octrine of a few modern
infidels; such are the habits of a few gregarious communities in Christian
countries. In these communities the sexes are taught from the cradle to
hate the marriage bond. Such a state of society is poisoned and polluted;
is a fearful mass of corruption and rottenness. All moral safeguards are
removed. The offspring are thrown out upon the world with no restraints of
paternal love and wisdom; no obligations of filial love and reverence;
monsters in iniquity, and in a short time equal in crime to those who were
swept from the earth by the waters of the deluge or the flames of Sodom.
Look then for one moment after the evil of polygamy. It existed for awhile
among the ancient Hebrews. Moses suffered it for the hardness of their
hearts. From the beginning it was not so. It was a perversion of the
ancient institution of matrimony. All the evils of that idolatrous age
could not be remedied in a moment; nothing was made perfect until the
appearance of that wonderful counselor--_Christ_. He restored the primitive
integrity of the marriage institution by revoking polygamy and divorce.
Polygamy was never friendly to the physical and mental character of its
population. It is demonstrated beyond the possibility of a doubt that it
is debasing and brutalizing. The Turks and Asiatics are polygamists, but
they are much inferior to the old Greeks and Romans; yet ancient Rome was
a long ways from Heaven's will in respect of marriage ties.

The matrimonial institution of Rome was a compromise between the right and
the wrong. The institution was considered in the light of a civil
contract, entered into for expediency, and protected by the magistrates
because it was deemed a blessing to society; by the law of the twelve
tables it continued during the pleasure of the husband. The result was
that frequent, and often, rapid succession of divorces and marriages took
the place of polygamy, and introduced many of its evils.

The private history of Roman ladies of first rank is a succession of
marriages and divorces, each new marriage giving way to one more recent.
Octavia, the daughter of the Emperor Claudus, married Nero, was repudiated
by him for the sake of Poppaea; this woman was first married to Rufus
Crispinus; then to Otho; and at length to Nero, by whom she was killed.

Nero murdered Thessalina's husband, and married her for his third wife.
Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was first the wife of Marcellus, then the