage relation throughout
, bic land. 1t is impossible to have such
Nod awful sewer of iniquity sending up
an miasma, which is waited by the wi
north. south. eac., and west, with