And for this No, his first and last and best reason can be but this: "Thus saith the Lord." As time goes on the wisdom of the church in absolutely forbidding divorce from the marriage bond grows more and more plain even to the many who deny to this prohibition a divine and authoritative sanction. And nowhere is this more true than in our own country. Yet our experience of the evils of divorce is but the experience of every people that has cherished this monster. Let us take but a hasty view of the consequences ot divorce in ancient times. Turn only to pagan Greece and Rome, two peoples that practised divorce most extensively. In both we find divorce weakening their primitive virtue and making their latter corruption more corrupt. Among the Greeks morality declined as material civilization advanced. Divorce grew easy and common, and purity and peace were banished from the family circle. Among the Romans divorce was not common until the latter days of the Republic. Then the flood-gates of immorality were opened, and, with divorce made easy, came rushing in corruption of morals among both sexes and in every walk of life. "Passion, interest, or caprice," Gibbon, the historian, tells us, "suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure."* Each succeeding generation witnessed moral corruption more general, moral degradation more profound; men and women were no longer ashamed of licentiousness; until at length the nation that became mighty because built on a pure family fell when its corner-stone crumbled away in rottenness. Heedless of the lessons taught by history, modern nations, “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Milman's Ed., Vol. III., p. 236. too, have made trial of divorce. In Europe, wherever the new gospel of marriage and divorce has had notable influence, divorce has been legalized; and in due proportion to the extent of that influence causes for divorce have been multiplied, the bond of marriage more and more recklessly broken, and the obligations of that sacred state more and more shamelessly disregarded. In our own country the divorce evil has grown more rapidly than our growth and strengthened more rapidly than our strength. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, in a special report on the statistics of marriage and divorce made to Congress in February, 1889, places the number of divorces in the United States in 1867 at 9,937, and the number in 1886 at 25,535. These figures show an increase of the divorce evil much out of proportion to our increase in population. The knowledge that divorces can easily be procured encourages hasty marriages and equally hasty preparations. Legislators and judges in some States are encouraging inventive genius in the art of finding new causes for divorce. Frequently the most trivial and even ridiculous pretexts are recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the marriage bond; and in some States divorce can be obtained "without publicity," and even without the knowledge of the defendant-in such cases generally an innocent. wife. Crime has sometimes been committed for the very purpose of bringing about a divorce, and cases are not rare in which plots have been laid to blacken the reputation of a virtuous spouse in order to obtain legal freedom for new nuptials. Sometimes, too, there is a collusion between the married parties to obtain divorce. One of them trumps up charges; the other does not oppose the suit; and judgment is entered for the plaintiff. Every daily newspaper tells us of divorces applied for or granted, and the public sense of decency is constantly being shocked by the disgusting recital of of divorce-court scandals. We are filled with righteous indignation at Mormonism; we brand it as a national disgrace, and justly demand its suppression. Why? Because, forsooth, the Mormons are polygamists. Do we forget that there are two species of polygamysimultaneous and successive? Mormons practise without legal recognition the first species; while among us the second species is indulged in, and with the sanction of law, by thousands in whose nostrils Mormonism is a stench and an abomination. The Christian press and pulpit of the land denounce the Mormons as "an adulterous generation," but too often deal very tenderly with Christian polygamists. Why? Is Christian polygamy less odious in the eyes of God than Mormon polygamy? Among us, 'tis true, the one is looked upon as more respectable than the other. Yet we know that the Mormons as a class, care for their wives and children; while Christian polygamists but too often leave wretched wives to starve, slave, or sin, and leave miserable children a public charge. "O divorced and much-married Christian," says the polygamous dweller by Salt Lake, "pluck first the beam from thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to pluck the mote from the eye of thy much-married, but undivorced, Mormon brother." It follows logically from the Catholic doctrine of the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and the consequent prohibition of divorce from the marital bond, that no one, even though divorced a vinculo by the civil power, can be allowed by the church to take another consort during the lifetime of the true wife or husband, and such connection the church can but hold as sinful. It is written: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."* Of course, I am well aware that upon the words of our Saviour as found in St. Mat*Mark, x., II, 12. thew, Chap. xix., 9, many base the right of divorce from the marriage bond for adultery, with permission to remarry. But, as is well known, the Catholic Church, upon the concurrent testimony of the Evangelists Mark* and Luke,† and upon the teaching of St. Paul, interprets our Lord's words quoted by St. Matthew as simply permitting, on account of adultery, divorce from bed and board, with no right to either party to marry another. But even if divorce a vinculo were not forbidden by divine law, how inadequate a remedy would it be for the evils for which so many deem it a panacea. "Divorce a vinculo," as Dr. Brownson truly says, "logically involves divorce ad libitum." Now, what reason is there to suppose that parties divorced and remated will be happier in the new connection than in the old? As a matter of fact, many persons have been divorced a number of times. Sometimes, too, it happens that, after a period of separation, divorced parties repent of their folly, reunite, and are again divorced. Indeed, experience clearly proves that unhappiness among married people frequently does not arise so much from "mutual incompatibility" as from causes inherent in one or both of the parties— causes that would be likely to make a new union as wretched as the old one. There is wisdom in the pithy saying of a recent writer: "Much ill comes, not because men and women are married, but because they are fools."|| There are some who think that the absolute prohibition of divorce does not contribute to the purity of society, and are therefore of opinion that divorce with liberty to remarry does good in this regard. He who believes the matrimonial bond indissoluble, divorce a vinculo evil, and the connection result * Mark, X., 11, 12. † Luke, xvi., 18. I. Cor.,vii., 10, 11. ing from it criminal, can only say: "Evil should not be done that good may come." But, after all, would even passing good come from this greater freedom? In a few exceptional cases- Yes: in the vast majority of cases-No. The trying of divorce as a safeguard of purity is an old experiment, and an unsuccessful one. In Rome adulteries increased as divorces were multiplied. After speaking of the facility and frequency of divorce among the Romans, Gibbon adds: "A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute. The minute difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be forgotten."'* How apropos in this connection are the words of Professor Woolsey: "Nothing is more startling than to pass from the first part of the eighteenth to this latter part of the nineteenth century, and to observe how law has changed and opinion has altered in regard to marriage, the great foundation of society, and to divorce; and how, almost pari passu, various offences against chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution, illegitimate births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have increased also-not, indeed, at the same pace everywhere, or all of them equally in all countries, yet have decidedly increased on the whole."t Surely in few parts of the wide world is the truth of these strong words more evident than in those parts of our own country where loose divorce laws have long prevailed. It should be noted that, while never allowing the dissolution of the marriage bond, the Catholic Church has always permitted, for grave causes and under certain conditions, a temporary or permanent "separation from bed and board." "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Milman's Ed., Vol. III., p. 236. +"Divorce and Divorce Legislation," 2d Ed., p. 274. |