Year: 1869

Custom tolerates this abominable
social evil, if it does not approve it.
1t cannot do less, when the lax state
Of public morality makes divorces
even not only possible, but easy of
accomplishment. Marriage by
many is no longer regarged as di-
vine institution, but simply an alli-
ance to be entered into, and dis
solved, at the caprices of folly, lust,
or convenience.


There are but few persons, COM
paratively, but that believe in the
Immortality of the soul; and that
those who have gone before us to
the spirit land will be recognized,
and hold the same relation to US,
when we meet them there, that they
did here-therefore, to such mar
riage once must, to all intent5 and
purposes, be marriage for all eter-
nifty. A plurality of wives or hus-
bands, in the world to come, must,
to all intents and purposes, be a
marriage for all eternity. A plural
ity of wives or husbands, in the
world to come, must excite the same
horror which it does in all right
minded persons when such a state of
things is contemplated here. In
this light view it, and I cannot di-
vest the idea from my mind that the
contraction of more than OF mar
riage by the same person is no less
than a kind of polygamy.


How agonizing and terrible it
must be to devoted and tender
wife when separated from her part
ner, in the halcyon days of their
welded life, after waiting many long
years in the spirit land for the dear
one left behind, to find perhaps two
or three later wives of her husband
sent to her before his arrival; and
when he at length comes, to have
her claim disputed, or at least re-
ceive only q moity Of that love
which her priority should claim as
whole. Aside from this there are
other considerations connected with
second marriages which are not less
repelling.


First marriages are usuelly con-
tracted when youth, love and ro-
nance cement the union with a ten
derness and sacredness which no
later periods can approach. The
human heart pours out its best and
purest obligations upon a first union,
and all other connections of the
kind are in comparison only
ridiculous burlesques upon the
institution Of marriage.


The heart can never yield but to one
the divine glow which distils the
true elixir of welded life. When
the one is removed, the fountain is
dried up in this world, and no rod
welded by a second love can again
make it flow with its original abun-
dance and sparkling purity.


How ridiculous, facial and iniq-
uitous, then, are all marriages save
the first! How abhorrent the bare
idea Of connection Of this kind
must be to all such as are basking
i'll the happy fruition of first uni
on! To think, for instance, at some
future day, that a beloved wife or
husband may be removed and others
step into their places at their
boards other hands to preside; at
their firesides new faces to smile or
frown upon them the arms that en-
brace them and the kisses they re-
ceive to be bestowed by mercenary
and selfish interlopers.


When death takes away beloved
wife or husband, the bereaved, in
stead of casting their eyes around
for one to fill the place, should live
on the memory of their loved ones !;
look upon the affliction as only tenn
porary; bear the lost one ever in
mind shape every act as though
their eyes were upon them; and as
they proceed onwasd, nearing the
goal, their love should be constant
ly increasing so as to be fully pre-
pared for that reunion which will
be final and eternal--Rochester u