CHAPTER VI.

D I V O R C E .

"Whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder."

No one can believe more firmly than the writer in the sacredness of the marriage relation. And perhaps she would be equally show to advise any one to flee from present ills, to those "we know not of."

There is a difference of opinion, however, as to whom God hath joined together, and in what that joining consists. God's laws are immutable, and if He ever joins two persons together, no can can put them asunder; --they may travel the world over, and have all sorts of temptations presented to them, and still they cannot be separated. It is well known that there have been some such cases, examples of which stand out beautifully in bold relief, on the great panorama of ill-assorted marriages.

Nero, the Roman emperor, so envied such a couple that came under his observation, that 138 he ordered them to kill themselves ; Aria took the fatal knife and stabbed herself, exclaiming "Paetus, it is not painful." The husband immediately followed her example, and those whom "God had joined together," entered the beautiful city of eternity, as Aria and Paetus, the joined on earth, that were beyond the power of being separated in Heaven.

Damon and Pythias were also examples of a "joining" of souls. It was stronger than ties of consanguinity, and stronger than marriage contracts. True marriage of an exalted type must have just such a joining as these men had, and then the word Divorce can never be found in the lexicon of their hearts.

But there are those who have about as correct ideas of noble marriage, as "the cattle on a thousand hills." Some people look upon the institution only in a physical light, and live it out on this plan, marrying persons who are widely different. Their souls are soon divorced, and then how inhumanly cruel to compel them by law to live together! God never "joined" them, and if one of man's enactments is more wicked than another, it is the compelling them to live together, when at least one of their souls is crushed, and one of their bodies tormented.

There are various types of "what God has 139 joined together," and also a very wide range of difference in the character of the highest and lowest of these types. The highest are of the Damon and Pythias order; where the souls are in harmony, each thinking and feeling alike when both understand alike. Not that one is the mental tool of the other, but that they are joined by indissoluble ties, which each recognized in the other, without either feeling placed in a servile position. Divorce laws are no more needed for such, than are extra wings for the dove.

The lowest type of "what God hath joined together," is where there are little minds. Divorces are not needed for such, and they are astonished that any one can be so wicked as to allow themselves to sin in this direction. From their own stand-point do they judge, and to them is their judgment righteous, on the ground that "as a man thinketh so is he."

We have spoken of but a very small number of the great army of earth's soldiery, who are enlisted in the life battles of marriage. We have only reviewed in your presence, two of the regiments that have never been under fire; but we shall not deceive you into joining the army under false pretences, but take you to a vast battle-field, where the wounded are groaning 140 and the silent sick are in the background in hospitals. The one class are dying slowly but surely, breathing their quiet prayers to Him who hears the gentlest zephyr. The great throng see not the insupportable anguish that the forced smiles cover, and only now and then does a sympathizing heart look in and exclaim, O God, could the world but get a glimpse of this quiet martyrdom, before it is too late! But they cannot believe this sight unless they see it, and they will not look!

They turn to the groaners on the field, some of whom joined the army from the highest motives; some because starvation stared them in the face; some because ambitious parents urged them; some because of ennui, and the desire for change; but a large number because public sentiment demanded it, and they entered into the best company there was, in the only regiment that they could enlist in , although they were far from being satisfied tht it was just the place for them.

They look hemp ropes, and daggers, and pistols, and lunatic asylums, and at last exclaim, "You have no business to be in such a predicament; it is your own fault." "Why did you not join a regiment that would never get into trouble?" "Your getting hurt is plainly your own foolhardiness 141 in not asking everybody's advice." "But you had no need of being hurt any way ; it is the result of indiscretions on your part, and now all your friends must be tortured with the scars upon your face!" "You have disgraced them all, for everybody will hear that you have been in the army, and are not in it now."

"Ah," cries a poor victim, "trace your own family relations, and you will find that some one is in the same condition." Every house in the land has its family record, and its pages are read by outsiders who are often supposed to be ignorant of its secrets, and there are unwritten margins that may yet be filled with such as you see before you. See to it that you make such scars in the highest degree honorable, for you know not what hour may find, if not you , your children, in an "action ."

Purity and impurity cannot harmonize. Whenever a George marries a Julia, there is such a wide difference in the depth of purity, and the depth of vice, that whenever the Julia, often viewing the case on every side, decides that the tenderest of affection has lost all power to win from evil, she is untrue to her noble self, if she sins against her highest light, and degrades herself by suffering a George to live 142 with her longer. She can decide for herself with an accuracy that it is impossible for others to understand; and a George who has been leading a dissolute life, will be sure to charge a Julia with coldness, or try to shift the faults of separation off himself, when he has lost the power to appreciate sincerity, high-toned purity, and those childish demonstration of the deepest affection that God has implanted in the human heart.

We have often heard it preached that "a wicked man would be unhappy in Heaven." So while a bad individual may feel the loss of the good, and may speak in the most glowing terms of that loss, he is unhappy if obliged to be free from the people with whom he has debased himself. Like the drunkard who has left his cups, or the tobacco-user who sees not the weed, the habits of both mind and body have been such, that nothing but what has been the cause of degradation will satisfy, even if a thousand times better in all respects.

But no one who hovers near and undertakes to be a reconciler and unasked adviser, can ever understand such logic, if the knees are bended, and promises made from a smooth tongue, that has made, if possible, falseness one of the component parts of his being. It is not at all a 143 matter of surprise, that such a man should know that a woman who knew him well, could never credit promises that she knew were not made to be kept.

The pure always suffer for a time, but that great and beautiful law of adjusting all wrongs sometime , at last raises a noble champion, who dares to defend the one who has suffered unwritten agonies, for the sake of eternal principles, which all must understand sometime-- if not in this world, in that which is to come.

How the want of a Divorce affects such, the farthest range of imagination cannot picture. To be neither married nor single, and be placed in such a position by the delicate facts of the case, that explanations are out of the question in most instances, is what it is literally impossible for any but the noblest and tenderest to comprehend; and hence the want of sympathy for those who thereafter tread life's path alone, imparting happiness to others whose sorrows seem almost unendurable.

To be deprived of a Divorce is like being shut up in a prison because some one attempted to kill you. The wicked one takes his ease and continues his course , and you take the slanders, without the power to defend yourself. It is just as honorable to get out of matrimonial 144 trouble legally , as to be freed from any other wrong. If it is right to be legally married, it is right to be legally Divorced. No one would think of slurring another, who ran out of the reach of a murderer, where simply the "shuffling off this mortal coil" was threatened, but when the God-like principle was being hampered and crushed, and every iota of confidence was literally destroyed, some would censure an individual for freeing soul and body from such a condition.

It was not until the twelfth century and under the auspices of Pope Innocent Third, that divorces were prohibited by the civil, as well as by the canon law, and it is to be hoped that when the roman Catholics think more upon the importance of Divorces, (in some cases,) that they will again allow them.

Thanks to an increasing and diffusing sentiment of equity that the breezes of time are fast fanning out such unjust ideas as the right of compelling people to live together when that relation is perfectly agonizing, and all the manufactories of the brain are unable to weave a web of confidence again. One of the most beautiful sayings of our George Washington was in relation to the influence of a bad example on a noble individual, if obliged to remain 145 for a length of time under such influence. And if so in the ordinary relations of life, what shall we say of the Marriage relation? Without proper Divorce laws, virtue is robbed of her rights, vice is encouraged, noble aspirations crushed, love turned to hate, and Marriage made wretched beyond the power of human expression.

We recite with all the indignant horror of which we are capable, the wrongs of the ancient Greeks, Jews, and Romans, where they compelled the people by law to marry, and then, no matter how wretched that relation proved to be to the wives, there were no Divorce laws for their benefit; and yet in our own country, and in our own time, the greatest of outrages imaginable are inflicted without the power to be Divorced from the oppressor.

Thousands of sorrows are brooded over in silence, when no mortal eye witnesseth the same--thousands of sighs escape the lips, unheard by mortal ears. * * * *

But all wrongs come up before the "Great I Am," and Agitators are sent froth to show to the good of earth, their duties to humanity, and strength is given such, to work until justice shall be meted out to all, and the oppressed allowed to go free.

146 How long, O Lord, how long, must there be such martyrs as the noble Sage, and the sainted Richardson!