The Newtown bee., 1903-05-08
SOCIAL TOPICS, NO. l2.
MARRIAGE HoNORABLE-BY o. O. WRIGHT.


 The cornerstone of good society is always found in the home. Family and friends are the essential factors of the social circle. Love, matrimony, children to bring up, educate, and ! start on the same natural round of common experience,-this is the germ of human history.
 Marriage is the first divine ordi- nance, and the mother of all institu- tions among men. It belongs to the original, normal estate of mankind by creation, and is the beginning of social life. Human nature is one but divided into hemispheres- masculine and the feminine; and they are necessary and complemental to each other as social, intelligent and normal beings. It is not best for one to be alone in deeper sense than the matter of per- sonal happiness. The individual is most perfect as he fulfills all the rela- tions of life in the family, and in society. Marriage is the completion of our common humanity. It is edu catiOnal aud Sacramenta1. Whatever therefore diShonorS or flinders matri- mony tends to degrade and imperil do- nestle purity and social order. The family is the foundation of the church and the state. As Emerson says: "The lover seeks in marriage his private fe- licitation and perfection, with no prospective end; and Nature hides in his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of the race"
 Sex means love, marriage and off, spring; and nothing but love, marriage and offspring can satisfy this most powerful instinct. In the nature of the case the natural affections involve the whole being, body, soul, and spirit; and the right relations of the sexes is therefore matter of highest impor- tance to personal health and social purity. Man and wife, home and children, constitute the central group in the foreground of every picture of prosperity and happiness; private and public. "Multiply and replenish the earth" is the first command of God to man. And as a matter of fact it is always regarded as the foreshadow of calamity when the young men and maidens cease to love and wed. sln- deed, it has ever been deplOred as a sign of social disorder and national Hn0o 6nn1o yuh tho r,l1h1ia rna0r6c indicate a falling-otf in vital statistics of marriage and births. The race, nation or family which ceases to mar ry and give in marriage, and does not raise up children to grace and magni- fly the home, must soon give place and disappear from the earth.
 Again, we must consider the eSSen- tial fact that marriage is the natural safeguard of social purity and of every domestic virtue. St Paul plainly teaches that to avoid social evils it is best that ''every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband" In other words, honorable marriage is nothing less than the physical and moral necessity of good society. It is manifeSting an evil state of life which makes it difficult for young people to marry and make new homes in the land. The Psalmist refers tosuch condition ofsociety as evidence of the divine wrath against unbelief and ddisobedience. "Heg gave his people over also unto the sword; and was l wroth with his inheritance. The fire consumed their young men: and the young maidens were not given to mar riage.'
 As a rule, married people live longer and exhibit more cheerful courage and better health than the unmarried: and there can be no doubt that the greatest happiness of this life consists in the highest fulfilment of all the nat ural relations with the most sacred fidelity and purest devotion. Mar riage is honorable among all good people, everywhere.