Attempt has been made to take the marriage institution, which was
intended for the happiness and elevation of the race, and make it a
mere commercial enterprise; an exchange of houses and lands and
equipage; a business partnership of two, stuffed up with the stories
of romance and knight-errantry, and unfaithfulness and feminine
angelhood. The two after a while have roused up to find that, instead
of the paradise they dreamed of, they have got nothing but a Van
Amburgh's menagerie, filled with tigers and wild-cats. Twenty thousand
divorces in Paris in one year preceded the worst revolution that
France ever saw. It was only the first course in that banquet of hell;
and I tell you what you know as well as I do, that wrong notions on
the subject of Christian marriage are the cause at this day of more
moral outrage before God and man than any other cause.
There are some things that I want to bring before you. I know there
are those of you who have had homes set up for a great many years; and
then there are those here who have just established their home. They
have only been in it a few months or a few years. Then there are those
who will, after awhile, set up for themselves a home, and it is right
that I should speak out upon these themes.