Do you ask what is the need of a course of sermons on this subject?
The man or woman who asks this question is either ignorant or guilty.
In New England, which has been considered by many the most moral part
of the United States, there are two thousand divorces per year. And in
Massachusetts, the headquarters of steady habits, there is one divorce
to every fourteen marriages. The State of Maine, considered by many
almost frigid in proprieties, has in one year four hundred and
seventy-eight divorces. In Vermont _swapping wives_ is not a rare
transaction. In Connecticut there are women who boast that they have
four or five times been divorced. Moreover, our boasted Protestantism
is, on this subject, more lax than Roman Catholicism. Roman
Catholicism admits of no divorce except for the reason that Christ
admitted as a lawful reason. But Protestantism is admitting anything
and everything, and the larger the proportion of Protestants in any
part of the country, the larger the ratio of divorce. Do you not then
think that Protestantism needs some toning up on this subject?