Pike County Democrat, Volume 25, Number 45, Petersburg, Pike County, 22 March 1895 — Page 3

45ktfifct ®0u#tg i?jrm0rvat JL MoO. 8TOOP8, Editor «*l Proprietor. ’PETERSBURG. - - - INDIANA. 1 1 !■ - ■ 1 WITHIN THE FOLD. .Bow a Little Child Led the Godless People of Logan. PUNERALS were not an exciting norelty in Logan; forty-seven

souls slept in tne little graveyard over the hill. Fully half of them died by violence, and were buried with scraping of violins and firing of Winches ters. Hen had been “planted” with as little ceremony as potatoes; profession

il descendants of Dfelilah were laid «way amid the blare of brass instruments and breaking* of champagne bottles. '•But,” said Buckskin Bill, with grave, unconsoious profanity, “that sort of a round up won't do this time. The Gospel brand has got to be put on, .and who is to do it?” That was the problem which distracted Logan through four anxious -days. Men had died as hunted, wild beasts die; women had yielded up their :souls as warriors give way In battle. But “this time” the fair-haired idol of the camp had gone out into the great .silence without a struggle. Saturday •afternoon she deigned to ride up town -with Bob S ted man and exhibit the bisque marvel imported by her worshipers from Chicago, whereupon the leading citizens united with Kentucky Smitty in drinking “the health of the -fairest child and finest doll baby west of the Missouri.” In the gray darkless of Monday morning her soul <slipped over the divide—and the town was desolate. Slanting Annie closed her dance .house in deference to the public grief. Wheeler’s Bell and Phil Watson’s Ladder to Heaven (Logan abounded in picturesque nomenclature) bore signs: “Shut up till after the funeral.” Min--ers, cow punchers and ranchmen gathered in groups at the corners, silent, forlorn and uncomforted. Down at Marvin’s the young mother looked at the floor and rocked mechanically. Mrs Marvin was one of the four -chaste women of whom Logan was justly proud. Her morals were above ^suspicion. As Bob Stedman phrased it: -“She ain’t no beauty ,, but she’s straight, .you bet. She’s a staver. “ She don’t m&ed no props.” Beyond that she was what cow camps had made her, a vain ..and careless woman. Concerning ^spiritual things she knew nothing. Religion did not flourish in a town w}th a brewery, fourteen saloons, nine gambling houses, two dance halls, and neither church nor clergyman. The -Sunday diversions were dancing, faro, ypoker and “irrigation” of an alcoholic Mature. As the mother of the infant -divinity Logan worshiped. Mrs. Marvin headed the list of desirable partners .at the dance. When she looked into the face of her little dead child, a longing for something better was born in Mrs. Marvin’s ■. .-soul. She spoke fiercely to the men who talked of a procession and music sat the hall. “You sha’n’t bury my baby like that—you sha’n’t! I won’t have her buried like a sheep or a gambler. Somebody’s got to pray or do ceomething! She shan’t be buried that

’way!” 1 “That’s straight,” said Tom Gibson. ’“The pious is the tiling. We must find -■somebody to do that praying.” As men seek for a lost lead, so they ^searched, with no result save Buckskin Bill’s despairing query of Monday might The nearest clergyman was four days’ journey across the mountains, and hence out of the question. Once, in its beginning, Logan hospitably entertained a parson for three -weeks. He was cordially welcomed and invited to take up his residence and “open a gospel shop.” His experiments in faro, however, necessitated a nocturnal exit from the town. This, •coupled with the fact that another jnan’s horse was his means of transportation, destroyed public confidence ~in his cloth, and no preacher had since been permitted to abide in Logan. It -was Tom Gib6on s horse he took, and Torn swore at great length and with much profane particularity of detail -that he would “plug him full of'lead on sight.” Now the greatness of his ^anxiety ingulfed Iris desire for revenge. He said, wistfuUy: “If only Magee was bere, he could—” “No, he couldn’t,” interrupted Bob 3§tedman. “That miserable scoundrel ■couldn’t pray over a maverick in this town, let alone that little—” He -choked and went to the door. Before bis eyes came a fair vision with soft .yellow curls, round blue eyes and a •caressing baby voice, saying: “Fant you Jfor the wide and the doilie. You may tiss me, Bob!” No curd sharper and horse -thief could pray over Bob’s child angel. Tuesday morning dawned. Personal .appeal had been made to every man in the town. Wheeler, popularly known -~as Parson Jim because he once was a -local preacher among the Methodists in Ohio, was urged and pressed to •officiate. “No, boys,” he answered, -“most of yon don’t know any better, but I daI am mean, but I am not inmulting the Almighty; I am not mean -enough for that yet. I have made a ‘hell’ for you—and myself. The fellow who keeps hell,” he smiled, bitterly, “was never known to lead in prayer; and I will not begin.” Logan possessed no facilities for embalming or preserving bodies, funerals -were usually hold within twenty-four boors after death. Tuesday morning ’was the time fixed for the baby's

burial. An embarrassed de l egation explained the cause of delay to the be* wildered father and mother. Mrs. Marvin rose* looked wildly at the selfconstituted committee, and cried, shrilly: “Nobody to pray over my baby! Oh, my God, will nobody pray over my baby? She was so little and so sweet. She never hnrt anybody. Will nobody pray over my baby?" I Sw iftly she toon the little body from the bed, wrapped a shawl about it, ran through the door and down the street. To gambler, cow-puncher and harlot— everyone she met — she held ont the dead child, and said, beseechingly: “Pray over my baby; for God’s sake, pray over my baby!** Blind to tearful appeals, deaf to persuasions and entreaties, she wandered on. repeating the cry. At nightfall Iter husband led her home; but through the long dark - ness she shrieked, continuously: “Pray | over my baby; for God's sake, pray over j my baby!" Just before daybreak she quieted, and the exhausted watchers slept. While they slumbered she slipped out; and all day Wednesday she wandered and wailed her sentence of entreaty. Words were unheeded and unheard. The ravages of death, so plain to the men and women who plead with her, seemed unnoticed by the erased mother. It was an impossibility to get the child from her. She held her three years’ old darling in a grip no -man could loose without rough handling; and no man in Logan had heart for violence. The town was sick of soul, ft was ten at night before they got her back to the cabin. Then Buckskin Bill wiped the cold sweat from head and hands, and said to his mates: “If something ain’t done quick, we shall all be as crazy as she is.” All night they vainly talked and planned. Thursday morning about eight o’clock Jim Steele came on the group at Wheeler’s corner. He was excited and eager. “Say, boys, I’ve got

it. You remember ocotcn me. “Yes. Quit sheep herdin’ and went over to South Pass to work his claim," Bob Stedman answered, listlessly. - “Well, you know, he left the old woman — his mother — behind. Too freezing cold over there. She lives out here, fire miles, by the creek.” “Yes. Saw her in town last month getting grub. How is t£iat going to help this lay-out?” Jim shouted in his exhilaration of spirit: “Why, she’s pious, don’t you see? Got a Bible—a big one. Saw her reading it in the door last summer. She can do the praying racket.” Bob’s composure had been outwardly undisturbed during those days of dire strain; but there and then the hero of five Indian fights whitened, muttered: ‘’Thank God!” and fainted. By the time he was resuscitated half Logan had heard the good tiding^. Bob and Bill and Tom and Jim were the committee. Mrs. Marvin came while they were getting their horses. The news had reached her, and there was a gleam of reason in her wild

eyes. “She can’t go,” said Jiin. _ “I will,” she wailed; “they are going to pray over my baby. Let jne go!” “She shall go. Hitch up, Marvin!” Bob- spoke as having authority, and no man demurred. The Scotch grandam sat in her doorway, rocking to and fro in the late spring sunshine. She was short and slender, with a seamed face and faded blue eyes, shaded by square-bowed spectacles. Her shabby, black print gown brought out her slight figure in sharp relief. The men hung back; not so the mother. Her black hair had loosened in the wind, and hung about her in an unkempt, tangled mass, as she ran forward. She dropped on her

TPKAT OVER' MY BABY, FOR GOD 8 8AXR PRAY OVER MY RABY.” knees in front’of the old matron, laid the shawl-wrapped child on her lap, and reiterated the plaintive appeal: “Pray over my baby; for God’s sake pray over my baby!” Scotch Ike’s mother looked passled. The men came forward and explained; Jo Marvm referred brokenly to his wife’s disturbed mental condition. As they talked the older, woman cried softly and stroked the mother’s hair. “Puir lass! Fuir dear lassie!” she quavered. “All ye hae! Yer firstborn!” She kissed and caressed the halfcrazed creature, babbling on in her soothing way. After awhile she spoke gently to the men: “Bat I couldna do that, ye ken. It wadna be richt. I’m a Covenanter, and the dominies said: ‘Let the women keep silence.’ ” Mrs. Marvin looked np at the wrinkled, tear-stained face with sane, anxious yearning. “I don’t care what the ministers said,” she asserted. “You are a woman. You’ve had children. Perhaps you have buried some, Would you want them put under ground like dogs, without unybody praying over them? I never prayed. Nobody taught me. My- mother”—she sobbed, and her voice broke—“my mother died when I was little. You pray. Won’t y ou; for God’s sake, won’t you pray over my baby, as somebody prayed over yours?” Memories of three botinie yellow heads sleeping in the far-away kirkyard stirred the old mother. Her lips quivered and shook; the tears came in a swift shower before her broken an

“I am i a pair simple body. * * * If it be wrong, God forgive me. • * # Bat I wadna, I wadna hae wanted them to be buried without a bit o’ prayer and Scripture. * * • 1*11 gae wC ye." In town the funeral preparations were soon made. The little coffin, painted white by Bob’s loving fingers, was ready for its tenant. Out of the rare lace which was the price of their souls, the women who woe sinners had fashioned a dainty robe, sweetened with perfume and purified with tears. While Mrs. Marvin and Fay were being robed, men went about announcing the services; and at two o’clock the! motley procession started for the cemetery on the brow of the hilL “The preacher first, with the corpse,’' Wheeler commanded; “then the family and mourning friends.” So at the head went the small Scotch woman with her big Bible on her arm, and tall Bob S ted man with the little white coffin on his shoulder. Behind the' father and mother came the crowd, two and two in orderly rank. None had stayed away. ' After the people had massed themselves at the grave there was au awkward pause. The ordinary method of procedure was: “Dump him in. NoSr blaze away, boys.” Plainly that was out of order, and Bob held the coffin with an air of embarrassed defiance. Wheeler’s whisper relieved the silence: “Lay her in, Bob; then Mrs. Muir can read the Bible.” Logan had never known an orthodox funeral service. Hence there was no expectation of the customary Scripture, and no surprise when the thin, high-pitched voice began: “Thy daughter is dead, why troublest thou the Master,” and read Mark’s tender, dramatic story of the little daughter of Jairus to whom the Nazarene said

THE MOTLEY PROCESSION STARTED. "Taiitha cum?' (My little darling, come to me.) She stumbled over the Aramaic words, then went on evenly to the end* of the chapter. She closed the book, folded it within her arms, and faltered timidly: “We’ll hae the bit o’ prayer.” The crowd stood with wide open eyes, alert, hushed, expectant. “0 Lord, God of our fathers, who hast taken this wee lambkin”—she gasped, stopped—frightened, perhaps, at her own audacity; only the spring wind ruffled the stillness. After a moment’s silence she started again, in a voice shaken with sobs: “Our Father, which art in Heaven,” and finished the old, old petition without break or falter. Buckskin Bill had once attended church in Cheyenne. The repetition of the Lord’s Prayer closed the service. It was years before, but, like most plainsmen, Bill had a long memory. At the sound of the familiar words he gave a snort of approval. “What is it*?” asked Tom Gibson. “Hush,” Bill replied; “she’s saying

the doxology.” The prayer was ended, and the people waited lor the mourners to go. Logan was satisfied; the old Scotchwoman was not. The first answer in the Westminister catechism rested heavily on her soul and moved her trembling lips to speech. She handed her Bible to Bob Stedman, turned and laced the crowd and started: “Ye heard the story, lads,” she said, “and it’s like this: When ye come to a narrow place in the canyon, and there’s a stane in the way, and the sheep will na gae through, ye take the least lamb, the wee ane, and lilt it over the stane, and its mither jumps alter it, and a’ the rest follow. That’s what the guid Lord has done here. He has taken the wee lambkin, the bairn ye all lo’ed, and lilted her over the stane. Ye canna see her, but He wants her mither come after her, and a’ the rest ol ye to gang alang. He has called the bairn to Himself because He wants you a’; and, oh, lads, dear lads, will ye na come?” She stopped a moment lor breath, raised eyes and arms to the heavens, and prayed in an irregular crescendo: “Lord God, lead these wandering sheep into tile fold! 0 Lord God, lead them, lead them, lead them a* to thyself!” and fell back in Wheeler’s outstretched arms, with Wheeler’s tears falling on her up-turned face. The Christianity of a cow camp is muscular and ephemeral. Cowboy preachers are made in the east, not born on the plains. Passing strange then that the church at Logan bears ^e inscription: “In loving memory <ot ) PAT Marvin. Died June 9, 1887. Aged 9 years, 1 month. It days ‘And Jesus called a little child unto Him.*M —Mary F. Lathrop, in Independent. In the South and la the Eut ladles. Far southern domestic arragements approach in some aspects those of the East Indies. There is a host of lowpaid servants, each with a small specialty, and many of them living at their own miserable homes. Nothing is accomplished save by strenuous insistence on the part of the mistress, and all provisions unconsumed and not under lock and key goto the several homes of the servants. —Gold never stops looking bright be* cause somebody calls it brass.—Ram’s Horn.

TALMACtFS sermon. Wholesale Divorce One of the Scourges of the Nation. Xte Alarming Growth of the Bril and Its CuHt-Nucenlt; of a Rigorous _ and Uniform Law for Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage delivered the following sermon in the Academy of music. New York city, on the subject: “Wholesale Divorce,” basing it on the text: What therefore God hath Joined together let not man put asunder.—Matthew zit, A That there aTe hundreds and thousands of infel icitous homes in America no one will doubt. If there were only one skeleton in the closet, teat might be locked sp and abandoned; but in many a home there is a skeleton in the hallway and a skeleton in all the

apartments. “Unhappily married” are two words descriptive of many a homestead. It needs no orthodox minister to prove to a badly-mated pair that there is a hell; they are there now. Sometimes a grand and gracious woman will thus be incarcerated, and her life will be a crucifixion, as was the case with Mrs. Sigourney, the great poetess and the great soul. Sometimes a consecrated man will be united to a fury, as was John Wesley, or united to a vixen, as was John Milton. Sometimes, and generally, both parties are to blame. Thomas Carlyle was an intolerable scold, and his wife smoked and swore; and Froude, the historian, pulled aside the curtain from the lifelong squabble at Craigenputtock and Five, Cheyne Row. Some say that for all the alleviation of aU these domestic disorders of which we hear, easy divorce is a good prescription. God sometimes authorizes divorce as certainly as He authorizes marriage. I have just as much regard for one lawfully divorced as I have for one lawfully married. But you know and I know that wholesale divorce is one of our national scourges. I am not surprised at this when I think of the influences which have been abroad militating against the marriage relation. For many years the platforms of the country rang with talk about a freelove millennium. There were meetings of this kind held in the Cooper Institute, New York; Tremont temple, Boston, and all over the land. Some of the women who were most prominent in that movement have since been distinguished for great promiscuity of affection. Popular themes for such occasions were the tyranny of man, the oppiession of the marriage relation, woman’s rights and the affinities. Prominent speakers were women with short curls and short dress and very lqng tongue, everlastingly at war with God because they were created women; while on the platform sat meek men with soft accent and cowed demeanor, apologetic for masculinity,

and holding the parasols while the termagant orators went on preaching the doctrine o£ free love. That campaign of about twenty years set more devils into the marriage relation than will be exercised by the next fifty. Men and women went home from such meetings so permanently .confused as to who were their wives and husbands that they never got out of their perplexity, and the criminal and the civil courts tried to disentangle the Iliad of woes, and this one got alimony and that one got a limited divorce, and this mother kept the children on condition that the father could sometimes come and look at them, and these went into poor houses, and those into an insane asylum, and those went into a dissolute public life, and all went to destruction. The mightiest war ever made against the marriage institution was that free-love campaign, sometimes under one name, sometimes under another. Another influence that has warred upon the marriage relation has been polygamy in Utah. That was a sterocaricature of the marriage relation, and has poisoned the whole land. You might as well think that you can have an army in a state of mortification, and yet the whole body not be sickened as to have those territories polygamized, and yet the body of the nation not feel the putrefaction. Hear it, good men and women of America, that so long ago as 1862 a law was passed by congress forbidding polgyamy in the territories, and in all four places whet$ it had jurisdiction. Twen-ty-four years passed along and five administrations before the first brick was knocked from that fortress of libertinism. livery new president in his inaugural tickled that monster with a straw of condemnation, and every congress stultified itself in proposing some plan that would not work. Polygamy stood more entrenched, and more brazen, and more puissant, and more braggart, and more infernal. James Buchanan, a much-abused man of his day, did more for the extirpation of this villainy than most of the subsequent administrations. Mr. Buchanan sent out an army, and although it was halted in its work, still he accomplished more than some of the administrations which did nothing but talk, talk, talk! At last, but not until it had poisoned generations, polygamy has received its death blow. Polygamy in Utah warren against the marriage relation throughout the land. It was impossible to have such an awfnl sewer of iniquity sending up its miasma, which was wafted by the winds north, south, east and west, without the whole land being affected by ^ Another influence that has warred against the marriage relation in this country has been a pustulus literature, with its millions of sheets every week choked ' with stories of domestic wrongs, and infidelities, and massacres, and outrages, until it |s a wonder to me that there are any decencies, or any common sense left on the subject of marriage. One half of the news stands of all our cities reeking with filth _

“Now • say some, “we admit all these e Ills, and the only way to clear them o t or correct them is by easy divorce * Well, before yon yield to that er |, let us find out how easy it is now. I hat * looked over the laws of all | the si i tes, and I find that while in • some s ates it is easier than in other*, j in every state it is easy. The state of Illinoi , through its legislature, recites a long List Of proper causes for divorce, and then closes up by giving to the courts the right to make a decree of divoro ;• in any case where they deem it expedient After that you are not surprii ed at the announcement that in one county of the state of Illinois, in one year, there were eight hundred and thirty-three divorces. If you want to know how easy it is, yon have only to look over the records of the three hundred and thirty-three divorces in one year; and in twenty years in New England twenty thousand. Is that not

easy enough? - Ef the sarnie ratio continue—‘the ratio of multiplied divorce and multiplied causes of divorce—we are not far from the time when our courts will have to set apart whole days for application, and all job will have to prove against a man will be that he left his newspaper in the middle of the floor, and all yon will have to prove against a woman will be that her husband’s overcoat*is but.tonless. Causes of divorce double in a few years—doubled in France, doubled in, England, and doubled in the United States. To show how very easy it is, I have to tell yon that in the Western Reserve, 0., the proportion of divorces to marriages celebrated is one to eleven; in Rhode Island is one to thirteen; in Vermont one to fourteen. Is hot that easy enough? I want you to notice that frequency of divorce always goes along with the dissoluteness of society. Rome for five hundred years had not one case of divorce. Those were her days of glory and virtue. Then the reign of vice began, and divorce became epidemic. If you want to know how rapidly the empire went down ask Gibbon. What we want in this country and in all lands is that divorce be made more and more and more difficult. Then people before they enter the marriage relation will be persuaded that there will probably be no escape from it except through the door of the sepulcher. Then they will pause on the verge of that relation nntil they are fully satisfied that it is best, and that it is right, and that it is happiest. Then we shall have no more marriage in fun. Then men and women will not enter the relation with the idea it is only a trial trip, and if they do not like it they can get out at the first landing. Then this whole question will be taken out of the frivolous into the tremendous, and there will be no more joking about the Blossoms in a bride’s hair than about the cypress on a coffin. What we want is that the congress of the United States change the national constitution so that a law can

be passed which shall bp uniform all over the country, and what shall be right i a one state shall be right in all the states, and what is wrong in one state will be wrong in all the states. How is it now? If a party in the marriage relation gets dissatisfied, it is only necessary to " move to another state ‘io achieve liberation from the domestic tie, and divorce is effected so easy that the first one party knows of it is by seeing it in the newspaper that Rev. Dr. Somebody, on March 17, 1895. introduced in a new marriage relation a member of the household, who went off on a pleasure excursion to Newport or a business excursion to Chicago Married at the bride’s house. No cards. There are states of the Union which practically put a premium upon the disintegration of the marriage relation, while there are oth sr states, like our own New York, that, had for a long time the pre-emi-nent idiocy of making marriage lawful at t welve and fourteen years of age. The congress of the United States need.* to move for a change of the national constitution, and then to appoint a committee—not made up of single gentlemen, but of men of families, and their families in Washington —who shall prepare a good, honest, righteous, comprehensive, uniform law that will control everything from Sandy Hook to the Golden Horn. That will put an end to brokerages in marriages. That will send divorce lawyers into a decent business. That will set people agitated for many years on the question of how shall they get away from each other to planning how they can adjust themselves to the more or less unfavorable circumstances. More difficult divorce will put an es toppel to a great extent upon marriage as a financial speculation. There ar e men who go into the relation just as they go into Wall street to purchase shares. The female to be invited into the partnership of wedlock is utterly unattractive, and in disposition a suppressed ^Vesuvius. Everybody knows it, but this masculine candidate for (matrimonial orders through the commercial agency or through the county records, finds out how much estate is to be inherited, and he calculates it. He thinks out how long it will be before the old man will die, and whether he can stand the refractory temper until he does die, and then he enters the relation; for he says: “If 1 can not not stand it, then through the divorce law 1*11 back out.” That process is going on all the time, and men enter the relation without any moral principle, without any affection, and it is as much a ’matter of stock speculation as anything that transpired yesterday in Union Pacific, Illinois Central or Delaware & Lackawanna. Now, suppose a man understood, as he ought to understand, that if he goes into that relation there is no possibility of his getting out, or no probability, he would be more slow to put his neck in the yoke. He would say to himself: “Rather than a Caribbean whirlwind with a whole fleet of shipping in its arms, give me a zephyr off fields of sunshiny and gardens of peace.’* 1 Rigorous divorce la w will also hinder

women from the fatal mistake of marrying- men to reform them. If a youngman by twenty-five years of age, or thirty years of age, has the habit of strong drink fixed on him, he is as certainly bound for a drunkard’s grave as that a train starting out from Grand Central depot at eight o’clock to-morrow morning is bound for Albany. The train may not reach Albany* for it may be thrown from the track. The young man may not reach a drunkard’s grave, for something may throw him off the iron track of evil habit; but the probability is that the train that starts to-morrow morning at eight o’clock for Albany will get there, and the probability la that the young man who baa the habit of strong drink fixed on him before twenty-five or thirty years of age will arrive at a drunkard’s grave. She knows he drinks, although he tries to hide it by chewing cloves. Everybody knows he drinks. Parents warn, neighbors and friends warn. She will marry

nun: she will reform him. If she is unsuccessful in the experiment, whj then the divorce lew will emancipate her. because habitual drunkenness is a cause for divorce in Indiana, Kentucky. Florida, Connecticut. and nearly all the states. So the poor thing goes to the altar of sacrifice. If you will show me,the poverty-strnck streets in Any city, I will show yon the homes of the women who married men to reform them. In one case out of ten thousand it may be a successful experiment. I never saw the successful experiment. But have a rigorous divorce law, and that woman will say: “If 1 am affianced to that man, it is for life.” i By the wreck of ten thousand homes* by the holocaust of ten thousand sacrificed men and women, by the hea^jth stone of the family which is the cornerstone of the state, and in the name of that God who hath set np the family institution and who hath made the marital oath the most appalling of all perjuries, I implore the congress of the United States to make some righteous, uniform law for all the states and from ocean to ocean, on this subject of marriage and divorce. Let me say to hundreds of young people in this house this afternoon, before yon give your heart and hand in holy alliance, use all caution; inquire outside as to habits, explore the disposition, scrutinize the taste, question the ancestry, and find, out the ambitions. Do not take the heroes and the heroines of cheap novels for a model. Do not put your lifetime happiness in the keeping of a man who hash reputation of Wing a little loose in morals, or in the keeping of a woman who dresses fast. Remember that while good looks are a kindly gift, of God, wrinkles or accident may despoil them. Remember that Byron was no more celebrated for his beauty than for his depravity. Remember that -Absalom’s hair was not more splendid that his habits were despicable. Hear it, hear it! The only foundation for happy marriage that has ever been or ever will be is good character.

Ask God whom you shall marry, u you marry at all. A onion formed in prayer will be a happy union, and though sickness pale the cheek, and poverty empty the bread tray, and death open the small graves, and all the path of life be strewn with thorns, from the marriage altar with its wedding march and orange blossoms clear down to the last farewell at that gate where Isaac and Rebecca, Abraham and Sarah, Adam and Ere, parted. In the “Farm Ballads” our American poet pots into the lips of a repentant husband, after a life of married perturbation, these suggestive words: And when she dies I wish that she would ba laid by me. And lying together la silence, perhaps we will agree. And it ever we meet in Heven, X would net think it queer It we loved each other better because we quarreled hereAnd let me say to those of you who are in happy married union, avoid first quarrels; have no unexpected correspondence with former admirers; cultivate no suspicions; in a moment of bad temper do not rush out and tell the neighbors; do not let any of those gadabouts of society unload in your house their baggage of gab and tittletattle; do not stand on your rights; learn how to apologize; do not be so proud, or so stubborn, or so devilish I that you will not make up. Remember that the worst domestic misfortunes and most scandalous divorce cases started with little infelicities. The whole piled-up train, of ten rail-cars telescoped and smashed at the foot of an embankment one hundred feet down came to that catastrophe by getting two or three inches off the track. Some of the greatest domestic misfortnnes and wide-resounding divorce cases have started from little misunderstandings that were allowed to go on and go on until home, and respectability, and religion, and immortal soul went down in the crash, crash! And, fellow-citizens, as well as fel-low-Christians, let ns haive a divine rage against anything that wars on the marriage state. Blessed institution! Instead of two arms to fight the battle of life, four. Instead of two eyes to scrutinize the path of life, four. Instead of two shoulders to lift the bnrden of life, four. Twice the energy, twice the courage, twice the holy ambition, twice the probability of wordly success* twice the prospects of Heaven. Into the matrimonial bower of God fetches two souls. Outside that bower room for all contentions, and all bickerings, and all controversies, bnt inside the bower there is room for only one guest—the angel of love Let that aqgel stand at the fioral doorway of this Edenic bower with, drawn sword to hew down the worst . foe of that bower—easy divorce. And for every paradise lost, may there be a Paradise regained. And after we quit our home here may we have a brighter home in Heaven, at the windows of which this moment are familiar faces watchiag for our arrival, a ad wondering why so long we tarry